American TV is awash with Hillary Clinton-alikes... but which gets the vote?

We analyse the contenders, fromVeep's Selina Meyer to the new Madam Secretary

Sarah Hughes
Friday 17 April 2015 20:27 BST
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Television scheduling doesn’t get luckier, or unluckier, than this, depending on your point of view. Last Sunday, on the very day Hillary Clinton announced that she was joining the presidential race, Armando Iannucci’s comedy Veep returned for a fourth season in the US with its own female president: Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ newly promoted Selina Meyer, who had reached the position more by accident than design.

From Meyer’s new short haircut onwards, the parallels with Clinton have been clear, though Clinton will be hoping for a smoother initiation into the job, should she win the 2016 election – the series opener saw Meyer giving a hilariously bungled State of the Union address.

“[Selina is] a very, very shitty president,” said Louis-Dreyfus ahead of the American premiere and Clinton’s widely predicted announcement. “I do think it’s incredibly synchronistic, if in fact Hillary does decide to run…it’s good for our show – I’m not sure that we’re good for her though.”

That Clinton is unlikely to have much time to switch on the TV over the next couple of years is probably for the best: she might be disconcerted by the host of characters seemingly alluding to her and her political career. As well as Meyer, there’s Tea Leoni’s Secretary of State in Madam Secretary, which starts on Sky Living next week; Alfre Woodard’s no-nonsense female prez in new Katherine Heigl thriller State of Affairs and the power-craving First Ladies of House of Cards and Scandal. The question is: what do these shows tell us about America’s attitude towards senior women in politics and how a first Female President might be perceived?

Set against these romantic portrayals, however, are those that more salaciously hark back to the idea of Hillary as the scheming woman biding her time behind a not-so-great man. (David M. Russell/CBS )

On one hand, what’s noticeable is a strain of gender-specific romanticism that paints female politicians as political saviours, bringing ethics and a moral code back to the Washington wilderness. That’s certainly the case with Madam Secretary and State of Affairs, both of which feature cool-headed idealistic heroines that nod to Clinton but with the messier components – the pragmatism, the debates over emails and Benghazi – tidied away. “What is especially striking is that in an age of deep cynicism about Washington, the new portraits of women in high office are painted in rosy shades of respect and admiration,” wrote New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley in a recent critique of the two shows.

Madam Secretary creator Barbara Hall is happy to admit that her show has an agenda when portraying women in senior politics. “I’m very interested in the aspirational aspect of story telling, particularly as regards Washington,” she says, adding that she drew on the combined experiences of Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice in creating Leoni’s Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA analyst and Political Science Professor who unexpectedly becomes Secretary of State bringing a fresh vision to Washington’s stale corridors. “I think [the idea of a female President] is an idea whose time is upon us. I hope everyone is feeling the encroachment of more women in positions of power and I believe giving everyone an image of that, even in fictional storytelling, helps move it forward.”

between the idealists and the ice-queens, Veep’s Selina Meyer may prove the most Hillary-like of all. 

Yet the character who has done the most for the image of female politicians on TV is found not within the Washington community, but in local government. Parks and Recreation’s Leslie Knope, the Pawnee Deputy Parks Director and Hillary’s No 1 fan, gave us the female politician as eternal optimist, memorably proclaiming: “Government isn’t just a boys’ club any more. Women are everywhere.” in the pilot episode. Over seven seasons, the indomitable Knope, played by Amy Poehler, proved herself, as Salon had it, America’s “last great public servant”.

Set against these romantic portrayals, however, are those that more salaciously hark back to the idea of Hillary as the scheming woman biding her time behind a not-so-great man. That’s the case with House of Cards’ recent third season, which nodded to Bill and Hill’s long-alleged political pact for securing power in its fractious dealings between the first couple. “I should never have made you President,” spat Claire Underwood during a particularly ferocious fight with her husband and the season is littered with suggestions that she would make the better leader. Robin Wright, who plays Claire, has repeatedly insisted that her ambitious character is not based on Hillary but the show itself is considerably less coy, even using Hillary’s announcement last Sunday to draw parallels between the two with a series of Twitter announcements on the importance of women in power.

Like many politicians, Selina compromises and changes her mind, lets down her staff and makes terrible mistakes.

Shonda Rhimes’ deliriously over-the-top political drama Scandal is equally obsessed with the idea of a First Lady who dreams of more than smiling beatifically in a stylish dress. Thus despite a CV that is more Laura Bush than Hillary Clinton, Scandal’s Mellie Grant continues to believe that one day the Oval Office will be hers. “I’m a rose dying on a vine here. Give me a war to run or the CIA or something,” she once sighed with frustration; by season four her eyes were on the main prize: “I want to be the President of the United States…I want to run the world,” she announced as her husband, the President, looked at her with a mixture of respect and fear.

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Yet between the idealists and the ice-queens, Veep’s Selina Meyer may prove the most Hillary-like of all. As the beating heart of Armando Iannucci’s political comedy, she is the most like a realistic politician, regardless of gender. Horrendously entitled, she appears to believe she should be President simply because it’s her turn – a line of argument that comedy show Saturday Night Live used to good effect against Hillary recently with a sketch in which she reminded viewers that she was supposed to be President while her aides worked out how to make her more “likeable”.

Like many politicians, Selina compromises and changes her mind, lets down her staff and makes terrible mistakes. Yet she can also be loyal and just occasionally she even manages to stick up for what she believes in. She’s the political high flyer as flawed human being, full stop. Yes, the real-life Hillary Rodham Clinton is far less likely to fall prey to the silly errors that repeatedly dog Selina but if you’re looking for a show that dissects the reality of life as a high-flying woman in US politics ahead of another historic White House race, Veep is the one that delivers.

‘Madam Secretary’ starts on Sky Living on 23 April at 9pm. ‘Veep’ returns to Sky Atlantic in the summer

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