HAIL TO THE VEEP
No one does narcissist like Julia Louis-dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus returns for second season premiere,
When the sitting vice-president of the United States is already a character in an absurdist reality show called the White House, it’s sometimes hard to figure out the acclaim for Veep, which returns for a second season Sunday (HBO at 10 p.m.). Julia Louis-Dreyfus returns as the ambitious vice-president in the Season 2 opener and we’re right in the middle of a mid-term election. The action is frantic and the profanity-laced quips keep coming in the opening scenes. Louis-Dreyfus, as potty-mouthed vice-president Selina Meyer, has a commanding hold of the small screen. The problem is, any situation the writers of Veep can make up pales next to current reality. Who can forget American vice-president Joe Biden’s “Spread your legs, you’re about to be frisked!” You can’t make this stuff up. Still, it’s not hard to see why Louis-Dreyfus won an Emmy for her role. Nobody plays a self-involved narcissist better than the former Seinfeld actor. You need a plenty big ego to think you can run the most powerful nation on Earth and Louis-Dreyfus delivers.
As in the other White House comedy, 1600 Penn, series creator Armando Iannucci refuses to tell the audience whether the sitting government is Republican or Democrat. So the jokes are typically one size fits all.
Perhaps where Veep succeeds better than most is lampooning the strategists and spin doctors who relentlessly control the message track of contemporary politics.
When the Veep is talking to her ex-husband, her aide is in the background telling her what to say. When she does a daytime talk show, her handler tells her to practise “smiling with her nose.”
Veep also does a superb job of satirizing the pole-climbing, kiss-ass world of politics, as the vice-president tries to get more profile and attention, while her underlings fight for status and props.
After her Emmy win last year, Louis-Dreyfus got a congratulatory call from the White House from the real vice-president. But perhaps it was Biden who should have taken the bow.