Veep
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| Veep promo poster // fair use |
Perhaps the quote by Timothy Simons, who played Jonah Ryan in the show, in a cast interview is particularly revealing:
Every single politician that we meet, all thinks that the show is about every other politician but them. That is 100% true across the board.
Tony Hale, who plays Gary Walsh, says afterward:
But it also does show humanity, you know, because I think in the media, it's like, you just hear the perfect soundbites, you see the posturing. They're people. And behind the scenes, they lose it sometimes. And I love that it shows that.
This is corroborated by Robby Soave and Zach Weismueller of Reason Magazine as they pointed out, Veep contains perhaps the most accurate portrayal of political life and character on television. Shows like Designated Survivor, which I only survived the first season of, portrays the eventual president as some wildly cunning leader while also being one that transcends political divides (despite the show itself being pretty one-sided). Shows like House of Cards, which collapsed after the Spacey incident, also portrays the top politicians as some wildly cunning leader, but on the flip side, contains an incredibly dark and evil underbelly. Hollywood has generally focused on this cult of the presidency where the president is a paragon of intelligence and skill with a character of either benevolence or cruelty.
Veep takes an extraordinarily ordinary approach and smashes it out of the park with insult comedy: Politicians are people. They may be flawed people guided by self-interest, but is that out of the ordinary? The key difference is the perverse incentive structure of politics that differs wildly from free-market incentives. That's what really interests me about Veep, as a study, albeit a comedic one, of the motivations behind those in power and how that may yield differing results from those outside the realm of politics.
Are the characters caricatured? Some more than others, but overall, I don't think they are too much. Whereas in Parks and Recreation, Leslie is a caricature of a progressive who wants to help everyone and doesn't care who she runs over in the process and Ron is a caricature of a libertarian who wants the government to essentially cease existing, giving a landmine to a child for home protection, the characters of Veep take a more earnest tone in working toward a typical end game political goal: to get to the presidency at all costs. The comedy is derived from the inept and egoistic manner in which they seriously pursue those aims.
The central character, Selina Meyer, begins the series as a vice president, disappointed in the loss of her presidential bid, mopey and ignored by the president. It's easy to relate to her sense of despair, being in a position where one might think would make someone happy and driven, only to realize that it wasn't the commanding position previously thought. One may even feel sorry for her at the beginning. However, this rather quickly begins to fade, as over time, her persona is revealed, peeling away like layers of an onion, slowly releasing the chemicals that make your eyes water, from both laughter and disgust.
[WARNING: lots of spoilers ahead]
Right from the beginning of the show, it was pretty clear that any and every principle Meyer held was up for sale to gain political power, a clear nod to the power brokers in Washington that can only exist when there is power to broker. Right from the start in the first episode of the series, she sold out her clean jobs initiative to put an "oil guy" on the clean jobs commission to placate special interests and maintain her standing with big oil. In the middle of the series, Meyer went on a funny but probably not too far fetched crusade against her own Families First bill when they found out it was a toxic bill. Politicians, many in the highest levels of power, have been notorious for having no real principles but rather siding with whatever is en vogue to try to gain more power. Ultimately, toward the end of the series, not even her own daughter held a position high enough in Meyer's heart as she sold out her gay-rights position to secure a nomination from a conservative congressman, which ended in estrangement from her daughter and her wife.
Issues, principles, and ethics took a complete back seat in her quest for the presidency, with nary a glimpse in the mirror. Despite a Julia Louis-Dreyfus interview with superfan Steven Colbert where he mentioned that Veep did a good job in keeping Meyer's political party a secret, Meyer's positions have been pretty much straight down the ticket in conformance with the Democratic Party, being moderately pro-choice, utilizing federal funds for family program funding like universal pre-K, suggested to be against the NRA, is pro-amnesty in immigration, and for LGBT+ rights. Just about every one of those positions was turned on its head with deals with other politicians and special interests. However, in the pivotal moment of choosing a VP nominee for her presidency run in the middle of the series, as they went through the list of candidates, the entire vetting process was completely focused on superficial qualities such as race and gender, completely ignoring qualifications and principles, highly prescient of Biden's VP hunt this year. The team finally honed in on Tom James after Amy Brookheimer, the campaign manager, resigned in an epic rant when they continually rejected her suggestion of Tom James. Although James was not a minority, they were attracted to him purely for his charismatic persona. Sure enough, it turns out the Meyer staff didn't even have any idea what James's stances on issues even were.
