Selina Meyer Was Awful. That's What Made Her Great.

Selina's terminal scene. Photo: Michelle Groskopf

This piece contains spoilers for the series finale of Veep.

When Armando Iannucci created Veep in the beginning of this tumultuous decade, he wanted to make a prove virtually American politics prepare in a place where, in his words, "at that place's power but where in that location's non power." Eventually he focused on the vice-president'south office and decided to brand that vice-president a woman because, "I thought, well, if information technology'south a female person vice-president then at to the lowest degree nosotros won't get people saying, 'So is this Dick Cheney?'"

Instead, he got questions about whether Selina Meyer, the vice-president who would proceed to inherit a presidency, then lose it and, in the series finale, ruthlessly repossess it for herself, was Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton.

"By then we just said, 'No, it'due south Selina Meyer,'" says Iannucci. "That's who she is."

Selina Meyer was indeed like no one else. She was the first female president in U.Southward. history, a trailblazer who broke the highest glass ceiling and who likewise once walked into a glass door by accident. She was a daughter who resented her female parent and a mother who preferred not to be around her own daughter. She hated men — "I'yard used to dealing with angry, ambitious, dysfunctional men, i.due east. men," she in one case said from her seat in the Oval Office — merely she hated other women just as much. When her advisor Ben Cafferty suggested this season that she should consider some other female person candidate, Kemi Talbot, as a running mate, Selina responded: "An all-female ticket? The American people work difficult for a living, okay? They don't need that kind of bullshit."

By inventing her and and so giving Julia Louis-Dreyfus the opportunity to fill up her with bluster and bite, Iannucci didn't intend to make a comedy near an anti-feminist with a low-key feminist streak running through it. But it became articulate pretty early in Veep'due south run that you tin can't tell the story of a woman in American politics without commenting on what information technology means to be an American woman trying to wield ability. And what that means is being such a walking, talking, unapologetic contradiction that it becomes second nature to pivot when the political moment requires information technology.

Selina Meyer was certainly feminine. She cared about her shoes and her lipstick choices. Her conclusion to get a less-than-flattering haircut in season three notwithstanding, her sense of style and beauty was sharp. (That floral dress she wears in the finale? Gorgeous.) Merely her behavior is what could be described, in stereotypical terms, as male person. She's aggressive. She'south blatantly ambitious. She curses like an inebriated sailor who learned how to speak English language by listening to old Andrew Dice Dirt albums. She lies and acts with no regard for ethics; the just principle she follows is, "Me beginning."

Based on history and this country's long-continuing relationship with misogyny, a adult female with these qualities shouldn't be able to win over the American people. In the early seasons, Selina doesn't, exactly. Most of the fourth dimension she either fails upward past chance — she only becomes president in the 3rd flavour because she inherited the position from a president concerned about his suicidal First Lady — or she outright loses, be information technology during an election or something as elementary as a photo op at a frozen yogurt store on D.C.'due south U Street.

In the last season, which, as noted in this all-encompassing expect at how the finale came together, reflects the darker political climate nosotros're all living in, Selina embraces what, in a more than just world, would seem to be her less-electable qualities. Even her campaign slogans — "New. Selina. Now," which is practically a command, and "Man Upwards" — advise she's flipping the bird at any ideas about how a female candidate is supposed to deport. By bulldozing over her competitor, Tom James (played by Hugh Laurie), embracing Jonah's raging idiocy and making him her veep, and and so, saddest of all, destroying Gary, the staffer she one time promised to never burn considering, "I am not going to let go the one person in this cadre group who really gives a shit near me," she finally becomes president. But as we meet in the Oval Office scene at the terminate of the final episode, she's completely alone. Her cadre grouping now consists solely of colleagues who ultimately give no shits about her.

