Remember how perfect the thick of it finale was? The comedy of Malcolm running around various police stations trying to get arrested quietly counterbalanced by the absolute brilliance of Peter Capaldi's performance? Malcolm Tucker was a bastard throughout the whole series but when he stood outside the police station and told the press "I want to say something... Actually... It doesn't matter." I felt sorry for him! That's what happens when you get an actor as fantastic as Peter Capaldi paired with a writer as fantastic as Armando Iannuci. I highly doubt Julia Louis-Dreyfus will get a moment to showcase her excellence under Mandel since he seems completely obsessed with stripping her of all humanity
Before I get into my answer anon, bear in mind that I’m not American. Racism is the primary fault line in American culture in a way that is very hard for non-Americans to get their heads around.
It’s not that other societies don’t struggle with racism and problems of exclusion and so on, because of course they do - it’s just that politics fractures along different issues. Racism can inflect and be inflamed by those issues (think secularism in France) but it doesn’t necessarily lie at the heart of them.
This is why I often find within fandom Europeans and Americans talking at cross purposes when it comes to race and representation. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen someone I would consider a pretty standard white European described as ‘brown’ and therefore excluded - is that a function of my privilege (quite possibly) or of how race is constructed within a different political culture?
To give you a weird example of this, I don’t know how many discussions I’ve seen of racial representation in Harry Potter - and rightly so, it’s an important topic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a conversation that points out the near total absence of Welsh, Scottish or Irish characters (no Welsh that I can recall, and only one each of the others) - or, that in Harry Potter land, Irish independence did not extend to Wizards, who still come under the British ministry. That’s a major and still contested political problem that Rowling effectively pretends doesn’t exist. And like Enid Blyton before her, she places her school firmly in the Celtic fringe (Cornwall for Blyton, Scotland for Rowling), but includes almost no characters from that place. It’s a pretty backdrop in which English characters interact.
Now, I’m not saying fandom should talk about this - I’m more using it to illustrate that the problems we perceive in a work are to at least some extent reflective of our own political priorities - and because fandom is largely American, the representation of race in Harry Potter has become one of the dominant strands of criticism (in many ways I would argue that the anti-Muggleborn prejudice in the story more closely resembles anti-Semitism or maybe anti-Catholic prejudice than racism on the strictest definition, but anyway).
All of which is a long winded way of saying, my answer to this is likely to be partial and frustrating to American reader, because there are aspects of how racism functions in American society that I just don’t get. (To get personal for a moment, I remember giving an American directions in London the summer before Obama was elected - during which I said “see the white house ? Turn right after the White House.” I’m still angry with myself for not responding when he said “like our White House - but it’s not going to be the White House for much longer.” I was so stunned and baffled that he would even think that, let alone say it, to a stranger, that I had no idea what to say. In retrospect perhaps it was a warning).
On the most basic level, I don’t find the racism in Veep’s final seasons as viscerally upsetting as the sexism. And probably this has a lot to do with it not feeling personal to me in the same way, but I think a big part of it is that it’s not something the characters are actually doing to each other. They say the most appalling things, but by and large the actions they take against each other are not racially inflected - as in, setting aside what they say, Richard is not abused or denied opportunities or humiliated on the basis of his race by the narrative. Whereas, the narratives treatment of Amy and Selina seems highly dependent on sexist assumptions of how women are supposed to behave, which they are punished for not living up to by the story.
Now, you may disagree with me on that one, which is fair enough. I should say, I think there is a fair argument to be made that the world the characters of Veep inhabit is relentlessly and unrealistically white - other than Danny Chung and one Congresswoman on the panel in 4.09, I can’t think of any non-white politicians in the first six seasons of the show. And the two black characters in the main cast - Sue and Richard - play somewhat marginal roles in the team. They also don’t get to be involved in the down and dirty politics in the same way as everyone else - Sue because she is too professional (I’d argue that a black woman being the most professional person in the cast is a comment on how these things function, but it’s very buried) and Richard because he (somehow) becomes an exemplar of integrity despite having the social skills of a three year old.
It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine recasting the characters - would Jonah or Dan or Ben exist in the same way if they’d been cast with non-white actors? I highly doubt it. (I can however imagine recasting Amy or Kent that way).
So, I don’t think Veep’s narrative structure is intrinsically racist in its final years in the way it became intrinsically sexist - though I’m certainly open to being pushed on that.
However, it did become highly reliant on constant racist jokes for humour in the Mandel years. I have the same objection to them that I had to the “beefy blonde” line about Amy - they’re not funny. Sure, they’re shocking - I gasped at some of the things Selina said in the opening of 7.06 - but there’s no wit or insight in them. Not one of them made me laugh - I just felt a kind of weary disgust.
In fact, they feel fundamentally puerile to me. There are times and places when it is necessary to depict racist attitudes in order to critique them, but I don’t think Veep really did that. If anything, I felt its inclusion of horrible racism felt...complacent.
Over and over again, I got the feeling that the show was using racist language in the same way it used swear words - the jokes are treated as though they are shocking in the exact same way. Now I’m not going to quote the language here, but if the word fuck shocks you as much as explicit racism, you either do not understand the words you’re using, or there is something wrong with your moral compass.
With that in mind, I felt like Veep was able to use the language in that way, because the writers rested on the assumption that everyone agrees that racial slurs are taboo, everyone agrees that dehumanising refugees is wrong. And sadly, that isn’t the case.
The one point where I thought the writers used racism intelligently was in Jonah’s storyline. Part of the problem with the lines coming from Ben and Selina is that their opposition, the person questioning their racism, is always framed as an over sensitive millennial - a positioning that delegitimises critique before it’s even made.
But with Jonah, I think it was made very, very clear, that the problem was him, that he was whipping up racism because he was a hateful, ignorant person, and that it was based on nothing but intellectual laziness. Though even in Jonah’s story there’s a sharp devolution - in season 6 he leaves a party due to the rampant fascism on display, in season 7 he whips up hatred of Muslims. It’s not a particularly credible character arc.
