Last month, the current US President Joe Biden withdrew from the re-election campaign and nominated Vice President Kamala Harris (Kamala Devi Harris) to take office to compete with former President Donald Trump. If successfully elected, she will become the first female president in U.S. history. The seemingly unexpected changes in the political situation were actually "spoiled" in an American drama that ended many years ago. That is the comedy "Veep" starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (left) poses with Harris Harris
"Vice" takes the fictional US Vice President Selina Mayer as the protagonist. In 2019, the show ended its seventh season. Unexpectedly, five years later, on July 22, 2024, the day after Biden announced his withdrawal from the race, the ratings of the first season of "Vice" on the streaming media platform Max suddenly showed an explosive 353% increase.
In the show's first season, U.S. Senator Selina Mayer of Maryland ran for president but lost the party nomination to Stewart Hughes. She later joined Hughes' campaign and was elected vice president. However, in the second season, President Hughes suddenly resigned, not only temporarily replacing Meyer as acting president, but also having to run for re-election.
"Veep" poster
The fictional comedy is brought to life, making "Veep" quickly become a hot keyword on American social media. Various memes spread widely, and the outside world is curious about the show's creator Armando Innu. How did Armando Iannucci come up with such an idea so many years in advance?
Recently, this Hollywood ace screenwriter who was born in Scotland accepted an interview with "Hollywood Reporter". Not only did he introduce a lot of inspiration for the screenwriter of "Vice", he even implemented it into practical issues and raised a lot of questions for Vice President Harris Harris. suggestion. In his view, the competition for the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November will be "very, very fierce, and the situation will not be clear until the final result is announced. No one will lead by a large margin, and various different opinions will continue until Last minute”.
Although Iannucci said that he could not predict what the final result would be, his advice to the Democratic camp was: "Don't always say things like 'Trump is crazy,' because everyone has already understood this. I know, and everyone has their own opinion, so I suggest starting with policies and emphasizing that the policies that the Trump team talks about are the really crazy things, because not all voters already know this. . Trump claims to represent the interests of the American working class, but many of the policies he proposes are to raise prices in the trade war, redistribute taxes, make the rich in the United States richer, and make large companies, consortiums and technology giants richer. Get more power and influence."
Overall, Armando Iannucci has a pessimistic attitude towards current American politics, and even doubts whether he would have created "Vice" if he had seen what is going on today. President” idea. "The premise of this drama is that some politicians make some mistakes, and then they are worried about being discovered, so they try their best to cover it up, which sometimes turns out to be self-defeating. But now, more than ten years later, when Trump can openly When you say something like, 'I could shoot someone in the face on Fifth Avenue and people would still vote for me,' there are no rules anymore, honestly." Trump once boasted at a campaign rally. His original words at the time were: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and still not lose my voters."
So, in Armando· According to Iannucci, the political language used by Trump has strayed far away from the traditional structure based on established political rules on which the story of "Vice" is based. "Politicians in the past, they were worried about getting caught if they made a mistake. With Trump, he's like, 'Oh, don't worry about me saying that, because the next day I'm going to say I was joking. Yes, you are taking yourselves too seriously."
Finally, Iannucci behaved relatively calmly regarding the various "Veep" memes that are hot on social media. In his view, there is a danger. "That is to equate the presidential campaign with The dangers of comparing whose social media campaign is better are not issues that the average voter is really considering right now. Everything still comes down to practical issues such as job opportunities, economic policy, and national security. The buzz on social media may reinforce some voters' preexisting beliefs, but I don't think it will completely change people's minds, and I don't think it alone will drive people to the polls. I think there's a danger in thinking that if something is trending on social media, everyone can see it. That's not the case, and you'll eventually find that only a tiny minority of voters actually take this seriously. "
