One of the most notorious scenes in recent TV history occurs partway through season two of HBO’s Succession, when media magnate Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, announces a game of “Boar on the Floor.” In the middle of an elaborate candlelit dinner in a Hungarian castle, the octogenarian founder and CEO of Waystar Royco orders three of his senior staff to crawl around on the floor while oinking like pigs. They then fight for scraps of food while other members of the leadership team laugh, chant, and take a compromising video.
The “Boar on the Floor” scene is dehumanizing, but it does not feel surreal. We believe these business executives would get on their hands and knees for their boss’s approval just as we believe he would take pleasure in making them do it. We accept the behaviour as realistic because, according to unwritten laws of human psychology passed down in narratives since Faust (whose pact with the devil involved exchanging his soul for worldly pleasures), you can’t aspire to unlimited money and power without surrendering part of your humanity.
