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SPOILERS FOR BARRY and SUCCESSION SERIES FINALES
I have a fraught relationship with series finales. Oftentimes, I avoid them. I only saw the finale to Season 4 of Atlanta two months ago because I didn’t want to let the show go. The only reason I watched the Succession and Barry finales the day they aired was that I didn’t want to be inundated with spoilers online (I don’t care for spoilers in general, but for those shows, I would like to be in on all the post-show bits).
I love being in on the joke. One of my favourite pastimes, as you’d know if you unfortunately follow me on Instagram, is flooding my Instagram story with Succession memes. It fascinates me to no end that Succession–a show about Business and Family (not in the Fast and Furious way)–is closer in fandom genealogy to a K-Pop Idol’s rather than a prestige, big-budget television show (which it is). That also begs the question, is there even a baseline, or a “look” a prestige HBO show fandom is supposed to have? Remember True Blood? True Blood fans are very different from, say, Westworld fans. The Succession fandom is Breaking Bad-adjacent in the sense that it says: “Hey, look at this show with stellar writing and some of the most devastating performances every committed to the televisual medium that we can also chop and screw into the most absurd, yet deeply tender appreciation for the show via meme you’ve ever seen.”
Long ago, when this newsletter was still properly in full swing, I wrote a little bit about this new wave of femcelcore memes, how this particular niche of internet lexicon adopts the most pathetic (or girlboss) of television characters, how they put Franz Kafka high on a pedestal made of sans-serif fonts. This deep dive on the Catholic Girl Aesthetic for labaatan makes a similar point–aestheticization as identity runs rampant, and Succession (and to some extent Barry) sits in the center of a Venn diagram that covers all of this.
“Babygirlfication” has come up a lot, particularly in relation to these two shows. We’ve touched on this phenomenon briefly with the likes of Pedro Pascal (although he is insistent on bringing up “Daddy” into his personal branding, much to the dismay of, well, everyone). A middle-aged man earning the title of babygirl, mew mew, or better yet, The People’s Princess is a delightful, dangerous yet natural progression in the business of fan culture. We hold Kendall Roy in our hands as delicate as the apple on the cover of the first Twilight novel. Here is babygirl, a grown man having Not A Very Good Time. Barry Berkman, the show’s titular Barry, isn’t very likable but possesses potential babygirl qualities (he’s horrible, and a mess). I think babygirlfication encapsulates a love of irony–or rather, a hyperirony–that creates the foundation for a level of engagement that’s both fun and silly, and a genuine response to how online we are all the time.
There are layers to babygirlhood, I think. NoHo Hank and Roman Roy are two different sides of the same babygirl coin, and you can’t even put Barry Berkman in the same tragicomedy category as Kendall Roy, but you can sure as hell try (murderers with daddy issues, but that’s still too broad). I think the way fans interact with something they love, obviously, says a lot about the quality of the work. There’s something that we still long for, something we crave, that Succession and Barry gave us over the last four seasons. This longing for an inherent understanding that these stories were brought to life by people that cared. I love seeing Nicholas Brittell share videos of him playing new tracks from the Succession score. These are real people that put their everything into telling us these stories we spend every Sunday with.
These two juggernauts in television ending during a tumultuous writers’ strike and incoming SA-AFTRA/DGA strike is almost Succession-like in its irony. I’m not saying anything new here, just stating the obvious, and how the obvious strikes me so much in my heart, guts, and head that I can’t do anything else other than talk about it over and over and over again. Worry plagues my colleagues and I, but these are worries we’ve held long before things came to a head. Everything feels bleak, and I’m sick of being so used to things being bleak. I think there’s also something to be said about the way we consume shows like Barry or Succession that speaks to this desire to make something of their bleakness, as well as the bleakness we keep facing. Not to state the obvious again, but our brains are both recovering from and still being battered by a global pandemic. (Where was I going with this?) I feel like I’m in a constant state of limbo, where I love and appreciate the life and people I have in my life and am still plagued by this existential dread. What else is new? Two things can be true at once.
The same can be said about Succession and Barry–I’m sad it’s all over (Joever, if you will) but I’m so happy they ended the way they did. I am broken we’ve lost NoHo Hank, but I’m so happy he’s somewhere with Cristobal. I’m devastated we’ll never see The Roy siblings again, but grateful that we got to see them make a fucked up little smoothie in their mother’s Barbados kitchen. I love that Stewy loves pancakes and waffles and kisses guys when he’s on Molly. These are not real people, and I never treated them as such, but they did worm their way into my heart. Their stories wormed their way into my heart. I chase that high in stories that I encounter and in the ones that I (try to) write every day.
I don’t even think I’ve articulated the amount of sentimentality I hold for those two shows. I watched the finales back to back with my boyfriend (who has never seen Succession but very kindly sat through that final hour and a half with me) and felt this bizarre dissonance where I knew I wanted to weep over the endings but couldn’t bring myself to. I was shaken at the idea that I’m not going to get this exact same communal television experience for a while.
