Five Things You Can Watch To Slightly Improve Your Outlook On Politics

Let’s be honest for a hot sec: things are looking dicey. If you’re like me, you’re sick of refreshing The Guardian‘s interactive US election map and seeing the little Trump cartoon yell: “It’s going to be huge!”. The political situation is incredibly bleak right now, and it doesn’t just affect the US. It affects everyone.

#ElectionDay 2016: A Very Anxious And Slightly Confused Junkee Liveblog

But for most of us, there’s not a great deal we can do. After a day which has likely wreaked havoc on your emotions, this feels like a good time to watch something that will pick up your mood a little. Here are five TV shows/movies where the political climate is far worse than it is right now. Breathe in. Breathe out. And know that it could be (slightly) worse.

–

The 100: At Least The Apocalypse Hasn’t Happened Yet?

Sure, a lot of people are wondering if a Trump victory will mean the apocalypse is coming. Fair cop.

But the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet. Not like in The CW’s The 100 — a TV show about how young, filthy, half-starved teenagers left without adult supervision hump each other a lot.

I love The 100, because the point of the show is that women are the best leaders. All the best leaders on the show are women (Clarke, Lexa, Abby, Indra), and all the worst leaders — who make the shittiest decisions and kill the most people — are men (Bellamy, Jorah, Kane, Dante and Cage Wallace). That sounds completely fair and appropriate to me; I have no problem with it and I’m sure Hillary Clinton wouldn’t either.

Still, although The 100 sings the praises of the matriarchy, it definitely makes clear that post-apocalyptic governing is not easy. Someone is always trying to kill you. You are constantly having to move your camp because mutant humans/killer fog/other miscellaneous nasties are infiltrating your personal space. Plus there is an AI lady with a drone, and she wants you to start a cult. None of that is great.

So, feeling down? Feel like the world might end? Take a peek at The 100 and discover that, really, our world isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be. At least we can still breathe outside without Hazmat suits.

–

Wolf Hall: At Least No One’s Been Beheaded?

Trump is bad, but has he beheaded any of his wives? Nope, not yet! So, to be honest, he’s not nearly as terrible a prospect as cantankerous, gout-ridden nightmare king, Henry VIII.

In Wolf Hall, the opulent adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s historical-fiction tome, the political climate is dicey indeed. There’s bad sex, underhanded murder, dire religious tensions, and there’s the potential that you will be beheaded by your ill-tempered husband. And, if you’re Mark Rylance, you’re just mad that no one is paying heed to your excellent advice (or your excellent eyebrows).

Worse still, in the world of Wolf Hall, things may look good and expensive but everything moves slow as heck and everybody talks so fancy! Here in the real world, the election result rushes towards us on a 24-hour news cycle, and one of our prospective US presidents repeatedly uses the word “bigly”. Nice and simple.

Give Wolf Hall a gander and thank your gods that Trump doesn’t have a Thomas Cromwell in his ear, steering him in even scarier directions.

–

Utopia: At Least EVERYONE Isn’t Incompetent?

Look, some politicians are hopeless. I mean, these people are clowns. How are these people getting elected? These. People.

But not every politician currently serving (or about to serve, as the case is in the US) is a total numpty. There are some shining lights among the bureaucratic black-spots. This is not true in the world of Utopia, the ABC’s disturbing portrait of a federal government that is also a confederacy of dunces (see also: Veep, The Thick Of It).

If you loved the IRL cringe comedy of the US Republican nominees being totally unable to walk out on a stage when their names are called, you’ll adore Utopia. From much-loved production company Working Dog, and starring Rob Sitch, Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor, the show features such glorious bureaucratic fuck-ups as an inability to choose an appropriate department logo, the apparent need for an “indoor plant consultant”, and the new craze of communal office yoga. They’re all so gloriously bad at their jobs, it makes you worried about what’s really going on in the federal offices of Australian government.

–

Game Of Thrones: At Least There’s No Incest?

Okay, okay: there are lots of really bad things about the political situation in Westeros. But, come on, is there anything worse than an entire political dynasty borne of the love between a pair of attractive fraternal twins. IS THERE?

So, sure, it looks like we might have Trump as the next American president. But would King Joffrey be any better? The child of his dastardly parents’ incestuous love, Joffrey is even worse than that sentence sounds. Go ahead, re-watch those first few seasons of Game Of Thrones. Joffrey was hard fucking work, you guys.

–

The Young Victoria: At Least Hillary Clinton Can Have A Break?

Gods forbid, Hillary Rodham Clinton might just lose this election, which means Donald Trump, that orange Twistie you left rotting in your beard for a week, might win. At the very least we this means the next few years might be easier for Clinton.

Being a female political leader comes with incredibly cruel and needless trials and tribulations. Need some evidence? Have a peek at The Young Victoria, a depressing portrait of life as a woman in power. When you’re a woman in politics, like young Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) who ascended the throne at the tender age of 18, life is tough. Men try to control you; the public is always against you; and people make you marry your cousin. (Although, admittedly, if my cousin looked like Rupert Friend, I’d marry him too.)

How does that sound? Not good? It gets worse: people try to assassinate you, as they did for Queen Victoria, and slimy prime ministers are always whispering in your ear and starting rumours about your infidelity.

So, look, Trump might be president. That’s pretty bad. But at least Hillary doesn’t have to go through the same shit that Queen Victoria went through in the mid-1800s.

–

So there you have it. I know it does literally nothing to relieve this feeling. But let’s all pretend, even for one night, that it does.