In Iannucci’s time I think the writers shied away from writing “about” racism, probably because, like me, they knew they wouldn’t be able to write about how it functions in American politics intelligently. But in Mandel’s era - I feel like they constantly try to shock us with racism, using it illustrate how terrible the characters are, but the way in which they do so merely demonstrates that they don’t take racism seriously as a political force. And the unforgivable part is...none of the jokes they make with it are even remotely funny. (Ben’s line about millennials being “too lazy to learn how to drive drunk” almost justifies the storyline in that episode though).
I’ve been thinking about this for a few days and we still know so little about the show after 7x03 that it’s hard to come up with something that seems reasonable, but for some reason I don’t think Amy snaps in 7x03 and leaves Selina to join Jonah just because Dan is a shirt. Amy is tough, so maybe it’s something else, maybe something she never had to deal with. From 7x02 promo we know that Selina and Gary find it funny that she’s pregnant, but their behaviour is nothing new. I always though Amy would leave because of a combination of Dan and Selina being horrible to her but at least in the first episode of season 7 it doesnt look like Dan was saying those things to actually hurt her, he didn’t want to deal with it and being the selfish person that he is he acted that way. (which is not ok). And Selina...I think she’s so caught up in her campaing - and we have less episodes - that being horrible to Amy doesn’t seem like her priority, narratively speaking, I don’t see the writers “wasting” screentime with this. So my theory: Dan continues with his 7x01 behaviour, I still have so much doubt about the skipping rocks scene, it could happen in so many diferent ways. He asks “Ames, am I getting old?” and it seems too early for him to realise he wants something more, especially since this is the biggest plot of the season, and as many people said: he is a slow leaner, he needs to be without Amy to really realise - or admit to himself -that he misses her, that he wants to be with her. Maybe they get interruped or this conversation is just the start he needs. Reid Scott said that this was his favorite scene so I bet we’re gonna see a side of Dan we have never seem before but we won’t get any answers, like I said, it’s too early for that. For some reason, I think Amy decides to get an abortion, not because Dan told her to, or because she wants to, but because she’s hurt. And that’s when the road trip happens, and I do believe it’s impossible to be in a car with someone for hours without really talking so my guess is that they bond, kinda the way they did with the name in 7x01 (even tho it only lasted 2 seconds), and they get used to the idea of having a kid together without telling the other in those words because duh, it’s dan and amy, and continue their roadtrip. We know there’s gonna be two scenes in the clinic, right? I dont remember where I read this. When they arrive there - with a different mindset, maybe amy says she doesn’t wanna do this in the first clinic scene - they find out she had a miscarrige and that’s what makes her snap and leave Selina. We, as a audience, know that she wants to have the baby so she doesn’t know how to deal with this, especially since it wouldn’t be her choice so she leaves, she doesn’t want to be around Dan, maybe realises she was wasting her life working with Selina and chooses to work with Jonah because it wouldnt be so personal if he wins or loses. There’s still too many details that I have no idea how to organize in a theory...
It seems too dramatic but dark enough for veep, what do you guys think? @casliyn @wecouldstillbegreat @thebookofmaev @atouchofireland
I previously wrote an exhaustive (slash exhausting) (take your pick) analysis of Amy’s costuming in Veep, and so I thought I would dive in and do one for season 6. Without wanting to sound like I’m assigning homework, it may be worth having a look at that, as her costuming in season uses the same motifs - just in new ways.
As always, Amy’s costuming is very much defined by the chief relationships in her life - in the case of season six Buddy, Selina and Dan (and I’m going to look at them in that order, for reasons that will hopefully become clear as we go through).
We left Amy and Buddy in season 5 looking like this:
Pink (or sometimes red) is one of Amy’s ‘vulnerable’ colours, one she wears almost exclusively in relation to romance. She’s clearly excited about Buddy in 5x10 - wanting to tell Selina about him, and bringing him to the inauguration as her date. (For Amy, introducing a man to Selina is probably more important than introducing him to her parents.)
But when it comes to season 6, well... the bloom is rather off the rose.
A couple of things to note here. First of all, look how covered up Amy is. Arms and chest are both completely covered - she’s still wearing flashes of red, but everything else about her outfits screams a desire not to be touched. She doesn’t want Buddy’s skin touching her skin.
It’s particularly noticeable that she wears multiple pussy-bow blouses (and will later in the season), a sort of double-cover of her chest - or, to be romantic about it, her heart. These outfits are also busy - she’s wearing multiple colours and often patterns...the kind of things that look fine in real life but read as fussy and distracting on screen. The butterfly print outfit in particular reads as annoyance in clothing form - too many colours, an uncomfortably high neckline, a different coloured skirt, an awkwardly placed “Calhoun for Governor” pin and a cardigan that still allows flashes of shoulder skin.
Her clothes include red or pink throughout all of her scenes with Buddy, with one single exception. While Amy might be trying to make things work with him, there is one scene where her overwhelming desire is to disappear into the background.
Amy’s dominant colours in this scene are the white of her blouse and the gold of her hair - both of which are reflected in the State House (at least, I assume that’s what it is) behind her. She wants to blend in...but someone won’t let her.
More interestingly, her costuming ties to her to both men in the scene. On the surface level, the black and white of her blouse is a direct match with the black and white of Buddy’s suit and bolo tie. But, look carefully and you’ll see that Dan is also wearing a black and white patterned shirt - the male equivalent of her fussy blouse (getting the microphone into that must have been a considerable challenge).
She doesn’t want attention from either Dan or Buddy in this scene (and again, she’s covered up as much as humanly possible) but as will become clear... neither of them cares that much about what she wants.
It’s hardly surprising that Amy left Buddy shortly after this interview (and from Dan’s reaction, it’s likely he saw that coming)... but it’s equally unsurprising that she didn’t go running into Dan’s arms.
Instead, she went back to someone safe.