I remember the finale of Community and how it made me feel. It’s always bittersweet when a show you love comes to an end. You don’t feel hollow or empty, you don’t feel all that hopeful either. And now that we can rewatch shows (if lunatics like Zaslav will allow for it), it doesn’t feel all that tough that these shows have stopped airing. I often worry about things getting taken off streaming services as I’m exceptionally sentimental about television. If there’s a Barry box set you can point me toward, please do. Having it in my possession may be enough to stave off NoHo Hank withdrawals.
I find my own earnestness about these television shows, which if we were to think about the way they’ve been consumed, the memes that have been produced, for example, come from a similar semi-cringe root. Embracing that earnestness balances out the cynical, hypercritical part of my brain that wants to complain about every single little thing that may be “wrong” with the state of television and therefore the world. Necessary, but not always kind on the ole noggin’.
How To Train Your Wig
I went to see BlackBerry over the weekend with a friend. I didn’t know that it was a Canadian film, nor were BlackBerries a Canadian product. Canadian icon Jay Baruchel has entered the bizarre little stratosphere I’ve concocted full of the most ridiculous wigs they’ve put on white actors in film and television. His silver-haired transformation sits somewhere between Mark Rylance’s wig in Don’t Look Up and Jason Alexander’s lace front in Criminal Minds, the latter I have a very well-documented fixation on.
It’s not just that Jay Baruchel looks kind of ridiculous, and I’m sure a lot of hard work went into sourcing, building, and styling the way his hair looks throughout the film, but it’s that we’re expected to suspend our disbelief enough to not only follow along with a sequence of events in a brief Canadian tech boom but we’re supposed to believe these hairs sprouted atop Jay Baruchel’s skull like Athena spawning from Zeus’ forehead. I don’t even want to talk about what they did with Glenn Howerton, it’s just as funny in the opposite direction. The semi-bald cap neuters Howerton’s overpowering Dennis Reynolds persona.
I enjoyed BlackBerry, it was a silly time. If you’re looking for a silly time but with a Big Short-esque itch to scratch, you can go check out BlackBerry.
Feat. More Lana Del Rey
Climate criminal with an 18-year-old’s taste in men, Taylor Alison Swift, released more songs off of her latest album, Midnights, an album that’s entirely Claire Denis’ fault.
I just listened to You’re Losing Me at a friend’s house and concluded that Joe Alwyn should go into hiding. Paul Schrader can’t save you now! Predictably, I’m very into Snow On The Beach (feat. More Lana Del Rey). I don’t know why she didn’t have more Lana on the song in the first place. As a lifelong Lana stan and someone who experiences Internalised Swiftogyny, I find it interesting that in our culture of music streaming, the final product–the song itself–can still continue to change. The idea of having a record feel complete feels a little lost on me, and it feels like a huge loss. I love albums that have B-sides, but it feels like Taylor Swift is just rolling out an endless B-side, which, all things considered, isn’t a bad business strategy for a woman whose current tour is making her a billionaire. Ironically enough, it reminds me of how many versions of Life of Pablo are out there.
A Small Catch-Up
I would usually do this at the beginning of the newsletter, a little ditty explaining my absence. Two things: life has been happening A Lot, and I’ve been struggling to conceptualize what this newsletter can be next. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself initially on trying to be consistent and thorough within a short turnaround window. It’s not how I roll. This degree I’m doing right now, it’s made me realize that it’s more than alright to have a different pace from other writers (so long that it’s within reason of whatever deadline I’m working towards, and I’m one of those writers that need a deadline. I need a fire under my arse to work.) That being said, I barely had a weekly schedule anyway, and that both alleviated and exacerbated the pressure I was putting on myself. I had forgotten that this newsletter was born out of a fun, silly good time. And I think it should return to its fun silly roots. Thanks for sticking around, even when I’m not around.
So, where have I been? I’ve just finished my first year of grad school, I’ll be working on my thesis over the summer. I’m less busy now because I’m not teaching over the summer, but I do have a Cool New Job as Managing Editor for PRISM International! It’s been a joy being on this staff, I work with some pretty cool cats. I have a romcom job now (magazine editor). I’ve sort of been living in a romcom, my partner and I are enthralled with one another and I talk about him all the time.
I’ve also just been busy using other parts of my brain to write things that aren’t pop culture commentary. The switchback has been a bit jarring, but it’s nice to take a breather, especially if I haven’t felt the need to say anything. Sometimes I don’t have things to say! How human!
At the core of all of this in relation to Hyperfixate as a publication is my desire to write in a way that’s sustainable for me but also to really listen to what interests me. To be a bit more selective in what fixations I share, if you will. We’ll see how it goes.
All my love,
Ari
Happy Birthday Ariane!