Scandal: The Crowd Favorite

Amanda McKnight | Staff Writer

Unless you are completely cut off from social media during you the week you know that Thursday nights at 10pm are dedicated to ABC’s hit Drama, Scandal. With its third season return Scandal averaged 10.5 million views and a record 712,877 tweets making it the most tweeted about show on Thursday night.

Scandal follows the shows main character Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, a lawyer that owns a “fixing” firm. Olivia Pope and Associates are the people in Washington, DC, where politicians, celebrities, and socialites go when they need a “scandal” fixed. But anyone who watches the show knows that as of late it has been Pope and her friends that have needed the real fixing in their lives. Pope is having an on and off affair with the married President of the United States, and her associates all have backgrounds full of deceit and mystery. Scandal follows the ins and outs of the corruption, lies, and secrets that connect all of the characters in the show.

There has not been a show on a major network with a Black female lead in 30 years. Scandal is an anomaly that seemed to come out of nowhere. It has many people who do not watch the show wondering why everyone is obsessed.

Scandal has turned into a very social media driven show. Fans get on Twitter around 9:55pm to check in and be ready for the episode. Being on Twitter during Scandal is like watching a show in your living room with 100s of friends. Then after the show is over you can pop over to Instagram and see fan made memes and people posting funny pictures with moments from the episode.

Part of that draw also comes from the fact that the entire Scandal cast tweets while the show is airing. If you follow the actors and tweet them you may get a tweet back and again that creates a community because they are just as involved in the story as the viewers.

If you ask any true “gladiator,” as Scandal fans call themselves, they will go on and on about the plot of the show, who they love and hate on the show, but most importantly what they think will happen next. The chance to guess and try to figure the next move for Pope and her friends seems to be what keeps people coming back.

The show’s creator Shonda Rhimes and her writing team keep viewers coming back for more every week. Rhimes is a powerhouse in television creating multiple shows for ABC, including Grey’s Anatomy, and Private Practice. Rhimes is a Black female writer that puts together diverse actors and makes them multidimensional rather than fulfilling stereotypes. Scandal is very popular with many in the Black community and with women and that is in part because Rhimes has created a strong female character that may not always make the best decisions, but is not a caricature of a Black woman. She lives her life as most of us do, not defining ourselves by skin color.