Look at that... skin! We actually see that Amy has arms. We’re never told how or why Amy went back to work for Selina, but the costuming alone makes clear... that Amy feels comfortable and confident with Selina in a way she never did with Buddy.
This shows itself in a couple of different ways. Firstly, Amy’s clothing is simpler, and easier to move in than it was when she was with Buddy (no more pussy bows means much cleaner lines). Not only that, but for the first time in a long time, Amy’s not wearing super high-heels. (But they will return).
Over the next few episodes it becomes clear - these women have a bond.
On the most basic level, look how often Amy’s clothing matches Selina’s. All of her costumes reflect Selina’s somehow - whether by matching the colours or complementing them (or in one case, having matching lace details at the waist).
The other thing to note is how dark Amy’s clothing is. I noted in the previous analysis that we could tell Amy had become more confident in season three by the sudden explosion of colour in her wardrobe. This is the direct opposite. She’s constantly in either dark blue or black, and while she has relaxed a little around Selina, she’s still remarkably covered up by her own standards.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Amy is somewhat in mourning. While we may not have seen much good from him, it’s unlikely she would have agreed to marry Buddy if he was only terrible - and the break-up of her engagement, being humiliatingly public, and tied to her professional life in an unhelpful way, seems to have put a serious dent in her self-confidence.
And while Selina may have provided a temporary safe haven, she’s not someone who’s going to help Amy heal. As the season goes on, Amy’s costuming starts to diverge from Selina’s, quite sharply. It would be nice to think that this was because of Selina’s ongoing abuse of Amy - which gets more and more flagrant as the season goes on - but I think it’s something different.
Selina is so self-interested, she can’t even bring herself to condemn Female Genital Mutilation, and if her expression is anything to go by, Amy is genuinely appalled. She still has some standards, and from here on out, her links with Selina (in terms of clothing) start to decrease.
The very next episode, we find out that she’s trying to go to work for Furlong. (This has nothing to do with Amy, but I love Mike’s sad little pocket square - presumably his attempt to be fancy. Dan would be horrified if he saw such sartorial fail). She becomes more insistent about needing clarity on her role, and has a conversation with Mike about the possibility of having children - and, at the same time as she, slowly, starts to come out of her self-imposed shell, she begins to dress more and more in opposition to Selina.
There is no colour-matching here, and almost no similarity of style - and unsurprisingly, it’s in this episode (6x09) that Selina makes it brutally clear (to the audience, if not Amy herself) how little she values her. By the time we reach 6x10, they are dressed almost as complete opposites, Amy in dark grey to Selina’s white. It’s hardly surprising that this is the scene in which Amy all but declares she’s going to leave.
The good news, for anyone that values the relationship, is that as the episode winds down, they are back to matching again - and their interactions have become far less antagonistic. With luck, this is a sign for how things will play out in season 7 (I say as someone who hated how horrible Selina was this year).
But Selina, however much she may represent a safe haven for Amy, was never going to be able to pull her out of her shell. For that... we needed Dan.
Amy has barely any scenes with Dan this year, and yet each of them is hugely consequential - something that becomes clear when we consider just how much thought clearly went into the costuming for them.
I’ve already touched on one with the interview, but it’s worth reviewing. Amy ends season 5, relating to Dan as below:
She doesn’t match him at all, and she is as dismissive as she can possibly be in their final interaction. (Dan doesn’t appear to notice, but he’s not always as observant as could be wished).
The next time she encounters him (that we see), her costume is nothing more or less than an attempt to hide. Her engagement is a shambles, her candidate has committed sexual harassment and told the world she’s not satisfying him sexually, and she knows Dan well enough to know he’s going to enjoy making her feel every ounce of that humiliation. (Which, she’s not wrong).
Now, we don’t know which one of them got back in touch with the other, or when, but one thing is very, very clear - Amy was nervous as hell about seeing Dan in person again. How do I know this? Because she changes clothes.
This is what Amy wears to work the day she has her ‘date’ with Dan.
We don’t get a very good look at it, but make a note of this dress for later all the same. Amy didn’t want to wear this when she met Dan and it’s hard to see why... she looks great. Instead, she opted for this:
I honestly think this is the least flattering thing Amy has ever worn on the show. The colour does Anna Chlumsky no favours at all, and the pattern means she fades into the background (unlike Dan, who, in a dark suit on a red chair, is as declarative and ‘look at me’ as it’s possible to get). And bear in mind, this is after she’s started to dress in more relaxed, comfortable manner (as we saw with Selina).
But that it’s unflattering doesn’t mean it’s a poor piece of costuming. In fact, this dress is doing very heavy lifting, playing into multiple pre-established patterns of dress all at once. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, much as she was with Buddy, Amy is very covered up - arms and chest both covered, and yet another pussy-bow neckline.
Where the costume starts to send a mixed message however (and purposefully so) is with regards to colour. With Buddy, Amy wore dark colours, leavened by red or pink. With Dan, she’s wearing a nude. And nudes, for Amy, mean she’s feeling exposed.
She both does and does not want Dan to touch her - she’s seeking his attention and trying to hide from it, all at once. At this point, I think it’s safe to say Amy’s feelings about Dan were at best ambivalent - unlike Buddy, he actually likes her, and she can relax with him, (note that she’s leaning towards him in the picture above), but he’s also fundamentally untrustworthy, and more than willing to hurt her if it benefits him.
Finally, the dress has an a very distinctive print, one that resembles (but is not actually) leopard print. An interesting choice, because:
While Selina has worn animal print occasionally during the show, Jane is the only other person to wear it during season 6. Which...she’s a woman Dan works with, with whom he has an antagonistic relationship, that everyone thinks is sexual. In other words, she’s his Amy-substitute, and one he finds profoundly dissatisfying. No wonder their costumes are momentarily aligned.
It’s theoretically possible that they saw each other again between 6.05 and 6.09, but I think not (other contact - such as texting - seems more probable). Dan was probably too busy not having any chemistry with Brie.
Note how Brie’s outfits never call back to Dan’s in any way. Physically they might be a matched set, but there are no other visual cues that they have any kind of connection.
