ABCs Revenge: Hit Show Capitalizes on Current Political Climate

For weeks, media outlets have blasted Americans with news of Occupy Wall Street protestors. Photos of campsites have cropped up in many newspapers, and signs that read “We are the 99 percent” have been seen on TV news programs.

These are Americans who are fed up with the lack of equality in wealth distribution. These protestors believe so strongly in their cause that they’ve been willing to camp out in cities across America, through rain, wind and snow. For them, the redistribution of wealth has become more than a belief. It’s become a lifestyle.

The Occupy Wall Street protestors are an example of the extreme, but they represent an ideology with which more and more Americans are beginning to identify.

It’s an ideology on which ABCs Revenge has been able to capitalize. Revenge is based on main character Emily Thorne’s mission to take down those who destroyed her father, who was framed and convicted of a terrorist plot.

Thorne’s target? The rich, wealthy and elite group of businessmen and women, politicians and socialites of the Hamptons.

“We are dealing at a particular time right now in American history where I think the average American is going to want to see the takedown of the rich,” said Madeleine Stowe, who plays Victoria Grayson — also known as Emily’s biggest adversary on the show.

And Stowe isn’t the only one who thinks the current political climate has played a role in the show’s popularity. CNN.com writer Stephanie Goldberg summed it up nicely when she wrote about Revenge.

“Nothing like a show about rich people who hate their lives to keep one entertained during a recession,” Goldberg wrote in her Dec. 2, 2011 article.

Stowe and Goldberg could be on to something. In a time when many Americans are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, Revenge could be an easy an entertaining escape from reality. It’s a foray into the world of the rich, but from a different perspective.

And from the viewer’s perspective, the Hamptons elite don’t always come out on top.

Revenge airs on ABC at 10 p.m./9 p.m. central on Wednesdays.


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