"Nothing will come of nothing": King Lear and the Paradoxical Debasement of Whiteness in HBO's Succession

Abstract

Abstract: This essay examines the central role of racial whiteness in the self-construction and widespread reception of HBO’s popular series, Succession , as King Lear ’s twenty-first-century heir. Drawing on Christina Wald’s analysis of Succession as “serial Shakespeare,” conversations about the show in digital culture, and work in critical whiteness studies including several recent discussions of race in King Lear , I trace Succession ’s representation of the four Roy children’s battle for control of their father’s global media empire to the racialized portrayal of key characters in Shakespeare’s arguably grimmest tragedy. My focus is the Roy empire’s heir apparent, Kendall Roy, and his affinities with Edgar, Goneril, Cordelia, and Lear himself as figures of early modern racial ideologies. Kendall’s association with these characters in King Lear not only sheds light on the roles of race and gender in HBO’s flagrantly white drama, but also exemplifies what Arthur L. Little, Jr. describes as Shakespeare’s underappreciated but “prodigious contribution” to the making of white people. Succession ’s repeated exposures of the Roy siblings’ toxic, privileged whiteness, along with Kendall’s repeated, failed efforts to be crowned head of his father’s company, resonate with King Lear ’s oft-discussed emphasis on “nothing,” as well as its ambivalence about the future of a unified white nation. What Succession finally reveals about King Lear is a paradox fundamental to both dramas’ constructions of racial whiteness: debasement only adds to its power.