Vogue
A show about high school politics featuring song and dance numbers? Intriguing
26th Mar 2019
By LUCIE CLARK
Mister D: Since more articles have come out about this show, I was thinking the same thing as this headline…a cross between Glee and Election. What’s been bugging me? Reading that Bette Midler is a Guest Star. There seem to be two definitions I’ve come up with since growing up watching TV and Made-For-TV movies: One can appear in a series for a guest shot for one episode or it can mean they will have a prolonged part, being a guest star, is to set your name apart from the rest like “featuring”. Bette is set to be in two seasons of the show. Anyway, it just made me curious as to how much she’ll be in the show. So, I’ve written to the powers that be for some answers. Ryan Murphy, the Almighty, is known to be very tight-lipped about his sets, so I may not get an answer. No matter, I’m really looking forward to this show.
I told my mom 3 names that were starring in it: Judith Light, Jessica Lange, and Bette Midler. She started laughing and said are you sure you didn’t do the casting. Each one of these divas, I said almost the same thing about….that they would be major stars. I fell in love with Bette on her first Tonight Show appearance with Johnny Carson. I was 14! Bette was singing “Am I Blue” I was so dorky, and I said, “I love her. She’s going to be a superstar” I had never said that about anybody before. I didn’t even listen
to that kind of music, but something spoke to me about Bette. The other two, I just saw something in them as well, I never looked for talent on purpose, it just seemed to hit me. I haven’t felt any of those feelings in a long time.
This new Netflix show sounds like Election and Glee had a baby together
One of Hollywood’s most in-demand showrunners, Ryan Murphy, who is credited with some of the most watchable content around (think: Glee, Scream Queens, Feud, Pose and American Horror Story) has turned his exceptional skills towards a new project for Netflix called The Politician.
The forthcoming show, debuting on September 27 according to a press release from the streamer, has the makings of our next binge-watch and pop-culture-changing obsession. Largely because the premise has the vibes of a cross between 1999’s cult noir comedy film, Election, and everyone’s favourite all-singing, all-dancing high school musical comedy, Glee.
According to Variety, The Politician is a high school political comedy starring Ben Platt—whose name and voice fans will recognise as the lovable Benji from the first two Pitch Perfect films—as Payton Hobart, “a wealthy student from Santa Barbara, California, who has known since age seven that he is destined to be the president of the United States.” However, since Hobart is only in high school, his journey to the Oval Office starts in the high school halls, where he must first be elected student body president.
W reports the show will follow Hobart on various campaigns starting with his high school presidency campaign, onto university and beyond, and in similar fashion to Reese Witherspoon’s character Tracy Flick in Election, it sounds like Hobart will let nothing get in the way of his quest for political domination.
However, W also reports there are rumours the show will feature musical numbers, lending a Glee-style element that’ll keep it light, entertaining and take the edge off the darker win-at-all-costs political agenda.
The casting for the show strongly supports this musical rumor.
The casting for the show strongly supports this musical rumor. We already know the lead, Ben Platt, has a set of pipes on him from his role in the Pitch Perfect films. The fact that he’s a bona fide Broadway star, having appeared in a number of productions including The Music Man, The Book of Morman and Dear Evan Hansen (for which he won a Tony Award) doesn’t hurt either. Variety reports songbird Bette Midler has a guest role on the show along with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is well-known for being a multi-skilled actress who can really sing.
The cast is rounded out by Bohemian Rhapsody actress Lucy Boynton, Benjamin Barrett, Jessica Lange, Dylan McDermott, Theo Germaine, Judith Light and January Jones is, per W, also set to appear in a number of episodes. Set It Up actress Zoey Deutch is also on the casting list and is Platt’s “work wife” according to the Instagram post he shared of himself and Deutch on set.
With six months until the show airs, it seems the streamer is extremely excited about it, because why else would the notoriously private company provide so much information so far out? Don’t worry Netflix, we’re getting excited too!
I’m all in!