6.09, and Amy has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And despite having become more declarative in her dressing, having embraced colour after a long mourning period, she’s still subdued when it comes to Dan. This dress could easily have been worn when she was with Buddy - it fits the pattern exactly. High-neck, long-sleeves, with flashes of red, Amy’s vulnerable colour.
The one difference...Dan matches her, something Buddy never managed. The blue of his tie calls back to the dark blue of her dress. And not only that, there are flashes of dark blue throughout the scene - the seats, the napkins, the candle. The environment all but underlines their connection. (And dark blue is usually Dan’s colour...Amy’s usually in red or pink for romantic scenes - in other words...she has him all over her. Her finally giving in was probably inevitable).
While we don’t know how they finally hooked up or who made the first move (but it was definitely Dan), we do know that Amy had a damn good time. Because look at her the very next morning:
She’s back in that black dress, and this time she’s actually smiling. It’s hard to capture this in screengrabs, but the dress moves beautifully. It actually jumped out at me at the time of airing as better than Amy’s other costumes - before I knew what had happened the night before.
What I didn’t realise, until I started working on this, was that Amy had worn this dress earlier in the show. Why Amy has a little black dress that Dan is never allowed to see, I don’t know - but both times it comes up are related to him.
By the time we hit 6x10, Amy’s costuming has become permanently more relaxed - with one surprising quirk.
Coats. Every outfit we see Amy wear in 6x10 includes a coat - she’s dressing like a pregnant woman on TV before she even knows she’s pregnant. (My guess is that she found out after going to BKD, but before Selina announced her run for the Presidency, quite possibly before the ground-breaking at Yale - she becomes very insistent about needing to know her role, which would make sense).
The persistent coats lead to my favourite bit of costuming in the whole season, because it is hilariously on point.
Look at how the coat falls when she looks back at Dan - it looks like a maternity dress! Not only that, but Amy’s dialogue with Selina immediately before this is full of hints towards her pregnancy - ones that are easy to miss at the first view. I think it’s safe to say she knows by this scene (she again insists she needs to talk to Selina about her role).
But before all of this, Amy went to see Dan at BKD, and her costumes there are similarly interesting.
Because they’re back in their partnership colours - green and blue (with Amy’s shot through with red, her vulnerable colour). They’re getting back together professionally, and, given the way the two of them make eyes at each other, quite possibly romantically. (Note - I am not good at getting screengrabs, so it’s sheer chance that I caught Dan with a loving expression rather than with his eyes closed, but all the same...look at him. Look at how he’s looking at her!)
But the best laid plans of mice and men oft gang alay, and Dan and Amy are about to get hit with a bomb.
Amy girds her loins to tell Dan that he’s about to be a father - wearing yet another coat. (And, I’m willing to bet, that same black dress underneath - what little we can see of it would seem to match). And the choice of colour here is absolutely purposeful, because there is one image of motherhood that is so baked into Western culture, most of us don’t realise where it comes from.
I know, I know - comparing Amy to the virgin Mary in any way, shape or form, is probably begging to be struck by a thunderbolt. And I certainly don’t mean to imply any similarity of character. But the iconography is there all the same - you don’t dress an expectant mother in nativity blue by accident.
Not only that, but Dan and Amy are startlingly well-matched in this scene.
Dan’s coat matches Amy’s hair, his shirt matches her coat, and his tie even matches her lipstick. Not only that, but the backgrounds are also blue and gold, with Dan framed throughout by the golden-yellow of the walls, and Amy walking away from him into blue light. Much as with the night they finally slept together, the entire environment is pulling them together.
And perhaps even more portentous - when they arrive on the scene, Amy is carrying an iPad, the very gadget she used to mock Dan for being addicted to.
Note how everyone else in the scene (with the exception of Selina) is dressed in pretty drab shades of black and grey. Before a word is spoken, we already know that Dan and Amy are the focus of the scene, purely from how they are dressed.
Now Veep does some work to make all of this less slightly obvious (though only very slightly), by putting Dan and Amy in clothes we’ve seen before:
Amy wore the pale blue coat several times in season 5 (which makes me wonder...did they have this in mind back then, and that’s why the costume designer wanted to establish it as part of her wardrobe? Also, it seems to be sitting on Anna Clumsky slightly differently in season 6 - I wonder if they’ve already started to pad her slightly), and, hilariously, Dan wore that coat at the doctor’s appointment where he found out he was infertile (supposedly).
I have no idea what season 7 will have in store, but I have two small hopes. That Amy will continue to embrace colour (seeing her in black or navy day in day out becomes depressing, particularly when we know it’s a sign that she’s depressed), and that Dan will, finally and at long last, see that little black dress.
what's so interesting to me is i always assumed amy hates/doesnt want kids, but this season didnt she mention something about freezing her eggs? so she definitely sees herself having kids in the future. i dunno im seeing a couple complaints about how making her have a baby is slaughtering her character and her being a parent is ooc, but i disagree. dan is the one im skeptical about
I think I’ve talked a lot about Amy and pregnancy already, so I hope you won’t mind my skipping that for now.
In some ways, I think the pregnancy is almost going to force more development of Dan’s character than of hers, and it’s going to be fascinating to watch.
Because Dan had it both ways with Amy for a very long time, and it clearly suited him down to the ground. He was the most important man in her life, the centre of all her emotional energy (the emotions weren’t always positive, needless to say, but they were there), and her first phone call. Amy abandoned her anniversary dinner, with her boyfriend, so she could talk to Dan. He had her companionship all the time - we know they would have meals together and go for drinks, in addition to working together - and he never had to date her. He could sleep around as much as he chose, and even have the pleasure of seeing Amy look…dispirited at the thought of it. And on some level, I think Dan fooled himself into thinking things could always be like that, that she’d always like him so much, she’d put up with the way he was treating her. Which was never the case - it was always a completely unsustainable situation, on his side as much as hers (something that would have become clear much earlier, I think, if Ed had been more of a threat to Dan’s position).
