dreams of being in The West Wing and in the West Wing have blended
February 28, 2015 8:51 AM Subscribe
I'm going to let House of Cards inform my political reality:
posted by Fizz at 9:08 AM on February 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
"For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted."Francis Joseph “Frank” Underwood
"Of all the things I hold in high regards, rules are not one of them."
[watching a dog that has been hit by a car] "There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong. Or useless pain. The sort of pain that's only suffering. I have no patience for useless things. Moments like this require someone who will act. To do the unpleasant thing. The necessary thing... [puts the dog out of its misery] There, no more pain."
"Such a waste of talent. He chose money over power. In this town, a mistake nearly everyone makes. Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone who doesn't see the difference."
posted by Fizz at 9:08 AM on February 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
On the show, the conservatives lost because they were not the main characters, and were thus given the straight-man lines - they were characters scripted to lose.
Actually, Arnold Vinick was scripted to win the presidency until John Spencer's death changed the trajectory for the final season.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2015
Actually, Arnold Vinick was scripted to win the presidency until John Spencer's death changed the trajectory for the final season.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2015
There are very few shows that feature the day to day work done in grassroots social movements and community organizations. If there is it's often peraonalized, individualised, and not connected to legislative change.
I think this is a missing piece of dramatic narratives about politics.
posted by chapps at 9:21 AM on February 28, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think this is a missing piece of dramatic narratives about politics.
posted by chapps at 9:21 AM on February 28, 2015 [5 favorites]
The most realistic show about politics on the air is Veep.
posted by The Whelk at 9:36 AM on February 28, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 9:36 AM on February 28, 2015 [17 favorites]
I adore the West Wing, but at no point would I consider it exclusively educational.
posted by jetlagaddict at 9:36 AM on February 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jetlagaddict at 9:36 AM on February 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
People who are planning on plunging into politics based on The West Wing should be required to watch the entire run of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:40 AM on February 28, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by benito.strauss at 9:40 AM on February 28, 2015 [15 favorites]
I'm as big a fan as any, but the show always struck me as first, a liberal fantasy, and only secondly as an attempt to show how politics worked. The idea of the show was to let us enjoy the idea that the highest level of politics was filled with extraordinarily intelligent, unbelievably hard-working people who were imperfect but ultimately determined to do what's best of the country. Their personal imperfections made them relatable, and their enormous talent let us imagine what we could do.
I admit, if the Deputy Director of Communications came to speak at my school, I would be thinking "Oh, that's Sam Seaborne's job! Wow!" But I find it hard to believe this guy's classmates were taking it as seriously as this guy is suggesting.
I do think the show was really good in showing how tasks are split up in the white house, how difficult and important it is to keep the administration's message focused. But I've never met anyone who would even for a moment think it was a helpful or accurate representation of what the beliefs or priorities of the Democratic or Republican policies stand for.
Oh, also, that thing about how Vinnick was "supposed to win" comes up in almost any discussion of The West Wing, but the only support for that is a single statement from a producer that was later contradicted by a writer.
posted by skewed at 9:45 AM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
I admit, if the Deputy Director of Communications came to speak at my school, I would be thinking "Oh, that's Sam Seaborne's job! Wow!" But I find it hard to believe this guy's classmates were taking it as seriously as this guy is suggesting.
I do think the show was really good in showing how tasks are split up in the white house, how difficult and important it is to keep the administration's message focused. But I've never met anyone who would even for a moment think it was a helpful or accurate representation of what the beliefs or priorities of the Democratic or Republican policies stand for.
Oh, also, that thing about how Vinnick was "supposed to win" comes up in almost any discussion of The West Wing, but the only support for that is a single statement from a producer that was later contradicted by a writer.
posted by skewed at 9:45 AM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
I don't believe I ever watched more than fifteen consecutive minutes of West Wing. Not because it was particularly badly acted, scripted etc, but because at first I wasn't really aware of it, and then when I was, George W Bush was in the White House. So it was obviously a fantasy, and a clearly unhealthy one at that (ie: don't fret about what's really happening, the smart, pragmatic, "progressive" leadership we require is available on TV once a week).
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
People who are planning on plunging into politics based on The West Wing should be required to watch the entire run of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
Really, everything Aaron Sorkin writes is like this. If you can watch this deadly serious television and not think it's hilarious then I dunno man
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:05 AM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
Really, everything Aaron Sorkin writes is like this. If you can watch this deadly serious television and not think it's hilarious then I dunno man
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:05 AM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
I learned everything I know about politics from watching I, Claudius...
posted by ennui.bz at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by ennui.bz at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2015 [17 favorites]
I'm waiting for the young, idealistic politically minded people that were raised on House of Cards. Because we need a lot of journalists pushed in front of trains.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2015 [11 favorites]
(also, the idea that you would base your politics based on watching a TV drama is about ludicrous as the idea that you would get news from a TV comic: hint if you are learning about the world from a Daily Show, the problem is you, not Fox news...)
posted by ennui.bz at 10:14 AM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by ennui.bz at 10:14 AM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
The West Wing's biggest failure is portraying conservatives as persuadable, or defeatable, by rational argument or policy debate, or really as good faith actors in general. When in the real world they're utterly immune, they're not good faith actors, and only grow stronger in the face of challenge from hated liburls.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:16 AM on February 28, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:16 AM on February 28, 2015 [30 favorites]
It's always good to see someone outgrow Aaron Sorkin. He is the Ayn Rand of liberals, providing fantasy worlds that can trap adolescents and ultimately leave them embittered and impotent when the real world doesn't match up.
