From HBO's Industry to FX's The Bear, 2024 was full of TV characters working out their "daddy issues" the tough way...by committing patricide. This week Brittany is joined by Vulture's TV critic Roxana Hadadi and The New Yorker's Inkoo Kang to compare and contrast a new generation of daddy killers. Why do we enjoy seeing screen dads offed? And what does that say about our own anxieties about patriarchy?Support public media and receive ad-free listening & bonus content by joining NPR+ today: https://plus.npr.org/ Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the significance of patricide in modern TV?
All right, y'all. I promised that I had a big announcement and I'm delivering on it. This is my New Year's gift to you. Starting today, I'm bringing you It's Been a Minute three times a week. That's right. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you'll have new episodes of It's Been a Minute right here in your feed. Starting right now. Hello, hello.
I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. So excited to have y'all on today. This is like a dream TV conversation. It really and truly is. So I'm super hyped. Woo! I have assembled the dream team, y'all. I've got Roxanna Haddadi.
She's a TV critic for Vulture Magazine and the New Yorker's Ingu Kang. And we're here to talk about daddy issues. This is the Olympics of patricide. Ha ha ha ha. You thought Oedipus? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 2024 TV is going to do you one better. Because here's the thing.
When you look at the lists of the best TV shows of the past couple of years, there's a trend that nobody is talking about. A bunch of these shows are offing their patriarchs like the dads are dying. And I will warn you, there are some spoilers ahead. Let's look over at HBO's hit show industry. Its third season was huge this year. People couldn't stop talking about it.
And one of the main characters, my girl Yasmin, oh my gosh, she is pretty, she is charming, but she's not the best at her job. But we still love her, okay? In one episode, after an argument on a yacht with her super rich father, he dies under mysterious circumstances. And I wouldn't say she's sad about it. That would be impossible because I killed him. It is brutal out here for the dads.
And then there's the bear on FX. This season, Carmi finally stands up to his old boss and mentor, Chef David Fields.
You gave me ulcers and panic attacks and nightmares. You know that, right? Do you understand that?
And of course, there is the corporate daddy of all corporate daddies, Logan Roy, the billionaire mogul from HBO's Succession, who had to choose which one of his kids would take over the family's media empire. The whole show is literally built on the premise that dad has got to go.
Hey, guess what? I recall my father was a nasty, racist, neglectful individual. What was it that they used to say around here? No Blacks, no Jews, no women above the fourth floor.
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Chapter 2: Why are we seeing a trend of fathers being killed off in shows?
So like, I think that we are looking at art as a way to like feed into all of that feeling. So theoretically you probably are not going to wage violence against your boss because But I think it feels good to see that waged on your behalf.
Yeah, I mean, you can think about it in this sort of like, I think like really helpless macro sense. And I think that is something that like really bears out in the way that Roxanna was saying. Even if Logan really dies, like the only possible beneficiary to that death is going to be one of his extremely deep pocketed children. And ultimately, it's not really going to change very much.
I think that the stories that maybe feel more relatable and hopefully less nihilistic. are these much more relatable stories about cycles of abuse or cycles of coercion. And I think the patricide stuff is really relevant to that. But
Maybe like the best example that I can think of with this is actually Hacks, which is about two women who are sort of like a mother-daughter boss-mentee relationship.
Quagmire relationship.
Yes. I'm sorry, did I do something to offend you?
Other than walk those chimney-sweep boots on my silk rug? No?
No. So much of the question of the show is really about how bad does the protege have to be in order for her mentor to take her seriously? And does she actually need to be as bad as her mentor in order to be taken seriously and in order to make her way in the world?
Well, keeping it global, I mean, to ask even a bigger question, right? It's already a big question. Like, am I going to end up just like my dad or am I going to end up just like my mom? But a bigger question than that is like, can we really kill the patriarchy? I mean, you know, these characters, they're cutting off or trying to cut off
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