Dan has basically been dancing around this dilemma since season 2. He wants to have Amy’s undivided attention and love and desire… and he wants to be a completely free agent, able to sleep with anyone and everyone - and he has tried to duck the obvious problem that those desires are completely incompatible all through the show.
Except, (and I’ve written about this elsewhere), when the status quo of their relationship collapses in season 5 and Amy effectively abandons him for Buddy, Dan gets what he wants (in a way).
He can sleep with everyone - and does - and he doesn’t have anyone developing irritating expectations of him, like that he’ll be nice to them.
Turns out, Dan doesn’t actually like that.
We have to look at his actions here, not his words, because the two send very different messages about what he wants. He held back from developing anything with Amy in seasons 3 and 4, even after he knew she was interested, and yet he leaps at the opportunity to sleep with her the first time it comes up in season 6. Not only that, he invites her to join him at the consultancy (making this what, the third time Dan has tried to keep her working with him?). And, the moment Amy eludes to the night they slept together, he is on it - making it very clear he would be interested in going there again. (He has the exact same tone of voice as he did when he asked her out after Sophie - which I think confirms that that was definitely a come-on - and, given their history, Amy probably knew that).I think it’s a safe assumption that if Amy hadn’t become pregnant, they probably would have fallen into some kind of relationship pretty damn quickly anyway - the way they were making googly eyes at each other across the table is pretty unmistakable - and that, in a weird way, the pregnancy is going to become yet another obstacle they have to navigate. It immediately puts a lot of pressure on everything in the relationship.And, while Amy may have absolutely minimal expectations of Dan (understandably), that really is more a sign of her fears than anything else. Given his reaction Dan at least knows that’s not an option for him. He’s already had to spend a year with every woman in the world who’s not Amy… and he doesn’t like it. So I think Dan is going to take whatever steps are necessary to keep her in his life, now that he knows what the alternative is. He’ll take them slowly, and begrudgingly, and he’ll probably be insufferable throughout, but he’ll take them all the same. Put it another way - if Brie got pregnant, I have no doubt she’d be on her own. (I mean, he’d probably pay child support, but not much more than that). With Amy, it’s a whole different question - he is going to have to grow up, at long last, whether he likes it or not, because the other option is not having her in any way, shape or form, and he already knows he doesn’t want that. (And all of this is before the child - who I really hope will be a girl, because it would be so karmically fitting for Dan to have to raise a girl after the way he’s treated women for so long - becomes in any sense a reality to him. I would expect his possessive tendencies to only increase in this scenario).
The way Veep uses costumes to demonstrate character has interested me for a while, and so I’m diving in to the subject just this once. Everything I learned about ‘reading’ costume I learned from reading Tom and Lorenzo’s Mad Style recaps (if you’re a Mad Men fan who’s somehow never encountered them, go forth and read). Needless to say, this won’t be anywhere near as comprehensive, and in fact will be chiefly focused on one character, which is Amy.
There’s a simple reason for this - Amy is the most dynamic dresser on the show. Which isn’t to say that she’s necessarily stylish - Selina knows how to dress to convey very specific messages (as does Dan), something Amy mostly doesn’t do (with one hilarious exception). But there are two reasons why Amy’s style changes so much more than anyone else’s over the course of the show.
Within the world of the show, Amy starts off as a comparatively young woman (say approximately 30 at the beginning?), and one who has never felt particularly comfortable with her own beauty or confident in her ability to attract men. She also desperately wants to be taken seriously in an environment that is not particularly friendly to her. Outside the world of the show, Anna Chlumsky has had two babies - which means her body has gone through far more dramatic changes than any other member of the main cast. (Reid Scott and Timothy Simmons’ receding hairlines don’t really compare).
So let’s look at season one.
This is, to my mind, Amy’s most important costume in the pilot - and certainly the one that is called back to the most. Note how informal it is. She’s not dressed to impress here - she’s wearing a comfortable blouse and a cardigan, and the cardigan is in a notably feminine colour. This is important, because a lot of Amy’s costumes in season one are in direct opposition to this specific outfit. Why?
Because of this asshole.
Dan arrives and immediately disrupts Amy’s safe working environment, undermining her dominance in the office and reminding her (and everyone else) that Amy can be vulnerable in an explicitly feminine way (i.e. she can be disappointed/hurt romantically). Not only does he threaten her position with Selina, as Amy’s ex he is also threatening to her emotionally. Note how he’s dressed in blue-grey to Amy’s pink - it’s the costume designer’s way of really underlining the ‘boy-girl’ nature of their storyline. (Something to remember for later).
Interestingly, and perhaps as a way of differentiating their characters, Amy and Selina wear red (or colours in the red family) in very, very different ways. When Selina wears red, it’s to make herself feel powerful - and Selina in red has become part of the iconography of the show.
But Amy tends to wear red or pink only in moments when she is emotionally vulnerable - usually, but not only, tied to romance. It’s a direct reversal of how Selina uses the colour. So putting her in pink when Dan invades the office is a way to underscore the threat he poses. Because even early on, it’s clear… those two have a connection, whether Amy likes it or not.
Episode two and Amy wears what would appear to be a fairly standard outfit for her at the time - a skirt and top. She looks good - professional - and it’s a light outfit for the heat… which Dan matches exactly. Amy wears black and grey, Dan wears black and grey (and white). Unsurprisingly, this is the episode where their romantic connection is made explicit, and Dan is a lot more overtly flirtatious with Amy (invading her space, blowing air kisses - I don’t know how she didn’t throttle him) then he ever will be again. Tying them together colourwise is a trick that the costumers will use again and again… but not for a while.
Because look at Amy’s reaction to Dan coming back into her life.
Suits. Lots and lots of suits.
Dan is both an emotional and professional threat, and so Amy puts on her armour to deal with him. The suits mimic menswear, putting them on a more even footing, and because Amy’s suits are always so boxy, they hide her femininity.
