Oprah Winfrey gave a passionate speech at the Democratic National Convention, while 'Veep' actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus insisted that she doesn’t see a parallel between her fictional counterpart and Kamala Harris.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Democratic National Convention comes to an end tonight, and the stars have been showing up to support Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.
From Spike Lee to Eva Longoria, John Legend and Common via Oprah Winfrey, who returned to prime-time yesterday in a surprise appearance at the DNC, calling on Americans to choose “optimism over cynicism” and “inclusion over retribution”, the glitzy momentum is definitely in Harris’ favour.
During her enthusiastic endorsement, Oprah sought to encourage voters to cast their ballot for “the best of America”.
“Values and character matter most of all,” said Oprah. “In leadership and in life. And more than anything, you know this is true, decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024.”
“I’ve actually travelled from the red wood forests … to the Gulf Stream waters,” Winfrey said, referring to the Woody Guthrie song 'This Land Is Your Land'.
“They are the best of America, and despite what some would have you think, we are not so different from our neighbours. When a house is on fire, we don’t ask whose house it is,” Winfrey said, adding that “if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too”.
Her comments were a reference to the Republican vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, who has faced much criticism for saying that the US is run by “childless cat ladies.”
“Soon, and very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants … grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” Winfrey told the crowd.
Also present was actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Vice President (and later on, President) Selina Meyer for seven seasons on HBO’s fantastic political satire Veep.
Louis-Dreyfus hosted a panel of eight female governors, and in her introduction, stated that Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance would describe the panel as “a coven of semi-menstruating witches.”
The eight female governors on stage with Louis-Drefus were Arizona’s Katie Hobbs, Kansas’s Laura Kelly, Maine’s Janet Mills, Massachusetts’s Maura Healey, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, New Mexico’s MichelleLujan Grisham, New York’s Kathy Hochul, and Oregon’s Tina Kotek.
The actress has won multiple Emmys for portraying Selina Meyer - maybe not the best female President, but certainly the funniest one ever to grace the screen. The show ended in 2019 but it has enjoyed a surge in popularity since President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy in the forthcoming presidential election – since many saw a life-imitating-art moment between real-life events and the fictional VP ascending to the White House in Season 4.
However, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has insisted that she doesn’t see a parallel between her fictional counterpart and Harris.
In an interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which aired live from the Democratic National Convention, Colbert mentioned that streams for Veep had gone up 350 per cent.
“It’s a great thing, I think?” Louis-Dreyfus said, before emphasising that her character bears little resemblance to Harris.
ADVERTISEMENT“Let me explain to you, on Veep I played a narcissistic, megalomaniac sociopath, and that is not Kamala Harris,” she said, adding: “It might be another candidate in the race.”
Following the show’s cultural resurgence, Veep showrunner David Mandel stated in Vanity Fair that he also doesn’t see many of the similarities between Meyer and Harris.
“I understand that people all over the internet are dying to make the narrative somehow that Kamala is Selina. I personally choose not to accept it,” said Mandel. “It’s too simplistic, and I don’t think they’re doing it in a fun way. I think they’re doing it to try and somehow make her seem less than, and I don’t enjoy it.”
During his interview with Louis-Dreyfus, Colbert raised the fact that the show Veep dealt a lot with the harsh treatment of women in politics. Asked if she had a favorite scene that embodied this, Louis-Dreyfus referenced a moment between her character and Matt Walsh’s Mike McLintock.
ADVERTISEMENT“He came to me with this speech, and the speech began ‘as a woman.’ And I looked at him and I said, ‘First of all, as a woman, I’m not going to start a speech with “as a woman,” because I can’t identify as a woman,'” Louis-Dreyfus recalled. “Men hate that and women who hate women hate that, which is most women.”
Colbert also asked the actress which Veep character reminds her the most of Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance, to which Louis-Dreyfus answered: “That would be Jonah Ryan,” referring to Meyer’s White House liaison, played by Timothy Simons.
“I’m sure he’s made love to many couches,” the actress joked, referring to the persistent (if denied) rumour that Vance once had sex with a couch.
The Democratic National Convention started on Monday 19 August and ends today, Thursday 22 August, amid rumours reported by CNN that both Taylor Swift and Beyoncé could be performing on the last night of the DNC.
ADVERTISEMENT
