Scandal's Olivia Pope was not a role model, but her deification makes sense when you consider what she represents

Slate

As Willa Paskin points out, Kerry Washington's character "beat a disabled man (who, to be fair, was also an evil child killer) to death with a chair. She’s rigged an election. She was, briefly, the head of B613. She’s done awful things I don’t even remember and awful things I stopped watching. Her bad deeds are innumerable. But the deification of Olivia Pope make sense if you consider Scandal extratextually—if what those girls are looking at is an Olivia Pope–Kerry Washington hybrid, where the thing to admire, to stand in awe of, is a black woman permitted to do very horrible things and be loved anyway: not a role model, but a shining example of the power of representation." ALSO: Scandal star who didn't make it says of learning the news: "My heart (started) pounding"