Throughout the series, Meyer doesn't seem capable of taking criticism, often deflecting blame to others, including the American voters, who she clearly has contempt for, calling the voters toward the end of the season 4 finale when she found that there would be an electoral tie, "ignorant and dumb as shit," using that as the definition of democracy (I bet every voter watching also thinks this applies to all the other voters and not themselves). Throughout the series, Meyer refuses to take any responsibility for anything, culminating in assigning Amy to conduct a study of the failures of their prior campaigns upon the launch of a new presidential campaign at the start of season 7. In one of my favorite scenes in the show, Amy brings in a giant 500-page volume of her findings and starts with page one. She first states that the candidate refused to take responsibility for any mistakes, to which Meyer immediately denied, saying it was Amy who made mistakes. Amy went on to say there's a culture of blame which made people uncomfortable to express criticism, to which Meyer asked "what dumb asshole said that?" After Amy started into item number 3, still on the first page, about refusing to share ideas and strategy with campaign staff, Meyer cuts her off and throws the entire volume into the trash. In season 5, a Politico story broke about how a high-level staffer in her administration called Selina "the c-word". Selina turns to Amy, as usual, to conduct an internal investigation on who called her a cunt while firing three people from the communications department. Amy, while knowing she was the guilty party, soon discovers the rest of the staff all did the same, except for the lovable Gary, who confessed to it, thinking the "c-word" stood for "crone". Late one night, she calls Amy into the Oval Office on the issue and rants about how it's all due to sexism.
This again mirrors reality, whether the writers intended it or not. Just as an example, in Hillary Clinton's book What Happened, she goes at length in blaming others for her loss in 2016 (including sexism!). While she does reflect inwardly, it's extremely superficial in regretting calling Trump supporters "deplorables", though it appears she regretted the words more than the sentiment. No introspection was given to the Clinton Foundation basically a front for political favors (which is also mirrored in the show with Meyer's foundation), her own shortcomings on the email scandal (Meyer administration hacking scandal), her mass murder campaigns as Secretary of State in the Middle East (Meyer bombing a wedding in the Middle East), or her commission of the lies in the Steele Dossier (okay, this one might be in reality only).
Another major theme throughout the series was the Meyer administration and campaign continually breaking the law or otherwise acting unethically while selling out those close to the campaign. Close advisor Bill Ericsson in Congressional hearings was made the scapegoat for the Families First Bill scandal as the rest of the staff pointed their fingers his way and was carted off to jail. He requested a pardon from Meyer since he really wasn't at fault for it, but none was forthcoming because of how it would make her look. Throughout the series, Dan Eagan and Amy Brookheimer were both widely and falsely reported as having major mental breakdowns, leading to their dismissal. It culminated in the sad final episode where maybe Meyer's closest "friend" and certainly biggest admirer, Gary Walsch, was pinned for a scandal where he was imprisoned despite his obvious minuscule role in her administration. It was clear that although Meyer achieved what she wanted, the presidency, she lost everybody close to her and eventually died alone.
Whatever one may think of the accuracy of the conspiracy theories, there was great collateral damage in the so-called Russiagate. Roger Stone, for example, was basically targeted, though by the opposition, and imprisoned for misremembering facts in emails he voluntarily handed over to the FBI. The more authoritarian governments get, the more common these kinds of scapegoating get. In popular culture, this is exemplified in the HBO docu-drama Chernobyl, where the officials, particularly the ones tied to political leaders, were far more interested in assigning blame to anybody but themselves than actually solving, or even acknowledging, the problem. Much of China's political system functions around this as well, with their recent anticorruption campaign likely a cover to remove political rivals and to deflect blame away from the system implemented from the highest ranks that encourage the exact behavior they're getting blamed for.
Even when she tries to do something right, it turns out politics get in the way of doing what is, at least in her own mind, right. Her administration concedes that she should bail out her boyfriend, Charlie Baird's bank, but since it would be viewed as favoritism and cost major political points, is caught in the tension of doing the "right" thing or keep her job. She ultimately chooses to keep her job.
Despite the well established economic inefficiency and immorality of bailing out rich moguls that own the banks at the expense of taxpayers, the struggle of this tension is very real. In politics, perception is everything. Facts are negotiable. Principles are always for sale. When the incentives line up against doing what's right, those incentives will generally be followed. It's the rare politician that will stand for principle despite what others may think of him. Ron Paul would frequently stand alone in voicing opposition to a political bill or action in following his principles and would bear much scorn from his peers from doing so. Though many on the left may point to Bernie Sanders, his endorsement of big-corporation-friendly Biden and Clinton flies right in the face of the biggest issue he continually talks about. Ron Paul had enough principle to have never endorsed McCain or Romney following his presidential bid. Nobody else in DC, to my knowledge, has been so principled as to completely eschew political deals like Ron Paul has.
