A Bit... On the Nose...

Art can predict the future, and truth can be stranger than fiction.

#1 Veep, 2012-2019

Created By Armando Iannucci

Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky

7 Seasons

"I need you to make me not have said that..."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has received a total of eleven Emmy awards and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame for her work as executive producer and leading lady on HBO's hit show Veep. In one of her dozen acceptance speeches, Julia mused, "I think that Veep has torn down the wall between comedy and politics. Our show started as a political satire but now feels more like a sobering documentary.”

Over the course of seven hilarious seasons, Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus) and her painfully incompetent staff try to navigate the politics of the White House and Capitol Hill. Events along the way tend to reflect (and predict) recent political history, sometimes purely by coincidence.

The episode "Oslo" (S7 E6) revolves around the anti-vaccination agenda of an unsavory politician, Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simmons) and a corresponding outbreak of chickenpox. "Oslo" aired on May 5, 2019, and from January to August of that same year, Washington state had two outbreaks of measles, with the most cases the state had seen since 1990. In an interview for The Salt Lake Tribune, executive producer David Mandel said, “Obviously, we didn’t write that thinking that everyone in Washington state is going to die of measles, but that may happen by Monday... So that’s Veep.”

The parallels don't end with anti-vaxxers, though. In the same episode, Jonah blames the chickenpox outbreak on immigrants, prompting a supporter to yell, "Kill them!" Less than a week after the episode premiered, Trump held a rally in Florida, and rhetorically asked the crowd how to stop migrants from crossing the border. One of his supporters interrupted the speech and yelled out, "Shoot them!" The remark was met with laughter and cheers from the audience... Trump smiled, shook his head and said, "Only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement." Or HBO, I guess...

Over the series, the Meyer team evolves from being merely ineffectual buffoons to a pack of power-hungry, self-serving scoundrels bent on misleading the public. Selina (like our current President) is consumed by self-interest and an extraordinarily fragile ego, but is publicly unflinching when dealing with her own version of the truth regarding email scandals and under-the-table assistance from foreign nations. On a special crossover segment of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert implored Selena Meyer face-to-face to "Stop scripting Trump," so America could survive.

Veep is intelligent and hilarious political satire at it's best, with a bonus master class in cursing, if you can stomach the language. The lightning fast dialogue and irreverent humor justify multiple viewings, and might lend some repose to our current administration's attitude and inaction during the pandemic.

To quote Selina Meyer:

"That's like trying to use a croissant as a fucking dildo. Let me be more clear: It doesn't do the job, and it makes a fucking mess!"

Available to Stream on Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBOgo, HBOnow, YouTubeTV

#Veep #Comedy #TVSeries #Politics #TheTruthIsStrangerThanFiction #Hulu #AmazonPrime #HBOgo #HBOnow #YouTubeTV #Trump #CroissantDildo

#2 The Host, 2006

Directed By Bong Joon Ho

Starring Kang-ho Song, Hee-Bong Byun, Hae-il Park

"When a parent's heart breaks, the sound can travel for miles."

Fourteen years before winning four Academy Awards for Parasite (including Best Picture), Bong Joon Ho was already creating phenomenal cinematic social commentary with 2006's The Host.

Bong's work can be difficult to classify into traditional genres. On the surface, The Host is a "monster flick", but at its heart lies a combination of horror, action, and drama with a dash of social allegory and environmentalism. Thankfully, Bong's social commentary is merely the backdrop to a really excellent thriller. While discussing the nature of his film Snowpiercer in an interview with Film Comment, Bong explained, "The political message comes afterwards, when you're falling asleep at night or think about it for a few seconds--that's enough."

The reveal of the film's monster happens early on, allowing the remaining action to be consistently engaging and well-paced. The ensuing story is peppered with surprising parallels to the coronavirus pandemic, making it feel like this movie was made yesterday... As a virus with properties similar to SARS begins to spread through the community, anyone who came into contact with the monster is subject to strict quarantine. The government can't seem to get it's story straight, but people are wearing masks and fearing anyone with a cough. It felt odd to experience a strong sense of empathy for characters in a horror film...

From there, we follow the Park family, and their efforts to save young Hyun-seo (Ko Asung) from almost certain death. They are faced with larger adversaries than the monster, however, including ineffectual government, overbearing American self-righteousness, bureaucratic red tape, and media sensationalism. Each member of the Park family struggles with an oddly-familiar combination of feeling simultaneously helpless and resilient against overwhelming adversity.

As their pleas for help fall on deaf ears, our heroes take matters into their own hands, and you'll find yourself rooting for them every step of the way.

Available to Stream on Hulu and Amazon Prime

(Note: If you haven't seen Parasite, yet, you definitely should. Available to stream on Hulu.)

#TheHost #Parasite #Horror #Thriller #Virus #TheTruthIsStrangerThanFiction #Hulu #AmazonPrime

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