Review: Hillary Clinton’s Broad City Appearance Was a Win, for Her and the Show [View all]

[BlueMTexpat]

http://time.com/4262827/broad-city-hillary-clinton-review/

The candidate showcased a subtly cracked take on her own image

Politicians are very poor actors. TV cameos by political figures, perhaps because they’re so heavily brokered to ensure that the politician won’t be embarrassed, end up risking nothing but the audience’s boredom. With that in mind, Hillary Clinton’s guest appearance on Wednesday night’s Broad City was a strange triumph—a performance that was totally secondary to the show’s sensibility. Clinton’s episode of Broad City had little to do with her, and it was all the better for that.

It’s worth noting that Clinton barely appears on the show; her cameo comes at the episode’s end, and is quite brief. (About two minutes, and much of the sequence is a close-up of Clinton’s smiling face as Abbi and Ilana freak out over her.) When she finally does show, she’s as odd as any member of the show’s loopy universe, dragging a car-dealership air dancer into the campaign office and gleefully watching it unfurl. “It’s a she,” the former Secretary of State declares proudly, of the giant fabric tube.

This is, in small part, a cracked vision of Clinton’s image as decisive and competent. But more than anything, the Clinton appearance has little to do with Clinton in the world, and it’s better for it. Clinton, like everything on Broad City, exists only insofar as she relates back to the show’s central narcissists. Perhaps the most revolutionary thing Clinton does is appear in a scene in which a character, at a loss for words, announces “I pegged” (referring to a sex act from the previous season). Though Clinton isn’t really trying to keep up with the show’s humor, she’s hardly standing in its way.