Her suits are also - unlike Dan’s - cheap. And one of the ways that becomes clear is that they never really fit right - note the way the jackets are constantly gaping over her chest. Selina’s suits - when she wears them - never do that, they lie flat against her the way they’re supposed to, probably because Selina gets them properly tailored. (Selina would have the money to do that mind you). (And Amy is more busty than Selina, which makes suits more of a challenge)
Selina’s suits are brightly coloured and fit her perfectly, whereas Amy’s are blocky and invariably in colours that mimic menswear - brown, grey or black. In other words, Selina wants attention and Amy wants to avoid it.
But gradually, gradually, she starts to gain confidence. She gets used to having Dan in the office, and she gets a boyfriend.
Look at that bold, declarative red in the third picture. Amy’s connection with Dan might not have gone away - in Andrew, the episode where Dan asks her out, their costumes are matching again - but she’s dating someone new, and I think it’s safe to say that she got properly laid on her date with Ed. With the exception of the episode immediately following this one, we never see Amy wearing such a strong, saturated red (with matching lipstick) again. No wonder Dan was pissed off that night in the bar - he knows her well enough to know what that means.
Now I’m going to guess that Anna Chlumsky’s first pregnancy fell somewhere between seasons 2 and 3, because when we hit season 3 a change has occurred.
Colour. Lush, vibrant colour.
Within the show, the reason is simple - having a boyfriend, even one as milquetoast as Ed, did wonders for Amy’s confidence. Her clothes are more feminine, and far, far more flattering than they were previously. (One could even suspect that looking more feminine was Amy’s way of lulling Dan into a false sense of security, but I think it’s unlikely - she doesn’t really dress that strategically). They’re also easier to move in, for which I give you exhibit one:
The external reason is that - odd though it may sound - it’s much easier to conceal a pregnancy (or the natural changes in a woman’s body that follow a pregnancy) in a sheath dress than a suit. Which sounds odd, because these dresses show off Amy’s body a lot more than the suits ever did, but being all one piece, and all one colour, allows them to smooth over any unexpected lumps and bumps.
Fortunately, for Amy to have gained confidence this year makes sense - as I’ve said, she has a new boyfriend, and this is the year where she finally vanquishes Dan, her nemesis throughout the show. (Made all the sweeter by him not realising it happened).
But there are some things Amy just can’t avoid.
Their costumes at Mike’s wedding are kind of hilariously on point. Dan literally has Amy all over him. His tie matches her dress (a trick that the costume designer will repeat many times in the coming seasons), and his waistcoat matches her hair. They may consider each other enemies, but even a full season of open competition between them doesn’t change one simple fact.
They complement each other.
The repeated colour combination - green and blue - at the beginning and end of the season makes it clear… they have a connection that just won’t go away.
And the costumes in season four make this more and more explicit.
They match. Constantly. In all of these pictures the colours of their outfits call back to each other - with Amy’s white blouse with the black pattern even calling back to Dan’s tie. (That outfit will be repeated in the Inauguration episode in season 5, where, perversely, it underlines their new lack of connection - calling back to a time when Dan and Amy were a team and working together, instead of sniping at each other constantly - but unfortunately, I can’t find a pic).
And in no episode is this clearer than Storms and Pancakes, when Dan pretty explicitly brings Amy into his new world.
This is so costumey as to become almost ludicrous - look how well matched they are! Every colour in Amy’s outfit appears in Dan’s outfit - and since he spends most of the episode as close to her as humanly possible, it’s kind of hard not to notice (I suspect because he is, sensibly, trying to make her feel more at ease in the new setting, so that she, and therefore they, will be successful. In this environment he’s the only person she has to trust). And he has good reason to do this, because I’d argue that, going by costumes alone, Storms and Pancakes was the most vulnerable Amy’s ever been in the show.
She’s been separated from Selina, Mike’s publicly called her unstable, and her peers are gleefully agreeing with that assessment, as we see at Dan’s dreadful party. Amy’s career is hugely important to her, she draws most of her self-confidence from the knowledge that she is good at her job, and to have that so publicly called into question is almost unbearable to her. How do I know - look at her dress:
This dress fascinates me, because it is completely unlike anything Amy’s worn before or since. With the high slit, she’s showing a lot more skin than she usually does, and the nude band across the top makes her look more ‘naked’ than she actually is. Amy is feeling horribly, horribly exposed, and this dress reflects that. She’s a raw nerve.
(Note that Dan is wearing the same suit as earlier in the day. My guess is that Amy had forgotten about the party and had to buy something to wear in a hurry - that’s the only explanation I can think of for such an uncharacteristic outfit).
But she wants to get better, so she takes Dan’s advice:
Note that this is the only time Amy wears ‘nude’ in the show - with Dan, and again with Sophie. They are the only people she feels able to be around when she’s this vulnerable. (Does this make Dan even more of an asshole for sleeping with Sophie? You betcha).
Still, eventually, she gets her mojo back, by beating Dan at his own game.
And she’s right back in the colours that were used to tie her to him at the start of the episode - gray and black. Only this outfit has her covered back up - and as result she looks comfortable all of a sudden.
But of course this bucolic phase can’t last, and Amy and Dan, through working together, end up dragged in front of Congress. It’s clearly an intimidating experience for both of them - something that becomes obvious when we look at Amy’s outfit.
A suit.
A suit the likes of which we haven’t seen in several years at this point. Like I said, suits are Amy’s armour. It doesn’t matter that they’re unflattering - or that in this picture, frankly, her suit makes her look like Dan’s Mini-Me - when she’s feeling unsettled, they’re what she defaults to.
Unsurprisingly, their testimony does not go well. It’s clear that, behind the scenes, they got together before their next appearance, because…well, look:
I think we can confidently say that this is the one time Amy was consciously dressing for effect - because it’s so hilariously OTT it has to be purposeful. (Note, Selina didn’t make this mistake. Selina wore a serious grey dress and serious glasses, but nothing so unusual for her that people would comment on it). I don’t doubt that seeing this outfit was a laugh out loud moment for many people in the audience - it’s not like Amy at all. But Dan’s tie still matches her perfectly (as does his expression). (On a side note, either Dan’s watches are always enormous or Reid Scott has teeny-tiny wrists, I’m not sure which).