The last episode of Veep, which is chosen "Veep," can be described rightly as a cautionary tale. A evidence that began every bit an absurdist comedy well-nigh Washington weasels run amok ends as a tragedy about a social club in which morality no longer seems to matter. David Mandel, the showrunner who took over Veep in season five after Iannucci'south deviation, and who wrote this episode, makes information technology clear that this is non how anyone should strive to be, especially not if one of their goals is to exist happy and accomplish something meaningful.

On one hand, the Veep finale is a commentary on and reflection of where things stand up in American politics. But on another, it'southward a pure fantasy. At that place is no style a woman could do all the things Selina does and be embraced by the public. We don't see what happens betwixt the convention and her return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but nosotros presume she had to pull a few additional underhanded tricks out of her bong sleeves to vanquish incumbent Laura Montez in the general election. Information technology'southward hard to imagine that working out in reality.

Even the idea of two women running against each other for president is impossible to fathom in real-life America. Remember about this: in Veep world, the U.s.a. has experienced non one, not two, but 3 female-run presidential administrations by the yr 2020: Selina'southward first one, Montez'southward, and then Selina'south second. In the bodily U.s.a. nosotros haven't been able to pull that off even in one case, when the adult female running was overqualified for the job and facing a candidate even dumber and more offensive than Jonah Ryan. And if you lot think that comparison is unfair, I refer yous to this week'south latest real-life-imitating-Veep moment.

Y'all think most things like this and, especially if you're a woman, you can't aid but admire Selina Meyer even if you can't condone her choices. That's partly because Louis-Dreyfus is playing her. It's tempting to say that an appealing player tin can make a horrible character likable, simply that's not exactly right. A actually gifted actor, and Louis-Dreyfus is, can tap into a flawed person's depths and reveal the extent to which they're genuinely figuring out what they're going to do next in real time. Louis-Dreyfus did that, moment after moment and episode after episode. She didn't make Selina likable. She fabricated her fascinating.

In the finale, after Selina convinces Michelle to accuse Tom of sexual misconduct, burdensome his election hopes and, most probable, his marriage, he comes barreling into Selina'southward skybox calling her a monster and a conniving cunt. "What the fuck are you?" he asks, finally, a question that implies she is no longer a human with any sort of soul.

I watched Laurie and Louis-Dreyfus rehearse that scene and film it, and every time Laurie, as Tom, lost it, information technology was like watching every human on world give voice to his greatest fearfulness: that a adult female, or multiple women, volition gang up on him and ruin his entire life. The fact that Michelle's accusations are a prevarication — her relationship with Tom was completely consensual — make them a doubly awful affair for Selina to have orchestrated. Not but is this bad for Tom, information technology'due south also bad for women who actually take been harassed and want to be heard and believed.

Selina, of grade, doesn't care, and Louis-Dreyfus conveys that past having Selina exist as blasé as she tin possibly be in the confront of Tom's rage. While rehearsing the scene — which, as initially scripted, has Selina dismiss Tom by proverb, "I guess some people can't play the game" — Louis-Dreyfus asked Mandel: "I just wonder if in that location's something else to say? Something you lot might say about a hysterical woman, merely we tin do it from a woman'due south perspective?" Mandel liked that thought.

When they filmed it, he gave her the line, "She's then emotional," the "she" being Tom. Selina says it wryly to the former white senator she'south meeting with when Tom interrupts them. And so Louis-Dreyfus advertising-libbed, "This is why we need more than women in office."

I tin can't deny that when I scout Selina dismiss him with a "toodle-loo," a shiver goes up my spine. This is not how anyone should treat some other person, in politics or anywhere. Literally no one should do the things that she does. Simply seeing a woman cutting an angry, aggressive, dysfunctional human downwards to size with the kind of language ofttimes weaponized against women is undeniably empowering. In the thorny minefield that is gender and politics, there were glimmers of something admirable in the fashion Selina Meyer did what she had to practice, and to hell with what anyone else thought.

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Selina Meyer Was Awful. That's What Fabricated Her Neat.