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S&A "Scandal"

Talk-Back Session #4

(Who IS Quinn Perkins?

You'll Have 13 New Episodes

To Find Out)

Features by Tambay | May 18, 2012

And that's a wrap folks! 

It suddenly struck me how "post-racial" we could say the show is, in that Olivia Pope's race/skin color is really of no real bearing on the series' various narrative threads. It just is; we see her, we know she's a black woman, but it's not *announced*. Other than the visual reminder (can't wash it off, as the saying goes), you actually almost forget that she IS black; and that's also a credit to how connected and engaged you are as a viewer of the series, with all the various parts in this assembly line working well together to keep you occupied otherwise.

Whether all of that's a good thing or bad thing I'll let you all decide for yourselves. 

It's obviously significant if only because, for one of the very rare few instances in television history, America gets to see a black woman in this capacity, and with her skin color being almost akin to a prop. Now, who knows, showrunner/creator/producer Shonda Rhimes just might intro a scenario next season in which Olivia's race is indeed pivotal to a specific episode, or a narrative thread that stretches across multiple episodes. Or maybe not. 

Would you want her to do that?

And by the way, I'd say the same thing about Chief Of Staff Cyrus Beene's sexuality; he's gay, and we are told that, but, like Olivia being black, Rhimes doesn't *announce* it; it just is... you know... life... a sea of diverse, complex human beings.

We assume that the series takes place in the present-day; I don't know if at any point, it's dated - I can't immediately recall; my point being that Rhimes paints a portrait of a world - a USA specifically - in which matters of race and sexual orientation are of little concern to the people who populate this universe. And so it's not improbable that one wonders if this is a representation of an America as it exists today, or is it a futuristic one, minus all the CGI :)

Or an America as Rhimes would like it to be.

But I can only assume the controversy that must have surrounded the appointing of Cyrus - a seemingly openly gay man - as White House Chief Of Staff; especially with the pairing of a Vice President who's from the so-called Bible Belt, who espouses conservative, Christian values... or is all that just BS as well, and she's just as power-hungry and unscrupulous as the others, willing to do whatever is necessary to reach her ultimate goal of becoming President of the USA?

But, yes, it's a wrap for season 1 of Scandal, a show that apparently has a huge chunk of black America hooked - likely primarily female. Out of mere curiosity, how many of you dudes have kept up with the series? Also, how many of you women have not, and maybe don't care for it enough to do so? Not that every black woman is somehow obligated to watch it by the way because it stars a black woman; just asking...

A number of questions were answered (the most crucial being who really had Amanda Tanner killed); and of course, as you'd expect with any season finale, a cliffhanger - who is Quinn Perkins?

So who IS Quinn Perkins? And looking back on the previous 6 episodes, where any hints given at any time that might help answer that question? I can't immediately think of any.

In response to that question when asked by TV Guide, Rhimes herself obviously wouldn't give anything away, except to say:

I think you're going to find the answer very interesting. I'm still deciding [when we'll reveal it].

Obviously Olivia knows; she knows everything, and she did hire Quinn, so it's no surprise. Given the resistance to finger-printing her, and Olivia's knack for picking employees with *questionable* pasts, I think we can safely say Quinn falls right in-line with the others. So what you've got here is a kind of rag-tag team of smart people with problems, and Olivia is like their mother, which you could say makes sense, given her own shady past - having an affair with the Prez. One big happy family :)

Also noteworthy was the First Lady finally showing us who she really is. But I think we all (certainly I) suspected she had an agenda all her own early on. Specifically, in a previous talkback session, I said that their marriage is reminiscent of what people said about Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage - that it's essentially like a business partnership. Both have/had their political ambitions, and are/were simply working together like business partners to see those objectives through - even in light of Bill's 3 or 4 affairs, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which likely inspired the Amanda Tanner fiasco in Scandal.

Olivia's reaction when the First Lady *revealed* herself to her was hilarious; you could see the look of absolute surprise on her face, kind of like, "I don't know who this woman is."

But it's really no surprise that the First Lady is just as sheisty as several of the other characters on the show. It's a dog eat dog world out there; every man for himself. A sad commentary on the state of things (and not just within the political realm) we could say.

