Although it’s going on into its third season in the
states, Shonda Rhimes’ television drama “Scandal” has just debuted in New
Zealand.
Where to begin? I thought the characters were mostly
repugnant and I wearied of listening to Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope try to
show people how tough she was.
The fawning new girl brought in to blindly
worship Pope was so tired it made me want to nap.
When the
man who interviews the newbie describes himself and his coworkers as
“gladiators in suits,” I winced in embarrassment for his character.
Pope goes around making scandals disappear for
wealthy clients. The first one we see her deal with is a decorated war hero (Medal
of Honor, natch) who has discovered his dead girlfriend in her apartment and
fled the scene after calling the police.
Pope protects her slimy clientele by utilizing a
team of thoroughly unlikable individuals.
There’s the red headed lady who threatens to tell a
man’s wife he’s seeing a stripper if he doesn’t let her paw around at a crime
scene. He calls her a “bitch” and she cheerily acknowledges the title as a
compliment.
I rolled my eyes so hard I thought I would never see clearly again.
She later discovers the war hero’s girlfriend was seeing another man and she pronounces
that the woman is a “whore.”
Oh dear.
I thought maybe a program written by a woman would
be less likely to "slut shame" women or at least dish out some of the same for men. I mean, surely they wouldn’t
stoop so low as to suggest that a woman who had had more than ten sexual
partners should be ashamed of that fact, right?
Oh dear, again.
It turns out the President of the United States (who
looks a little like the character from “Ghost” who had his best friend
murdered) is being accused of having an affair with a woman and he sets Pope on her in hopes of making the whole thing disappear.
Pope takes the new girl with her when she confronts the president’s
accuser telling her she will leak the fact that she has had “22 sexual partners”
to the media if the accuser doesn’t shut up and go quietly into that good
night.
Eff that shit—and while I’m at it; eff Shonda Rhimes
for being ass backward about women’s sexuality and the number of her sexual
partners as well.
I just double checked and we are not living in the 1950s
anymore. This means that women of color like Rhimes can no longer be told to go
to the back of the bus in Alabama and also that women can sleep with whomever
and how many ever people they want (just as men do) without there being a
goddamned double standard.
We later learn that Pope had an affair with the
skeevy president too. So much for her supposedly legendary ability to “read
people.”
Does president "pants dancer" get called anything nasty,
you ask? No, he goes right on being the leader of the free world without so
much as a spot on his reputation.
As for the other characters in this drama; there is
a creepy guy who mumbles a lot and follows the new girl into the ladies’ bathroom
and a serial philanderer who is afraid
to ask his girlfriend to marry him because he might, like cheat on her and stuff 'cause really he just can’t control himself.
It turns out the military hero didn’t kill his
girlfriend. He was just out with his gay lover and he didn’t want anyone to
know because a. he’s a soldier and b. he’s a conservative poster boy.
First of all, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is cold in its
grave and second, I’d be more worried about clearing up that nasty case of hypocrisy.
I hated this show. I hated how Pope just bossed and
bullied people and sang her own praises. I hated listening to the syntax and
lingo the characters used because it makes Americans look like we’re all a
bunch of ego drunk dickheads.
As an American living abroad, I feel like I
have to either keep a low profile and pretend to be Canadian or explain how
this show has a collection of tacky caricatures because, no matter how many
times you try to remind people that it’s just a (poorly written, badly acted)
show, they still think most of us are like this.
Thanks a lot, Shonda.