But what I haven’t talked about is probably the most important costume Amy had in the entire season.
Remember when I said red, for Amy, meant vulnerability? This is the most blatant example of it by far. The swirling pattern hints at all the frustrations she’s been suppressing for years on end, and the deep red makes her stand out in the scene. Selina has disappointed Amy more than anyone else - Amy has spent years dedicated to Selina and her career - and so the moment where Amy walks away from that is a profoundly vulnerable one for her.
But we can’t talk about Amy and vulnerability without diving into a theme that comes very much to the fore in seasons 4 & 5. Romance.
Because there are some common themes in how Amy is dressed for her romantic scenes (though when I say romantic, I mean scenes that play on her relationships with Dan and Buddy, not necessarily scenes that are romantic in and of themselves).
Remember when I said to remember the pink/blue-grey combination?
I don’t know if the costume designer rewatched the pilot before seasons 4 & 5, but it’s noticeable how consistently the pink/blue-grey combination is applied to Dan and Amy across both. (Dan wears blue-grey because he’s not the kind of man who’d own a vibrantly blue suit - at least, I think that’s why). Again, it really underlines the gendered nature of the interaction - and note that a lot of the shots also emphasise just how much bigger than Amy Dan is (something they usually try to avoid).
And the clearest sign of all that Amy has given up on Dan at the end of season 5? She’s wearing pink - but it’s for Buddy.
It’s interesting, because pink definitely isn’t Amy’s “I feel pretty” colour. We’ve seen a lot of her formal wear, and it’s clear she defaults to one colour more than any other.
Like so many blue-eyed blondes, Amy knows that there’s one colour which will always work on her - blue - and so when she wants to make an impression, that’s what she jumps to. (When I say Amy isn’t as stylish as Selina or Dan, I don’t mean she dresses badly - clearly she doesn’t - but that she doesn’t really know or, I suspect, care, how to dress for maximum impact - something that both Dan and Selina are very, very good at it). (Her dress in Finland also reads as a less mature version of Selina’s slinky black number, a way of indicating just how aligned these women are).
The other theme that pops up is skin, and I do mean that literally. With the exception of season three, (when I suspect it was unavoidable due to Anna Chlumsky’s pregnancy), Amy doesn’t tend to sport visible cleavage. And yet:
(I feel super creepy pointing this out, but she does have cleavage in the third pic - it’s just that Dan’s hand is in the way).
In all of the scenes Dan and Buddy are covered up - by standard suits - but Amy has both arms and chest uncovered. Which is a classic way to signal vulnerability - and Amy clearly does feel vulnerable, because in the scenes with Dan she usually sits with at least one arm (and sometimes two) in front of her chest. It’s subconscious - and involuntary - self-defence. However attracted Amy may be to Dan, she’s still afraid of opening herself up to him - and for very good reason, as we all know.
So what does season 6 hold for Amy style-wise?
I have no idea - but Anna Chlumsky had just had another baby before filming started, so I suspect we may be in for another style evolution.
Which fortunately, makes complete sense for the character.
The ways in which Selina and Sue dress don’t change that much, because they are both more mature and more confident - they know what looks good on them, and they stick with it. Amy’s still figuring that out.
But I would draw your attention to this.
Veep does repeat costumes from time to time (in compiling this I’ve noticed that Dan repeats ties a lot), but this isn’t quite that. This is repeating a ‘type’ of outfit.
Amy doesn’t wear patterns very often (with the exception of Convention, and I think Fishing, in Season 3), and seeing her in one is usually a hint at some kind of emotional turmoil.
But she has a pattern on in both these outfits, as well as being massively bundled up in thick skirts and cardigans.
I think it conveys two things - that she feels the need to protect herself, and that there are more emotions going on beneath than anyone is picking up on. Dan doesn’t seem to realise just how nervous she is about asking him out, or how much she has to nerve herself to do it - and Buddy doesn’t pick up, at all, how uncomfortable she is with him or his overt displays of affection.
Every time I see commentary that Amy and Dan belong together because "they're both terrible people" I can't help it - I cringe.
Because that, that right there is some super gendered bullshit. Don't get me wrong. I am a totally unashamed believer in "Dan and Amy living together in endless sexually charged banter." Much Ado About Nothing is one of my all time favourite plays, and Dan and Amy are so Beatrice and Benedick (right down to the "he did her wrong in some undefined way in the past that will never be explained but will always underpin everything in their relationship") that I was pretty much bound to 'ship' them. But there is no way, in a million years, that Amy is anywhere near as bad a person as Dan is.
I'm not viewing her through rose-coloured glasses - she can be ruthless, and probably more ruthless than him. Dan's never, or almost never, sacrificed anything he actually CARED about - whereas Amy has shown herself more than capable of weighing up her ideals and sacrificing one to achieve the other. But she has never, not once, displayed his capacity for vindictive nastiness.
Amy can be dismissive and abrasive and insensitive, and probably a real pain in the neck to be around. But I find it...interesting that that is so often read as somehow equal to Dan's tendency to brutally use and abuse everyone around him.
Their two worst deeds form an interesting comparison. Amy got Dan fired/caused his breakdown, and Dan slept with her sister and rubbed her face in it over and over again because he KNEW it upset her. Except, Amy DIDN'T get Dan fired - DAN got Dan fired, through his own stupid decision to "pimp Selina out." Amy also didn't CAUSE his breakdown, though her actions were the catalyst for it, because he had worked himself to that point before she even did anything. And notice the difference in how they handled it. Amy never, not once, rubbed it in to Dan, she didn't take visible pleasure in his distress, she didn't gloat. Whereas Dan ENJOYED the fact that his sleeping with Sophie caused Amy distress. He took actual pleasure in her hurt.