And now that we know Cyrus is the mastermind behind Amanda Tanner's death, looking ahead to next season, will others eventually learn the truth, and will whomever does, play a significant role in season 2?

Talking to TV Guide again, Rhimes had this to say in response:

The answer to both of those questions is yes. There's a level of power that Cyrus is playing with at this moment that allows him to distance himself from the actual acts of doing certain things, and possibly gives him a little bit of leeway in his mind. He really does think that he is doing what's best for the country. I absolutely believe Cyrus has a line that he won't cross. Cyrus is a patriot who really loves his country and really believes in the presidency. In a weird way, that's his flaw. His patriotism has taken him to some dark places.

Well, yeah. Like murder.

And what about Billy Chambers? Given what we saw towards the end of the episode, as he got on the elevator with Charlie, and later we see Charlie at Cyrus' house asking for the rest of his payment for taking out Amanda Tanner, because he needed to leave town ASAP, are we to assume that Charlie finished the job Huck assigned to him - to kill Billy Chambers?

Rhimes wouldn't answer that obviously.

And with Olivia handing in her White House badge/pass as she walked out of the compounds, does that imply she's done with that specific circle of people, and that entire narrative thread won't be continued next season?

Rhimes' reply: 

We'll see. I think it's important to keep her within that world in some capacity, but she burned a very important bridge. More than just walking away from him, she forced him to do something that he wasn't willing to do. He actually got the courage to walk away from his life, and she threw him back in. While she may be willing to come back in, he may not be willing to let her in.

And so does this open the door for a new romance for Olivia?

Rhimes's response: 

There is [the possibility of a new romance]. I was just talking about that today. There's a prospect of one. I don't know that we're going to get to it early in the second season, but there's definitely a prospect of one. I think that we call her a political nun and she has no personal life and we all know why she has no personal life. But I think that she reached a crossroads at the end of the finale. She handed in her White House badge. She was walking away. I think we might come upon her trying to get her own little bit of normal at this moment.

And might this new prospect be a black man?

Rhimes' reply:

[...]

Just kidding; that question wasn't asked; but I know a lot of you were thinking it. If I ever get an opportunity to interview Rhimes about the show between now and next season, I'll be sure to ask her that question for you all :)

But I won't be surprised if Rhimes hooks her up with the copper, David. They *dance* well together I think, and it won't be shocking to learn that they had a little something going on at one point, back in the day.

The TV Guide interview is quite thorough, so if you'd like your season 2 expectations potentially spoiled, I'd suggest you read it; if not, stay away. Not that Rhimes gives much away, but I think she hints at enough, and does answer a few of the questions head-on.

She talks about whether we can expect a major through-line next season as we had with the Amanda Tanner thread this season, and also the potential real-life scandals she might be considering as fodder for next season's episodes.

And by the way, this should make you fans of the show happy - she reveals that ABC ordered 13 episodes for season 2. So expect double the fun.

See ya next season!

 

__________________________

 

 

 

 

“Scandal,” the new ABC series created by Shonda Rhimes and starring Kerry Washington, is the first network TV drama with a black female lead character since 1974. That was the year of “Get Christie Love!,” a blaxploitation-inflected crime series starring Teresa Graves—best known for the catchphrase “You’re under arrest, sugar.” If you want to have your sensibilities shaken up, check out the top clip on YouTube: while undercover as a street hooker, Love is solicited by a customer. When she rejects him, he sneers, “Nigger.” Strutting away, she tosses off a comeback: “Nigger-lover!”

 

Thirty-eight years have passed, but, in certain ways, little has changed. Shonda Rhimes, who created “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice,” is still the sole prominent black female showrunner in television. (The most powerful black male showrunner is Tyler Perry, on TBS.) Although the heroine of “Scandal,” Olivia Pope, would never go in for Christie Love’s salty back talk, the two do share some qualities: they are incorruptible superprofessionals, worshipped and desired by everyone around them. Pope, once the President’s most trusted aide and, for a while, his secret mistress, is now the biggest fixer in Washington. (Her career is based on that of a real person: Judy Smith, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and deputy press secretary in George H. W. Bush’s White House.) In other political narratives, the fixer might be a cynical alcoholic, or a gleeful player like Gloria Allred. Not Pope. She’s the BlackBerry-wielding flack as avenging angel. Her employees, each of whom she’s rescued from rock bottom, describe themselves as “gladiators in suits”; they say that their boss “wears the white hat.” Despite, or perhaps because of, these dollops of praise, Pope comes off as a bit of a buzzkill, all glares and Sorkinesque lectures, eyes welling with righteousness.

