The Character Of Olivia Pope From Scandal

Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington) from Shonda Rhimes’ hit Thursday night show Scandal is a strong, smart, black, female protagonist who works as a high-powered crisis manager in Washington, DC and fixes the lives of infamous politicians and their families. Because Olivia is both African American and female, race and gender in Scandal can be understood as intersectional. Olivia’s race and gender are not explicitly acknowledged in the show often, which implies that her race and gender are not barriers or obstacles in her life, the way they are usually portrayed to be in other TV shows and movies. Scandal overtly discusses race and gender and oftentimes promotes feminist ideas. A recurring plotline in the show is Olivia’s affair with the President of the United States, Fitzgerald Grant III “Fitz”. The following quote is just one example that proves Olivia holds great power in a field that is often dominated by white men, including the President, and it doesn’t dictate what she does or how she acts. This quote illustrates how Olivia is an independent, strong, and successful woman as she asserts control over her actions, and never gives up her power.

In her piece “Intersectionality”, Brittney Cooper discusses different definitions of intersectionality and focuses on its context within Black feminism. The most applicable definition of intersectionality in Scandal is “the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed”. This is because Olivia has multiple visible aspects of her identity, female and black, and she uses it in a positive way to promote herself as a strong, independent, black woman. Intersectionality emerged in the late 1980s as an analytic frame to help understand and explain the particular positionality of black women and other women of color. At first, the concept was seen as a foundational step that allowed black women to be recognized within structures of power. Intersectionality makes the disciplinary apparatus of the state more visible, and helps theorize the way in which legal constructions continually categorize people that exist outside the limits of legal protection. Intersectionality remains one of the most useful and expansive paradigms, and it is very important that people understand it and are able to recognize it in their every-day lives.

Since Scandal first aired in 2012, it has increased diversity and representation of black women in media as it examines the experiences of black women in greater detail, and reflects the diversity that most of us experience in our everyday lives. This encapsulates what has been called “The Scandal effect” — the trend toward diversity affecting the quality or roles for Black women, and making networks less hesitant to invest in programming by and for other minority groups, which began after the show started. Scandal helped create a new status quo, that not only is diversity the media the new normal, but a lack of diversity is something the networks account for, and if not, have to explain.

In 2013, Kerry Washington became the first African American woman to be nominated in a lead Emmy category in 18 years, and Olivia Pope is the first black female protagonist in a network drama in almost 40 years. Scandal is helping pave the way to more minorities being represented in the media, and helps prove that and it is worth it to invest in their stories and their lives.