Frankly, in any fair assessment, Dan not only doesn't deserve Amy, he doesn't deserve to receive the touch of a woman ever again. (But the world is unjust, and he will, if only because he's far too good-looking). But, yeah, the idea that they're somehow equally bad, pisses me right off.
1. The Jonah section of the show is the part that’s working best for me, right now. Kent and Ben’s dead-eyed misery at their situation had me howling, not to mention Jonah getting dating tips FROM KENT. (And Kent’s advice being correct - even the robot knows better how a woman should be treated).
2. Catherine’s having a baby. Oh god - they’re totally going to ask Dan to be the sperm donor, aren’t they? Which, leaving aside the ookiness of it, does not strike me as something he should pursue - if ever there was a way for his connection to Selina to be completely copper-fastened in the public mind… But Dan only ever thinks short-term, and his vanity would be so gratified by the request that he’ll probably go with it.
3. So Selina DID have same-sex experiences in college - mea culpa, I called that wrong. (Though I still think she and Amy would be a disaster - the dynamic is far too unbalanced). Clearly she’s put some effort into telling herself it never happened - which may explain some of her mental health issues…repressing sexuality is unhealthy to say the least, and if she was holding all of that back, she has less mental energy to handle other problems. And politics does demand a higher level of resilience than many careers. Regina also seemed a damn sight pleasanter and fonder of Selina than ANY of the men she’s been involved with.
4. There was a LOT of casual misogyny from Selina this episode, which still seems out of character to me - in particular the comment about female architects. Internalised misogyny is a thing, but looking at Selina’s behaviour as a whole, I wouldn’t have thought that was really her problem - Amy and Sue were (rightly) the two staff members she respected the most. Also, given how acid a commentator she was on the sexism she’s had to face politically…I don’t know, it seems at best uneven.
5. I don’t actually buy the all the other Presidents freezing Selina out thing. In real life ex-Presidents often advise their successors (we’ve seen this with Obama and Clinton), because they’re the only people who understand the pressures of the role. Unlike everyone else, I would expect them to grasp just how difficult a task Selina faced in taking up the Presidency so last minute with so little support.
6. Dan stealing Jonah’s girlfriend. It almost made me sad, because that’s probably the only chance Jonah ever had for love! (But given how vile he was to the other women, only almost). The scene was played beautifully, but there’s something that makes me uncomfortable in the way the show celebrates Dan’s sexiness, even valorises him for it, while Selina and Amy are regularly humiliated for having - or not having - sexual desires. I can’t quite put it into words, but it bugs me. The show didn’t mock Dan half as much for sleeping with Sophie as it did Amy for being rejected by him - and it’s starting to feel mean-spirited. Veep is generally a pretty acid show, but…not usually PETTY the way this feels. Everything romantic is also being played a lot broader, which isn’t helping. (Contrast the bar scene in Tehran, where we’re clearly supposed to find Amy’s attraction to Dan appealing, and to sympathise with her when she feels rejected, with the way the camera lingers on her humiliated face at the end of this episode).
7. Buddy. At this point I almost don’t care how it happens - get Amy out of there, asap. I used to hate the idea of Dan riding to the rescue and making her see how miserable she is - not any more. If it works to get her out of that situation, I’ll take it a dozen times over. She clearly can’t give Buddy what he wants, and she shouldn’t have to go through public humiliation as a result. I’m staring to miss Ed. (What are the odds that Jonah’s going to ask her to audition for Mrs Ryan, once she’s ditched Buddy?)
8. THE COWBOY BOOTS. That’s almost the saddest bit, because Amy is TRYING, she is forcing herself to fit into a role that just doesn’t suit her - she’s not the doting political wife and never has been, and having to play that subservient role is hardening her quite considerably. The conversation with Selina felt more AMY than any other scene she’s had in the last two episodes. (How she didn’t lose it during Buddy’s prayer, I don’t know).
9. WOODY. I damn near clapped my hands in glee - though I gave that line to DAN not Amy. She definitely took it a lot further than I’d thought of though!
10. There was some great physical comedy with Selina and Gary in this episode - I loved all the stuff with the giant red dress.
11. Marjorie actually worked for me, for the first time. Unlike everyone else, she doesn’t take Selina’s behaviour personally, and can actually see that a lot of what’s driving it is genuine pain - which doesn’t mean she lets her off the hook, but does mean she can actually communicate WITH Selina, instead of talking past her.
12. I never thought I’d say this, but Selina NEEDS TO LISTEN TO MIKE. Also, is he commuting every day from DC? Because that would get exhausting right quick.
13. I love Jane - I love how much she’s making Dan suffer - I want her to torment him for episodes on end. She’s so beautifully - and probably rightly - dismissive of him, it has to be cutting him to the bone. Not to mention that I can foresee a lot of fun as his desperation to leave intensifies. (And oh the shamelessness of Veep critiquing TV’s tendency to chase ratings by objectifying people sexually, by objectifying Reid Scott sexually. I love it). (What do you want to bet that Dan’s hair, so fully-loaded with product, didn’t even MOVE when he got in the water).
14. The whole plot line with Selina being torn down for not supporting the artist felt slightly off…Selina’s so politically irrelevant people forget she was President, but the moment she puts a foot wrong it’s a national news story? The fact that all the criticism was focused on her and not only Andrew did feel painfully real though. (And feels very much like they’re riffing on Hillary Clinton - it also drove me crazy how feminists reamed her endlessly for not supporting or protecting Monica Lewinsky. Don’t get me wrong - Lewinsky was treated horribly, and shamed by the press and political class in numerous disgusting ways…but Hillary Clinton is allowed not to like the woman her husband cheated with. Anything else would be superhuman on her part. If anything BILL should have been the one feminists went after, for putting his sexual partner in such a vulnerable position, but of course that never really happened).
15. How long do you to think Gary’s been waiting to beat the crap out of Andrew? And thanks be, hopefully this means he’s gone for a decent stretch. He really is Selina’s bad penny.