 

It’s a shame, because the series started surprisingly well. Like House, and Bones, and Monk, Pope is a fetishized genius of intuition—she has a “gut” that tells her who is lying and the brass to blackmail her way to justice. With its split screens, booming seventies R. & B. soundtrack, and Washington herself in heels (the actress is so beautiful that she’s practically a special effect), “Scandal” felt, at first, like a goofy thrill ride. But, five episodes in, I’ve lost faith. Pope’s team of scandal-handlers is so blah I remember them by nicknames: Expository McBeal, Fast Talker, Torture Geek, Nice Suits, and Desmond from “Lost.” Their weekly cases (a closeted soldier, a date rape, a plane crash) begin brightly enough, then chip, like cheap paint, turning corny and manipulative.

 

The show’s best character in the early episodes was Amanda Tanner (played with poignant instability by Liza Weil), a White House staffer who claimed to be pregnant by the President. Pope was hired to shut Tanner up, but she ended up taking her on as a client; it looked as though we were about to trace the emergence of a nouveau Lewinsky (or maybe of a mistress-solidarity movement). Instead, in the fifth episode, Tanner was whacked, transforming the show into a locked-Oval Office mystery—an idea that sounds fun, and would be, if the suspects weren’t such venal cartoons. As Tanner’s body was dragged from a lake, Washington made her face of dimpled torment, but, by that point, like the captain of the Costa Concordia, I had jumped ship.

 

In this overheated context, Olivia Pope’s ethnicity is a non-issue; the show never refers to it. This places “Scandal” in contrast to “The Good Wife,” another network procedural, but one that is set in an Obama-haunted Chicago, and quite explicit about racial politics, as well as about institutional racism and white guilt. This year, “The Good Wife” featured a fascinating plot in which the scandal-tainted state’s attorney Peter Florrick (Chris Noth) fired several black staffers but retained his white deputy, Cary (Matt Czuchry), because, consciously or unconsciously, he felt closer to him; it was the first time I’d seen such subtle biases explored onscreen. Rhimes takes a more swashbuckling approach, which has its own pleasures: in “Scandal,” the President is a Republican who fights to pass the DREAM act and has a gay chief of staff. His Vice-President is female, a fundamentalist Christian and Tea Party loyalist. Rhimes has been obsessed with the mistress’s point of view in every show she’s written, but maybe in D.C. that obsession makes sense. (If you’re having an affair with the President, rather than with McDreamy, it actually is a big deal.) Yet, while Rhimes cuts and pastes freely from the modern electoral playbook, she has built a world in which not only does Obama not exist but neither do his race-baiting opponents. Like Cary, Pope’s an insider, “one of us”: her exceptional presence both overrides and renders invisible any racial tensions—so far, at any rate. (To its credit, “Scandal” at least gives its President a party affiliation, unlike HBO’s coy “Veep.”)

 

It’s possible that “Scandal” ’s post-racial fantasy will feel refreshing, for black viewers and non-black ones, in varying ways. It removes the weight of both race and racism: Pope is never referred to as the “first black” anything, and though she attracts powerful white men (and no black ones), they would never spit epithets, like Christie Love’s john, when she rejects them. And yet there’s no way to discuss the show without acknowledging this tactical peculiarity, especially as “Scandal” arrives at a time when TV is embroiled in a debate about diversity, much of it targeting “Girls,” the HBO comedy, which, aside from its female showrunner, has more in common with “Louie” or “Bored to Death” than with “Scandal.” Almost none of the hand-wringing writeups on the subject have talked about “Scandal,” since it’s the type of show the TV digerati don’t care about: it’s network, it’s formulaic, and it fits squarely in the feminine junk drawer, with “Grey’s Anatomy,” chick lit, and women’s magazines, where few consumers go looking for artistry or deep meaning.

