Inside her Number One Observatory Circle residence, a vice president paces, eyes glued to the White House across the street. The president has just given him a new mission: the national plan to combat obesity. “It’s a bad move, it’s personal, the president knows how uncomfortable I am with fat people… A secret to not gaining weight? Shut your fucking mouth!”, exclaims “VP” Selina Meyer, played by the whirlwind Julia Louis-Dreyfus. So it goes Veep : cruel, cynical and blunt about the backstage of Washington.
In 2012, in the midst of the Obama presidency, this satire broadcast by the HBO channel hit American screens. Millions of viewers delight in the pettiness of Washington bureaucrats, as power-hungry as they are incompetent. “In political circles, we often say that the series The West Wing corresponds to what Americans would like politics to be, what House of Cards do they really think about it and what Veep most resembles reality,” smiles Meredith Conroy, political communications specialist at California State University.
With Trump, reality exceeds fiction
In seven seasons, the show won 17 Emmy Awards, but could not resist the arrival of Donald Trump. With the billionaire in the White House, slip-ups and corruption scandals barely splash the polls. The shenanigans told on screen seem very dull and the series ends in 2019. Since July 21, however, it has enjoyed a second lease of life.
The day after Joe Biden abandoned the presidential race and handed over to his VP, Kamala Harris, Americans are rushing to Veep, multiplying its audience by four. “These figures are impressive, judge Meredith Conroy. It is possible that voters are trying to imagine what a female president of the United States would look like. In any case, Veep proved positive for women in politics. He allows them to be as good or bad as the others.” One scene in particular floods social networks: we see the vice-president laughing in a toilet after learning that the president had to give up his re-election. From there to imagine Kamala Harris in a similar situation…
It’s the magic of Veep : the political trajectories of Selina Meyer and Kamala Harris come together in an incredible way. Two dynamic young senators, with flexible ideas and generous donors, who run in their party’s primaries, lose miserably but are drafted by the winner – an experienced white man – to become vice president… Until fate turns in their favor. Kamala Harris herself admitted, in the Late Show, by Stephen Colbert, “love” Veep and that “certain passages” reminded him of his daily life.
The vice-president does not push this unflattering comparison any further. In a subtle way, Veep never reveals Selina Meyer’s political affiliation, leaving the viewer with the pleasure of believing that they are watching the opposite camp make fools of themselves. “In Veep, my character is narcissistic, sociopath and megalomaniac, Julia Louis-Dreyfus recently commented on MSNBC. I’m not playing Kamala Harris, but rather someone who looks like a politician whose name I won’t stoop to pronouncing…” A vulgar, sneaky candidate ready for anything? It’s difficult to guess his identity.
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