[White hat, people.]
Is Scandal's Olivia Pope a good person
who does bad things,
or a bad person with a conscience?
The Olivia we meet in season one of Scandal
is known as a wearer of "the white hat."
[Olivia Pope -- she wears the white hat.]
This proverbial white hat is setting up
the question of moral authority in the series --
and it's clear that the
white hat is symbolically very
important to the show,
given the sheer number of times
characters mention it.
[This is about dusting off the white hat
and putting it back where it belongs.]
[Here's to wearing the white hat.]
[You preach about wearing some dumb white hat.]
Initially Olivia is seen as
the one true owner of the white hat.
She's a powerhouse crisis manager
who heroically defends her clients and friends.
[It's handled.]
And yet over the seasons she's been exposed
as a mistress, election-rigger, and murderer.
[Olivia Pope.
For all her talk
of white hats and doing good,
she just gets whatever she wants,
and sometimes you're just collateral damage.]
After everything Olivia's done,
as the series comes to an end,
does Ms Pope still wear the white hat?
And did she ever?
[If there are no white hats,
if everyone is evil,
if the deck is always stacked,
if everyone I love is a monster,
if no one is worth saving,
what's the point?]
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Early in the show, Olivia's introduced
as something of a shining superhero.
[I'm NEVER out of options.]
She survives on a diet of red wine and popcorn,
works 24/7, yet always looks immaculate.
And she's so good at what she does
that she often makes professional decisions
based on gut feeling,
[What's your gut say?]
[He didn't do it.]
[Your gut's never wrong.
We'll stay quiet.
But keep me in the loop.]
because she just has a natural instinct
for telling right from wrong, and
truth from lies.
However intelligent, resourceful and revered
Olivia may be, though,
the work she does is dirty.
[This is ridiculous!
If Cyrus Beene
needed to cover up a murder,
he'd come to me.]
[We are the best.]
Olivia's job as a "fixer" isn't noble --
her goal is to conceal scandals,
not to solve crime or be some kind of Robin Hood.
Her conscience doesn't stop her
from cleaning up crime scenes,
arranging politically expedient marriages,
and getting morally ambiguous people
off the hook.
[One of my clients is missing.]
[Have you looked in jail?
You often seem to find them there.]
Her employees at Pope & Associates
call themselves "gladiators in suits,"
acting like they're ruthless warriors.
[Gladiators don't have feelings.
We rush into battle.
We're soldiers.]
The gladiators might have doubts about
what they're fighting for sometimes --
but more than any cause,
they're fighting for Olivia.
Their shining savior Olivia doesn't put
the good of the people first in any real way.
[Olivia Pope and her team of thugs,
they're not anyone's friends!]
But the show still holds her up
as an amazing person others want to emulate.
[I mean...
Is Olivia...
is she one of the good guys?]
[No.
She's not one of the good guys.
She's the best guy.]
Because at the heart of Scandal
there's the idea that all's fair
in love and war,
and also personal loyalties maybe matter
more than morality.
Even when Olivia is doing wrong,
it's often for a right-ish reason --
she's driven by dedication
to her clients or friends.
And viewers may find it surprisingly easy
to accept these excuses.
[That white hat was starting to feel
like it was a lie.]
[Hey.
That white hat will always belong
on your head.]
Olivia becomes a dark mirror of how
we trick ourselves into false justifications
for bad behavior.
The characters consistently put personal relationships
and romance before ethics.
They take interpersonal conflict more seriously
than breaking the law.
[You cheated on your mistress
with your girlfriend.]
In season two, Olivia seems as upset
about Fitz ending their relationship
over her election-rigging
as she is about rigging it
in the first place.
[I haven't slept in ten months,
I have our last conversation on a loop
in my head all night every night.
I think he knows what we did, Cyrus.]
She does question this prioritizing romance
over ethics in later seasons,
when Fitz starts a war to save her
from a kidnapper.
[You sent thousands of innocent soldiers
into harm's way,
some of them to their deaths,
for one person.]
Still, we're supposed to pardon
this drastic action
because he does it for love.
[You know why I did it.]
So you could argue Scandal is a show
about choosing your personal good
over the greater good.
[There is nothing wrong with
a little self-preservation.
Doesn't mean you don't wear the white hat.]
The endorsement of putting
the good of the select few
over the good of the many
is a cynical philosophy for a show
about policy makers and political leaders --
the few who are literally responsible
for ensuring the good of the many.
Olivia Pope is only helping those elites --
[C'mon Liv, you grew up in America's
greatest political family.
We lie first, breathe second.]
but when we're watching,
we get to feel how awesome it is
to belong to that club,
so we get on board.
Scandal gets away with this
questionable underlying morality
because of its "guilty pleasure" appeal.
Unlike other shows that dramatize
the painful consequences of illicit behavior,
[How could you do this to me?]
Scandal highlights the pleasure of being bad.
This is a world where it's commonplace
to have sex on the Oval Office desk,
[I think it could happen
right there on that desk]
order a hit on a spouse,
[I've got a job for you to do.]
and frame an enemy for murder.
[Did you have David Rosen framed
for murder?
No offense.]
[None taken.
Why would I have
David Rosen framed for murder?]
Even if that's far from most of our lives,
we can relate to the primal feelings
driving these over-the-top plot points.
And we want Olivia and her friends
to misbehave, to give us
something to exclaim over.
[Today I drove around with a
human head in my car!]
And then the show counters the bad with good
to make us feel fine about continuing
to invest in these characters.
[She saved me, she saved Huck,
she saved Quinn, she saved you.]
Most characters have a dark side.
[They're all murderers.]
Yet the show pardons them by giving them
lovable qualities.
