The Augmented (Political) Reality
It is perhaps one of life’s minor tragedies that keeping a healthy drinking habit is impossible to do while binging on television shows… both make the other harder to follow (you know?). And yet, while strong-hic-willed I have never been much of a TV junkie — or other litteral ‘television personality’ (unlike our fubbly midweek contributor) — I will today be writing on the very matter, for better or for worse. I have indeed managed to isolate a pretty clear trend in HBO’s current spring season offering; namely, that Game of Thrones is slowly sinking to stupidity, whereas Veep continues to rise towards wittier heights. My reasoning behind this article is therefore sort of twofold: First, if I’m able to discern these things, then they should be pretty obvious. Second, TV shows are cool, and I’m rather proud of myself for understanding them. Yay.
Veep: The Augmented (Political) Reality
I don’t know if any of you noticed, but something more magical than dragons occurred on HBO some two or three weeks ago… in the second half of the 4th episode of Veep’s current season, to be precise. The episode had already started at a very fast pace, with Selina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in full cocaine-like excitement during the end of a diplomatic trip in Tehran, while her staff back home kept alternating between the politico’s usual dispositions: sarcasm, anger, and stupidity. Around the 17th minute, however, something glorious happened. Within barely fifty seconds, the DC staff (Sue, Bill and Kent) traded in flowery insults (“Gary and Mike have been left in Tehran. — Wonderful: it’s Black Hawk Down with Laurel and Hardy”), and the whole thing accelerated further: 2 minutes later Jonah unknowingly confessed to the President’s people that he was molested by the VP’s chief of staff; less than 60 seconds after, Mike and Gary tried to hitch a ride on a press plane by hoarding booze through teetotal Tehran’s airport; around the 21st minute Selina and the DC people discussed — in awful code word — an earlier impeachment-level, very much illegal mistake (“targeting happy parents after stealing cupcakes about their dead children”); a minute later lobby-boy Dan successfully lobbied for ‘glacé cherries’ on a political talk show, all before Selina’s campaign manager learned about the ‘happy cupcake’ plan: “God that is elaborate self-sabotage right there; that is Cirque du Soleil suicide bombing […] — You okay? — I feel like I’m on a life support machine and they keep pulling the plug to charge their phones.” And it went on and on — at this pace — until the end of the episode.
Critic Edmund Wilson once identified the special factor in James Joyce’s writing as the way it got better and better the more you went back to it: “its parts gradually build themselves up for us as we return to them and think about them”. What does that have to do with anything? Good question: Well… though of course I’m not suggesting that Veep is as dense as Ulysses (let alone Finnegans Wake), at its best the show somehow does reward multiple watches. There is at times such a concentration of storylines and witty dialogue that it is impossible to get through the thick of it (excuse the pun) in just one sitting; their best so far, the aforementioned episode 4, required me to watch it 2–3 times to figure it all out. Creator Armando Iannucci’s style is remarkable in that way, with about half of Veep’s scenes operating on a level of satire existing purely in the second degree — that of indirect meaning. It is, then, the closest thing we have to pure wit, and definitely the most quotable show on TV.
While that may sound unwatchable, fear not! this show successfully sustains itself through more conventional comedy (usually in the shape of one Jonah) and, more importantly, a horrifyingly accurate realism. Oh yeah. Allow me to explain: Political entertainment has, by definition, more at stake than your usual art, and this show is no exception. Unlike other programs, however, Veep refuses to portray policy-making as a purely ideological battle, or a dark and elaborate rise to power. Instead, it has opted for a more realistic approach. Yes: politics is a world characterized more than anything by incompetence and low cynicism… and that’s exactly what makes the show so fun! There is little doubt that each of these petty, self-obsessed and moronic characters has a few doubles running around Washington at this very moment. As D. Foster Wallace would put it: that’s the democratic experience! Is it any wonder that Jonah and Dan are now regular nicknames politicos use among themselves (and apparently there are a lot more Jonahs than Dans)? Politicians are after all just reflections of those who elect them, and vanity, idiocy, and selfish ambition do seem to strike a familiar chord. While the Veep reality is of course augmented (I seriously doubt most D.C. knobheads can even have such a facility — beauty! — of language), its narrative always stays true to the facts: copying or, sometimes, foretelling them… and that’s genius. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that this show has progressively been able to make use of more dramatic moments — reminding us there is still a very serious side to politics. Take a look at this recent clip, for example, and tell me it doesn’t remind you of some terrible possibility:
What About Game of Thrones?
Not to dwell too long on sad cases, I’ll just say that in the meantime Game of Thrones appears to be condemned to progressive, terminal debility. Could it be that the producers got too cocky — they actually thought that what made the show great was its sex and violence? While I have trouble believing anyone could be this blind, the problem remains that HBO’s frontrunner has become increasingly confused in what used to be its main strength: the narrative. True, its atmosphere is at times great and battles are alright, but it was always the richness of both its world and its plot (and, in the books, the sense of impending doom) which makes — sorry, made — it so engrossing. Someone should probably let them know that every storyline deviating from the books (almost everyone of them by now) has become borderline illogical and — worst! — unrealistic (no more of this then). And look at what we’re stuck with: awful dialogue and stupid story. Boo.
— Simon Mercer (@Tiddlebits)