 

Still, the discussion has got a lot wrong. It is true that TV is run by white men (as are, of course, the publications that print the pieces bemoaning that fact). It’s also true that sitcoms, specifically, have a history of featuring white ensembles that are often, as with “Seinfeld,” based on the creators’ friends. Yet current casting is not so monolithic, and it varies from cable to network, from sick-joke satire to earnest heart-tugger. Nearly all modern sitcoms include at least one character of color: “Happy Endings,” “Modern Family,” “The Office,” “New Girl,” “Up All Night,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Community,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Archer,” “Parks and Recreation,” “30 Rock,” “Whitney,” “Are You There, Chelsea?,” “Don’t Trust the B—in Apt 23,” and “Suburgatory” among them. Some of these ensembles click gorgeously, as in “Happy Endings,” with its sharp, funny interracial marriage. Others are blandly homeopathic—offering up a drop of color to ward off criticism—or employ gross stereotypes, like “2 Broke Girls.” What’s lacking in current TV isn’t black characters but all-black ensembles on channels other than BET or TBS—sitcoms like the eighties’ and nineties’ “A Different World” and “Living Single” and “The Cosby Show,” or like the edgier array of seventies series, including “Good Times,” in which black characters were able to fill every role: joker, princess, villain, nerd.

 

Part of the reason for this may be commercial: in today’s splintered TV market, audiences didn’t bite on “Undercovers” (last year’s spy drama about a married black couple) or HBO’s “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” (a sweet, languorous series set in Botswana). And surely one reason that viewers took so long to catch on to HBO’s “The Wire” was all those black male faces. The solution is not so easy as “Can’t her best friend be black?”—a question that is posed in a blunt, funny scene on “The L.A. Complex,” the new Canadian-made CW series about aspiring Hollywood entertainers. An aging white actress, informed that the “best friend” role she wanted to try out for would be cast black to “really reflect reality,” blurts out, “I mean, who has a black best friend, right? Like, in real life, if you’re trying to be all authentic?” She turns to the room full of unsmiling black actresses and asks, “Do any of you have a white best friend? No? Right.” (“The L.A. Complex” makes its own breakthrough in the next episode: a hot kiss between two black men.)

 

Of course, black and white are not the only colors of diversity. In recent years, there’s been a startling, largely unheralded boom of South Asian characters, thanks to writers and actors such as “The Office” ’s Mindy Kaling, “Parks and Recreation” ’s Aziz Ansari, and “Community” ’s Danny Pudi, along with characters on “Smash,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Whitney,” and “The Good Wife.” (At times I’ve wondered if this isn’t a psychic workaround: is brown safer than black?) Workplace procedurals—whose settings lend themselves to color-blind casting—have been comparatively diverse since the nineteen-eighties. Although George Clooney got all the press, the deepest and most original character in the début season of “ER” was Eriq La Salle’s repressed Dr. Peter Benton, the first idiosyncratic (and, significantly, the first flawed) black man I remember seeing on TV.

 

Shonda Rhimes’s melodramas may not be my cup of tea, but they have been havens for racial variety. On “Grey’s Anatomy,” Sandra Oh’s Cristina Yang stands out like Peter Benton: not because she is Asian but because she is Yang—a prickly egotist, not always likable, but with a mordant wit that makes her lovable nonetheless. Olivia Pope’s greatest character defect is her sexual history with the President, but that just suggests she’s a woman worth risking the White House for. It’s a regrettably big deal that a black woman plays the heroine of “Scandal,” and not the heroine’s best friend—and, for that reason alone, I’d wish for the show to succeed. (Far lamer cop shows hit the jackpot each year; a bad show that makes money can set more of a precedent than a good one.) But, so far, Pope has shown no wit, no looseness, no eccentricity. The more people praise her, the more exceptional she becomes—and the less human. ♦

>via: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2012/05/21/120521crte_televi...