Olivia's father is a villainous mastermind,
but at least he values father-daughter time
above all.
[You are smarter than me,
and I'm proud of you.]
So the show is constantly balancing out bad with good
to keep us forgiving and justifying all that we see.
In the first few seasons,
Olivia clashes with David Rosen
over their opposing views of justice.
[I looked into his eyes,
and I believed him.]
[That is why our judicial system
isn't based on looking into people's eyes.]
David is a hapless do-gooder who believes
in upholding the letter of the law --
[I uphold the constitution of these United States.
I am a knight for the people.
I wear the white hat.]
but his way of doing things often backfires
or doesn't get the results he wants.
in the abstract,
David may be more right
but Olivia's charisma tends to make us
side with her.
[My white hat's bigger than your white hat.]
And over time, the show forces us to question
whether David's procedural ways
actually make things better.
In a world that's so unjust to begin with,
doing the right thing doesn't always mean
playing it by the book.
The government itself engages in illegal activity
and runs a black ops agency, B613.
[But, you can't just talk about wearing the white hat.
You can't just fight the good fight.
We live in the real world.]
So the twisted environment of Washington, D.C.
demands a twisted heroine.
Olivia understands how to function
within this system
in a way that David doesn't.
[Half my clients have your pay grade or higher,
which means half my clients would
happily intervene on my behalf
and kick your ass in whatever special way
their office allows.
Which is why I suggest
Director Osborne,
you leave my apartment immediately.]
When he finally agrees to keep quiet
on the rigged election
in exchange for a promotion,
it's clear that David has come around
to Olivia's way of thinking.
[David will be the new U.S. Attorney
for the District of Columbia,
where I expect he will continue
to fight for justice.
David, thank you.]
His gift of a literal white hat to Olivia
affirms his new belief in her leadership.
The white hat symbol here may seem
ironic or perverse --
Olivia has essentially persuaded David
to sell out the greater good
in exchange for personal gain.
But David's choice comes as
a relief to viewers,
who care most about his friendship
with the gladiators
and don't want to see Olivia go down.
Ultimately we like Olivia so much
that "right" is not our priority.
[You're here because you worship her.
You want to be her.
You think
if you're near her,
if you stand in here light, then
you'll finally do stuff that matters.]
The political ladder was built
to help the privileged few
ascend to the top.
The women and gay man who rigged the election
are much smarter and more ambitious than Fitz,
but it's still the straight white man
who is President.
[I'm fairly short, and I'm not so pretty,
and I really like having sex with men,
so instead of being President
of this land that I love,
I get to be the guy behind
the President of the United States.]
Olivia has always had to be resourceful
and creative with what she has.
[Twice as good as them to
get half of what they have.]
So it becomes easy to excuse
her and other characters
for getting creative with the rules
because they wouldn't be able to advance otherwise.
We admire Olivia's ability to rise
in a system that was rigged against her,
and we can't blame her that the system
has always been rotten to the core.
[There is no justice on this one.
The good guys lose and white hats burn.]
Since we're on the subjects of white hats,
Olivia's clothing over the seasons
reflects the evolution of her morality.
[I am talking about our friend crossing the line.
I am talking about replacing the white hat
with a black skullcap.]
In the first few seasons,
her show-stopping white and neutral outfits
mark her as a force for good.
But as she veers towards moral crisis,
her clothing color palette gets noticeably darker.
Costume designer Lyn Paolo has said
that Olivia's dark clothing in season three
represents the state of her personal life,
as she deals with family problems
and Quinn absconding from Pope & Associates.
When Olivia leaves Fitz midway
through season five,
she starts wearing bright colors
for the first time,
indicating a completely new self
and sense of independence.
And by season seven, Paolo says Olivia
is styled as "the dark knight" of the show.
She's primarily dressed in black clothing,
often with a more structured, sharp silhouette,
because by this point
she's fully transitioned to the dark side.
Again and again, Olivia chooses power, desire,
and personal bonds over doing the right thing.
[When did you stop gladiating
and wearing the white hat
and forcing us to risk everything
because you felt something in your gut?]
And while she used to be tortured
by difficult decisions,
she now owns the dark side of her identity.
In season six, she forces Vice President
Luna Vargas to commit suicide in front of her.
[You're going to die.
Tonight.
Here in this room.]
And she starts season seven as the head of B613,
the very spy agency she used to fight against.
[How's it feel to be the most powerful person
in the world?]
[Right.]
When Fitz tries to convince Olivia
this isn't the real her,
Olivia wants none of it.
[Somewhere along the way,
you misplaced your white hat
I've just handed it back to you.]
[I see.
So, you think I've suddenly
turned into some power-hungry boss bitch
who thinks she can play and use the president
like a pawn?
Fitz, I've been doing that for years.]
And we have to consider whether Olivia's
right about herself --
maybe she's not just lost,
her true self really is manipulative
and cold-blooded.
She's been unhatted, but maybe this is
where Scandal was heading all along.
[Once you take the white hat off,
it's gone, you will no longer be you.
And the thing is being a big dog
isn't as great as it seems.]
In season seven it seems pretty clear
that Olivia no longer wears that white hat.
But that doesn't mean she couldn't ever
put it on again.
Ultimately the white hat doesn't symbolize
a state of perfect moral purity,
so much as having the potential to be better
and to return to the light side
no matter what you've done.
And no one embodies that potential
more than Olivia Pope.
That's why despite all of the facts against her,
Viewers still believe that the white hat
belongs on her head.
[In the face of darkness,
you drag everyone into the light
that is the point, at least
I like to think that
is the point of you.]
Hey guys, it's Susannah and Debra here.
Thank you so much for watching.
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