The Politician sends the message that the only safe place for a gay politician is in the closet

Slate

Ryan Murphy's Netflix series "flaunts its progressive signifiers, but its sexual politics are deeply conservative," says Daniel Schroeder. "Though The Politician plays with the signifiers of progressivism—queer, nonbinary, and trans people abound—it continues to push the idea that the winners are the ones who repress or hide these politically unmarketable traits in order to gain power," he adds. "The Politician wants to be in conversation with other works of queer television like Insatiable and Heathers, but it never has the same confidence in its own queer future. Unlike in those series, there’s no celebration of queerness, and the gay isn’t empowering. It’s something meant to be kept private, out of the public eye. There’s no moment (Ben Platt's) Payton considers that his sexuality might be an asset instead of a liability, no understanding of the political reality he’s coming up in where queerness is increasingly acceptable, even in a presidential candidate. Sure, Payton’s campaign ticks some boxes—his running mate is black, queer, and nonbinary—but that’s just to fill the quota. They take up the nonstandard part of his ticket so he can be the unblemished straight white savior he’s always envisioned himself as."

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• The Politician proves you can mock "wokeness" without being a baby boomer who left their empathy in the 1980s: "Wokeness is a joke at Payton’s high school," says Clémence Michallon. "Its cynical treatment means it turns concerns for visibility, diversity and inclusion into nothing more than political ambition. That’s why (Ryan) Murphy’s angle works: the joke is on the right people. No one’s making fun of millennials and their sense of social justice. No one’s hinting at the concept of crybabies getting triggered and needing their safe spaces. No one’s making fun of anyone for caring about things that actually matter."
• The Politician may be the most annoying show of 2019: "What an odd show this is," says Stuart Heritage. "Even by the standards of Ryan Murphy, whose shows have a tendency to loop off into incomprehensibility in their latter stages, it seems to have a particularly lax sense of self... This series is a great big wall, dripping with ideas that have been flung at it without thought. It’s a Rushmore-style satire framed in camp. It’s a State of America Today declaration that feels like a particularly expensive daytime soap opera. It’s an exploration of privilege that’s deeply enamoured with its own privilege. It’s a high school story where all the students are played by adults."
• From Younger to The Politician: How Marie's Crisis became the hottest piano bar on TV
• Can Ben Platt's Payton Hobart actually run for the New York State Senate?