 

__________________________

Judy Smith:

How the woman

who inspired 'Scandal'

redefined black female

power players in DC

By Sophia A. Nelson 8:25 AM on 05/17/2012

 

Actress Kerry Washington (L) and Co-Executive Producer Judy Smith speak during the 'Scandal' panel during the ABC portion of the 2012 Winter TCA Tour held at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on January 10, 2012 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

 

Simply put, crisis management is dealing strategically with a problem, issue or crisis. We help provide strategy, and figure out how to solve that problem. You see some of it in the show. Each person -- when they are faced with a crisis -- has to decide where they want to end up, what is the end game. We help them to do that.

I think this is an important point: a lot of times when we are in a crisis -- and there's a problem or there's an error and you've made a mistake -- one of the things we think is key, is to admit that mistake early. It is also important to understand that so many people we might see on TV or hear about on the radio -- they are high profile, but we fail to see their humanity. The truth is, they are people just like you and me. We all make mistakes, we all falter, but we as people should be mindful that there are second chances on the other side of crisis and those chances can present great opportunity.

 

How do you feel about this show that is based on your life? Why do women love it, and black women even more so, as is evidenced on Thursday nights when you get on Twitter? Sisters love this show and tweet about it non-stop the entire hour.

I think that the connection is really a reflection of who we are as black women. Kerry plays a strong, intelligent, savvy woman who is incredibly good at what she does, yet she is also vulnerable and compassionate, which is something we don't often see about us as black women.

On Smith's relationship to presidents

To add context, we asked Judy about Olivia, the character Kerry Washington plays on Scandal-- and Kerry's onscreen relationship with Tony Goldywyn's fictional character of the president in that world. Judy confirmed that she herself did not have an affair with a president (she chuckled when asked that question), but she reaffirmed that the way Shonda Rhimes writes is to make her characters just as unpredictable as Olivia -- like real people. It is a way to keep us viewers on the edge of our seats, gasping as we often do (sometimes on Twitter) as we watch Kerry's portrayal of Olivia step outside of the zones usually reserved for black women on television. Here's what Smith had to say.

Sophia Nelson: How have you defined and redefined your life over the past twenty years or so?

Judy Smith: In terms of defining my life or career path, it for me has just been about the work -- hard work -- because work speaks for itself. But in terms of answering your question, I have been able to do different things, redefine [myself] if you will, as a result of the crisis work that I do. I got to take my 20 years of experience and put it in a book, Good self, Bad Self, which helps people to navigate crisis in their everyday lives.

I have gained so much knowledge and experience dealing with my clients, that it has allowed me to use that knowledge to create... first a book, [and] now this TV show. That is a journey I don't think I ever really imagined 20 years ago. So understand my point: my 20 years of crisis work that has now inspired a new TV show is simply an expansion of the kinds of things that I was already doing.

My advice to young women coming up is to do what you do; do it well and master it! Be your own best crisis manager. I also want to stress that while relationships matter in how we succeed in life, it is never a replacement for doing good, hard work.

What is it like working with Shonda Rhimes, the great television writer and producer?

I met Shonda through her producing partner Betsy, and what was slated as a fifteen minute introductory meeting turned into a two hour discussion. It turned out to be a really nice, wonderful conversation. It was great. And here we are. What I like about Shonda is that she works with complex characters. They are not black and white, they are not in the proverbial "box." Her characters have nuances, they are layered. The characters in shows like Scandalconnect with us, because we as people can relate to them. We are layered, we are complex.

Shonda has a gift for taking the dramatic in our lives, the fast pace of our lives, and making it connect with the viewing audience. And Kerry [Washington] is just amazing. She is a good actress, she is very smart. We've spent a lot of time together and she totally gets and understands what I do as a crisis manager. She then brings that to life on the screen in a vibrant way that connects. What is also great is that I have become friends with Shonda, Betsy, and Kerry. A powerful, down to earth group of women. I am really pleased with the show, and excited about season number two in 2013.

Sophia A. Nelson is a journalist, award winning author and entrepreneur. Her book, Black Woman Redefined, has been discussed in various media outlets. Follow Sophia A. Nelson on Twitter at @SophiaRedefined

>via: http://www.thegrio.com/entertainment/judy-smith-the-woman-who-truly-redefined...