Succession’s estranging dialogue holds open mediation by obstructing ordinary language

Evidence

While the camera and plotting effectuate scale and impersonality, the moment-to-moment texture of the show achieves hold through dialogue that torques ordinary language 180 degrees, always igniting clichés and dislodging expectations, often inlaying puns and parapraxes: “I’m losing juice.” “What-fucking-ever.” “Little Lord Fuckleroy.” “You know who drinks milk? Kittens and perverts.” “That would be the straight-leg chino way of putting it.” “I’m just really happy in my headspace.” “Nothing is a line. Everything everywhere is always moving forever.” Amid all these unpredictable pearls, stones stud the talking, clouding translucent meaning; entire scenes revolve around the halting and sliding of scarcely verbal utterances: “yeah,” “uh,” “yeah?” “uh?” “so,” “yeah, yeah.” The caliber of these tiny estrangements fires the shows humor; the thickening and obstructing of these language games accentuates mediation. … Rather than the dramedic goo of so much streaming content, Succession holds open the gap between its hilarious jousts and its terrific stabs. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 360

Categorization

• XREF: The Brechtian distantiation and language-disruption technique echoes the Frankfurt School’s discussions of how aesthetic estrangement works against reified consciousness — connects directly to the reader’s Frankfurt reading.