Some of the other characters have also been brilliant reflections of political persona. I found Tom James to be a particularly compelling character with a terrific story arc. He was introduced to the broader audience as being incredibly charming and articulate. Always remembering people's names and dietary restrictions. Frequently telling a witty joke. Often surrounded by adoring fans. It wasn't until toward the end of the season he was introduced that it's revealed that he had a power-grabbing mentality as well when he undermined his running mate when an opportunity opened up for him to jump the line to the presidency. His charismatic facade gradually gave way to his true ugly nature, the average politician. By the end of the show, he was #MeToo'd by a close staffer, which effectively shut down any hope for a presidential position, but not damaging enough to have received a high cabinet position. Though opposite sides often consider the other side's candidate to be a monster with no worthy qualities, presidents are often quite the charmer. Most people recognize that Obama, Bush, and Clinton are all very charismatic people. Even the enigma, Donald Trump, appeals to people in his boorish and crass ways with his insult humor. This makes a lot of sense; with the presidency being basically a popularity contest. Charisma is the top characteristic needed to win the job, making it easy for snake oil salesmen to get seated. The brilliant but awkwardly nerdy people have no shot, even if they can run circles around the other candidates on policy. Similarly, I think most objective people would question the morals of all those presidents. All of the presidents have been mired in deep scandals, from intern infidelity to Gitmo to Fast and Furious to child abuse of immigrant families in detention centers. Countries destroyed, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives ruined. On the opposite end, Jonah Ryan was, at least toward the middle and end of the series, a (very) caricatured version of Donald Trump. Always short-tempered, ready to pull out crude insults while being quite stupid in his understanding of concepts. Still, he was able to somehow gain support through this method of campaigning, capturing the angry vote. While he kicked off his popularity by blasting Meyer, he ended up being her VP at the end of the show, seemingly again prognosticating Kamala Harris essentially calling Joe a racist and guilty of sexual assault, then somehow ending up as his VP.
Some of the events have been fantastic satirizations of real-life as well. In what I assume was a reflection on Obama's presidency, Selina Meyer stumbled into freeing Tibet, but the Nobel Peace Prize for this was given to her opposition they mistakenly thought was behind it. Reality was actually stranger than fiction here, given that Obama was apparently awarded the Peace Prize not for liberating anybody, but just for being elected president, eventually starting multiple wars and directly killing hundreds of innocent civilians while impoverishing uncountable more. Eventually, in the show, the Nobel mistake was realized and Selina Meyer was selected for the Nobel Peace Prize. While she was in Europe to accept the Peace Prize, Interpol got wind that she had authorized a drone strike on a wedding in the Middle East and set out to arrest her for war crimes. If only real life was this poetic. Nobody really cared about the wedding being bombed, just like Obama's drone strikes on weddings in real life, but in a twist, people got up in arms about an elephant at the wedding being killed in collateral damage and Meyer had to seek out the Norweigan embassy for asylum.
On the flip side, Meyer released information that opponent Danny Chung was not born in America but this was based on faulty research, clearly a reflection on the conspiracy theories in conservative circles that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore not eligible for the presidency. Ultimately, this conspiracy theory never got anywhere, both in the show and real life, but it did help paint a dot on who some of the political dimwits were.
Throughout the series, the politicians and staff seemed to get worse and worse. Their ethical compasses were clearly deteriorating from their already deteriorated condition. Meyer was clearly regressing throughout the show and the final season ignited a spark that ratcheted up the ruthlessness. Jonah Ryan in the first season was relatively mild compared to the idiocy and boorishness of his character in the later seasons, especially when paired with his power broker uncle who seems to revel in people's misery. It ultimately results in a clearly compromised Meyer winning the presidency. Is this commentary about where the country is heading, politically? Is this what we deserve as a country, judging from the incessant fighting and straw-manning of the other side? It seems like a bleak future, but the show also provides a glimmer of hope when in the final few minutes, it's revealed that Jonah Ryan, Meyer's Veep, was (somehow) impeached and the impeccably ethical, deeply knowledgeable, and perpetually optimistic Richard Splett had eventually become president. Unfortunately, Splett's perfection made him the least believable character in the show, while also being the one person in the show people would most want to be good friends with.
This show has been a fantastic parallel universe to relieve some of the tension in this universe by laughing at our own political predicament. This series is a comedic exposé into why we should not turn to politics to resolve our inner conflicts.