Hopefully a lot of the author's cohort will follow suit. I always feel better about the U.S. when we have mildly cynical liberals running Washington.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:22 AM on February 28, 2015 [31 favorites]
Hopefully a lot of the author's cohort will follow suit. I always feel better about the U.S. when we have mildly cynical liberals running Washington.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:22 AM on February 28, 2015 [31 favorites]
Is there really a critical mass of people who think West Wing is a realistic depiction?
posted by Brocktoon at 10:46 AM on February 28, 2015
posted by Brocktoon at 10:46 AM on February 28, 2015
Why can't Parks & Rec be our idealized fantasy of government, everything is resolved within 25 minutes by the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and UNDERSTANDING and WAFFLES
posted by The Whelk at 10:50 AM on February 28, 2015 [49 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:50 AM on February 28, 2015 [49 favorites]
From the progressive tradition, David Simon’s The Wire is the anti-West Wing: there’s no eloquent speeches
Carcetti was darned good with the speechifyin', if not actually being mayor.
posted by raysmj at 11:01 AM on February 28, 2015
Carcetti was darned good with the speechifyin', if not actually being mayor.
posted by raysmj at 11:01 AM on February 28, 2015
Lots of people decided to go to law school because they loved L.A. Law, and lots of people thought med school was a good idea because of ER. The West Wing is not unique in giving people a fantasy of what work and a career are like. No one is going to admit that they really believe those portrayals, but we all want things to be more awesome than they could truly be, and so are inclined to turn a blind eye when possible - like when you're graduating from college and trying to figure out what's next and how to get there.
posted by rtha at 11:01 AM on February 28, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by rtha at 11:01 AM on February 28, 2015 [10 favorites]
Is there really a critical mass of people who think West Wing is a realistic depiction?
Of what -is- happening or of what -should- be happening? Because I think I can find you plenty of the latter and as the article points out its not really a viable or desireable state of affairs.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:10 AM on February 28, 2015
Of what -is- happening or of what -should- be happening? Because I think I can find you plenty of the latter and as the article points out its not really a viable or desireable state of affairs.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:10 AM on February 28, 2015
I thought the character of Matt Skinner was very interesting and not their standard cut-and-paste Republican opponent.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:12 AM on February 28, 2015
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:12 AM on February 28, 2015
Carcetti was darned good with the speechifyin', if not actually being mayor.
I was always under the impression that The Wire took pains to emphasize how Carcetti's eloquent speeches were a cynical papering over of the actual problems facing Baltimore.
posted by Bromius at 11:17 AM on February 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
I was always under the impression that The Wire took pains to emphasize how Carcetti's eloquent speeches were a cynical papering over of the actual problems facing Baltimore.
posted by Bromius at 11:17 AM on February 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
Tell me: from the get go, this article aims to shatter notions about fiction and reality that I don't have. I'm just curious if a large subset of people reading this article did in fact have their notions shattered.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:22 AM on February 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Brocktoon at 11:22 AM on February 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
I was always under the impression that The Wire took pains to emphasize how Carcetti's eloquent speeches were a cynical papering over of the actual problems facing Baltimore.
Not to mention this is the most powerful bit of speechifyin' about the nature of government anyone ever did on The Wire.
posted by gompa at 11:23 AM on February 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
Not to mention this is the most powerful bit of speechifyin' about the nature of government anyone ever did on The Wire.
posted by gompa at 11:23 AM on February 28, 2015 [4 favorites]
Why can't Parks & Rec be our idealized fantasy of government, everything is resolved within 25 minutes by the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP and UNDERSTANDING and WAFFLES
posted by The Whelk at 10:50 AM on February 28 [4 favorites +] [!]
Reminds me of that late West Wing episode where Toby solved the social security crisis in 60 minutes minus commercials.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:59 AM on February 28, 2015
posted by The Whelk at 10:50 AM on February 28 [4 favorites +] [!]
Reminds me of that late West Wing episode where Toby solved the social security crisis in 60 minutes minus commercials.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:59 AM on February 28, 2015
>The most realistic show about politics on the air is Veep.
Another, weaker, contender for "most realistic" might be Alpha House.
I'm especially fond of Veep's parent, The Thick of It, but it's made recent Doctor Who episodes very difficult to watch.
posted by fredludd at 12:08 PM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Another, weaker, contender for "most realistic" might be Alpha House.
I'm especially fond of Veep's parent, The Thick of It, but it's made recent Doctor Who episodes very difficult to watch.
posted by fredludd at 12:08 PM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
Reminds me of that late West Wing episode where Toby solved the social security crisis in 60 minutes minus commercials.
