On Being Charmed

We’re back! This column is weekly and short. Longer essays come around once a month.

Lately I’ve been riveted by the dynamic between Shiv Roy and Lukas Matsson. For those of you who don’t watch Succession — basically a Marvel franchise for people who work in media — Matsson is a rogue tech CEO, poised to take over the company run by Shiv’s brothers. After their father’s death, Shiv was snubbed for a leadership role, and she’s bitter about it. Matsson wants to make her his “girl on the inside.”

He doesn’t have to lobby very hard — just pull her aside and ask, really. Shiv’s motives are mainly power and resentment, but Matsson himself sweetens the pot. He’s an edgelord prick, not very likable; but very attractive, in normative terms: a tall, thin, and pretty Swede who understands what that buys him. It’s unclear whether Shiv desires Matsson, exactly. But you don’t need to desire someone to be swayed by their looks, or flattered by their attention. She’s not seduced, but charmed.

Beauty is reactive; it alters human behavior, much like celebrity does. Years ago, I went to Los Angeles to speak to a TV actress for a fashion magazine. She was two hours late for lunch, and our interview was completely unremarkable, but at the end, she asked for my phone number, suggesting we hang out the next time she came through my city. It was emotional payola, an obvious PR tactic — but I was thrown by how effective it might have been. I wasn’t even a fan, and yet a sad little part of me wanted to believe she liked me.

When I first moved to the United States, I was surprised by how often people took praise at face value. It’s not that Canadians are sharper than Americans, but we’re humbler by and large, and more inclined to interpret a nicety — say, a pair of compliments bookending a rejection — for what it is. These flattered Americans weren’t stupid, or even naive. They’d simply taken what was offered, an ego boost, because the price, being lightly deceived, was acceptable to them. By my definition, foolishness meant believing you’re better than you are. In the US social economy, where bullshit is normal and necessary, foolishness meant fumbling an opportunity to build yourself up.

The woman charmed by a man is not, in most popular representations, an enviable subject. The stereotypes include scam victims; doormats; rich older ladies, like Tanya on The White Lotus, whose suitors hold them in contempt. There are stock female deceivers — the femme fatale, the siren, the wife guy’s ex-wife — but female charm is a more recognized commodity, and a status symbol: if women want what you have, it says that you have something worth wanting. Male charm is depicted more often as malevolent, ruinous. If he wants what’s yours, he’ll take it.

Watching Shiv parry with Matsson — who holds the balance of power, but isn’t impervious to her either — is exhilarating, a feat of self-esteem. She enjoys his attention, plays at acquiescence, and thinks she’s winning. It’s not charm that sinks her in the end, but hubris.

Shiv desires influence much more than sex. She has a soon-to-be-ex husband to manipulate; Matsson’s attractiveness is merely a perk. But it’s the layer that resonated with me. I’ve never attempted to strike a backroom deal for money or position, but I have found myself in the crosshairs of somebody’s charm offensive, wondering how long I can withstand it.

Thank you for reading. Coming up: male beauty, sister bands, Jim Carrey.

*

Some writing I published while on newsletter hiatus: a look at whether limerence should be considered a clinical issue; a catch-up with the idea of Pete Davidson; an essay on Joan Micklin Silver’s Between the Lines and the good-old-days of alternative media; another on the sinister blandness of a certain 1970s rock drama.