The creator of the popular HBO political comedy series “Veep” said the current political reality is “madder” than that portrayed in the comedy series in an opinion piece published Friday in The New York Times.
“What’s going on? The stuff happening out there right now is madder than ‘Veep’ and deadly serious,” Armando Iannucci said in his Times piece.
He added, “These are real events, not melodramatic fictions, and they have a real impact on our lives. Depending on who wins, either we’ll continue our attempts to halt global warming, or we’ll sit back and melt in our sleep.”
“Veep” has gained extra attention in the wake of President Biden stepping out of the 2024 presidential race and Vice President Harris becoming the likely Democratic nominee, with some seeing parallels between the show’s storyline and current events.
“The show stars the unbeatable Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer,” Iannucci said in his Times piece. “As the series progresses, Selina is suddenly thrown onto the main stage when the president decides not to run for a second term, leaving her to go into the convention as the new presumptive nominee. For 24 hours, the mainstream media asked if I was pleased with the comparison.”
“This is the first time I’m setting out a definitive answer to that question, and the answer is: No, I’m not. I’m extremely worried! Not about Ms. Harris. I’m sure she’ll inject much-needed sharpness into the campaign,” he continued. “What worries me is that politics has become so much like entertainment that the first thing we do to make sense of the moment is to test it against a sitcom.”
A producer of “Veep,” David Mandel, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday that the most similar candidate in this year’s presidential race to Louis-Dreyfus’ character in the series is Trump, not Harris.
“The Selina-est candidate is Donald Trump,” Mandel said in the interview.
“Vain, worried about his looks, has a ridiculously better relationship with his body people than his own children, petty, vindictive, worries about his own money, doesn’t believe what he says, says whatever to get elected,” Mandel continued.