Joe Tharakan | Being an "alpha dog"

Cup O' Joe | What is bravado on tv translates to being insufferable in real life

By Joe Tharakan 02/29/16 10:05pm

Recently I binge-watched the fifth season of Suits, a legal drama airing on USA Network, which contains both realistic and unrealistic parts.

The simplest aspects of the show are true. Although presented in a dramatic way, the facts are accurate enough to suspend your disbelief. The show uses correct legal terminology and the main characters interact with clients, legal entities such as the District Attorney and courtrooms in a semi-realistic way. The legal arguments presented are at least plausible.

What is not plausible, however, is how much shouting goes on in the firm. It seems the only way that the attorneys of Pearson Hardman — and the subsequent name changes — can communicate with each other is through hostility, insults, a sneer of condescension and vague sports/war metaphors.

For example, take a look at this exchange between the two main characters, Harvey and Mike, following a meeting:

Harvey Specter: I shot you in the knees, so he wouldn't shoot you in the face. You're welcome.

Mike Ross: You know what, Harvey? I'm gonna take pass on the thank-you and instead skip right to the part where I call you a piece of sh**.

These are not things professionals say to each other. 

Many Penn students plan on going into law, and a plethora of Penn Law students are currently considering offers from top corporate law firms. Most of these students would be able to tell that an effective firm is not one that is constantly at each other’s throats, and they would be very turned off by such a firm culture.

However, most viewers are not lawyers or law students. Many are young, impressionable high school or college students considering their career goals, who have no exposure to real-life corporate law. And when they watch Suits, in which Harvey and Mike rampage through cases and always seem to win, they might justifiably think, “It sure would be awesome to be a lawyer and beat all those other lawyers.” 

If current lawyers often cite Atticus Finch as a major reason they pursued the law, why is it so unbelievable that Harvey Specter would inspire people to pursue the law as well?

Shows like House M.D. or Billions on Showtime portray similar ideas in different industries. In fact, Billions explicitly uses and glorifies the word “alpha." As long as you produce results, you can get away with being a huge jerk, constantly yelling and insulting the people you work with. And you get those results by shouting at others until you get what you want. 

My concern is that the perceptions these TV shows perpetuate are lionizing the worst aspects of these professions. The success that follows screaming matches attracts hypercompetitive bullies who want nothing more than to succeed by pushing someone else to the side. It attracts not just someone willing be hostile their colleagues, but someone who enjoys it.

At Penn, there is certainly a ton of competition, but there isn’t malice. For example, If someone isn’t pulling their weight in a group project, the default reaction isn’t to start shouting and call them a lazy piece of trash to their face. Professors don’t insult someone who fails a test as weak and pathetic. In our jobs, our bosses don’t — or at least shouldn’t — raise their voice every chance they get. Doing so would be a horribly ineffective way to get work done and a cruel system to live in.

Nonstop hostility creates more problems than it solves. If anyone treated me in real life the way the characters on TV treat each other, I would never want to work with them again. In our real lives and real jobs, we are expected to be kind to each other.

It is dangerous to portray these professions as so antagonistic, because it glorifies this sort of toxic behavior. These shows portray winning constant screaming matches as the most effective way to rise professionally, when in reality, it’s the surest way to end your career. 

JOE THARAKAN is a College junior from the Bronx, in the Biological Basis of Behavior program. His email address is jthara@sas.upenn.edu. “Cup o’Joe”usually appears every other Saturday. 

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