By Chloe Angyal • @chloeangyal • 12 years ago

Leslie Knope’s sexuopolitical dreams are coming true

“Sexuopolitical” is a word I just made up for when you think a political figure is super sexy. This is how certain members of the Feministing crew feel about Barack (though I reckon more of us feel that way about Michelle). It’s how almost all the young women of America in 1961 felt about JFK. It’s how more than a few American men in 2012 feel about Elizabeth Warren. And it’s about how Leslie Knope, who is fictional, feels about Joe Biden.

“Parks and Rec”’s heroine has on multiple occasions mentioned her crush on the man who was just reelected as VP. Her dream man would have the brain of George Clooney and the body of Mr. Biden, and her celebrity sex list only has one name on it. And that name has the middle name “Robinette.”

Well, part of the advantage of being a fictional character is that sometimes, you get to live out your fantasies. Or part of them, at least: “Parks and Rec” showrunner Mike Shur announced this week that in next Thursday’s episode, Leslie Knope will meet the veep. I assume they will not be acting out everything she would like to do with him.

Here’s a teeny preview of the very short cameo. I would also like to note that, in this cameo, Leslie spends way more time fantasizing about being President than she does about doing the Vice President. Which is one of the reasons I love this show.

New York, NY

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia. She joined the Feministing team in 2009. Her writing about politics and popular culture has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, New York magazine, Reuters, The LA Times and many other outlets in the US, Australia, UK, and France. She makes regular appearances on radio and television in the US and Australia. She has an AB in Sociology from Princeton University and a PhD in Arts and Media from the University of New South Wales. Her academic work focuses on Hollywood romantic comedies; her doctoral thesis was about how the genre depicts gender, sex, and power, and grew out of a series she wrote for Feministing, the Feministing Rom Com Review. Chloe is a Senior Facilitator at The OpEd Project and a Senior Advisor to The Harry Potter Alliance. You can read more of her writing at chloesangyal.com

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia.

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