Perhaps not the best example, since A) there's no Social Security "crisis" apart from that manufactured by Republicans as an excuse to cut benefits and B) 75 year actuarial balance could be achieved in approximately 60mins by simply lifting the earnings cap.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:08 PM on February 28, 2015 [16 favorites]
Perhaps not the best example, since A) there's no Social Security "crisis" apart from that manufactured by Republicans as an excuse to cut benefits and B) 75 year actuarial balance could be achieved in approximately 60mins by simply lifting the earnings cap.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:08 PM on February 28, 2015 [16 favorites]
[Their mistake] is portraying Xs as persuadable, or defeatable, by rational argument or policy debate, or really as good faith actors in general. When in the real world they're utterly immune, they're not good faith actors, and only grow stronger in the face of challenge from hated Ys.
It's impressive how interchangeable the language of zealotry really is across space and time. Just change the terms to Serbs, communists, Muslims, Catholics, or anything else and you can easily blend into the local ideological hatreds.
posted by Winnemac at 1:15 PM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
It's impressive how interchangeable the language of zealotry really is across space and time. Just change the terms to Serbs, communists, Muslims, Catholics, or anything else and you can easily blend into the local ideological hatreds.
posted by Winnemac at 1:15 PM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
I may have done a PhD in economics at least mostly because Bartlet was an economist.
posted by ~ at 1:22 PM on February 28, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by ~ at 1:22 PM on February 28, 2015 [8 favorites]
I always feel better about the U.S. when we have mildly cynical liberals running Washington.
[says nothing]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:24 PM on February 28, 2015
[says nothing]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:24 PM on February 28, 2015
West Wing did for politics what Lou Grant (and, I suppose, All the Presidents Men) did for journalism.
posted by klarck at 1:26 PM on February 28, 2015
posted by klarck at 1:26 PM on February 28, 2015
Winnemac, based on my year as a Senate staffer, there absolutely is a group of Republican Senators (Kirk, Lee, Inhofe, Paul, and a few others) who do not operate in good faith. It really isn't worth engaging them seriously on policy matters because they're not interested in governing. I'm not aware of an equivalent group on the Democratic side of the aisle.
posted by wintermind at 1:28 PM on February 28, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by wintermind at 1:28 PM on February 28, 2015 [23 favorites]
And the witty comeback isn't going to convince them - instead, you need negotiation and compromise.
Or compromising is impossible. Or your opponent thinks compromising with you is equivalent to compromising with Satan.
posted by jonp72 at 1:29 PM on February 28, 2015 [5 favorites]
Or compromising is impossible. Or your opponent thinks compromising with you is equivalent to compromising with Satan.
posted by jonp72 at 1:29 PM on February 28, 2015 [5 favorites]
People who are planning on plunging into politics based on The West Wing should be required to watch the entire run of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
I had a brief relationship with a woman who dated me because I looked like Matthew Perry. The sex was amazing, but when she insisted that Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip was not only the best show on American television, but perhaps the best scripted TV show ever written, I suppose I knew deep down the relationship was doomed.
posted by jonp72 at 1:34 PM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
I had a brief relationship with a woman who dated me because I looked like Matthew Perry. The sex was amazing, but when she insisted that Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip was not only the best show on American television, but perhaps the best scripted TV show ever written, I suppose I knew deep down the relationship was doomed.
posted by jonp72 at 1:34 PM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
From the article:
... most American politicians today lack vision regarding how to address the foundational public problems of our time. Those who attempt to speak and act on broader, programmatic visions – the Ron Pauls, Ralph Naders, Gar Alperovitzes, and Porchers of the world – are marginalized....
I don't know if Ron Paul's excess of vision is really the reason that he's marginalized. At this point, I started to question Pete Davis's vision.
posted by IAmUnaware at 1:49 PM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
... most American politicians today lack vision regarding how to address the foundational public problems of our time. Those who attempt to speak and act on broader, programmatic visions – the Ron Pauls, Ralph Naders, Gar Alperovitzes, and Porchers of the world – are marginalized....
I don't know if Ron Paul's excess of vision is really the reason that he's marginalized. At this point, I started to question Pete Davis's vision.
posted by IAmUnaware at 1:49 PM on February 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
equivalent to compromising with Satan.
...going to get them primaried, with Koch money.
(Probably some are the first, but these are likely more numerous.)
posted by dhartung at 1:51 PM on February 28, 2015
...going to get them primaried, with Koch money.
(Probably some are the first, but these are likely more numerous.)
posted by dhartung at 1:51 PM on February 28, 2015
I'm not sure it's the substance of the policies, or the realism, or the plausibility of the Bartlett administration that makes the West Wing such a thing. For those of us in the UK, I think it was the prospect of hyper-competent, idealistic, literate, not-at-all-class-based-to-UK-ears people being in charge that was so damn good. Rewatching it, yes, Bartlett is a terrible president (actually this is mostly the plot of the first season, where his ratings are awful) but dammit all, the staff are just *very very good at what they do*. How many of us can say that working with such people wouldn't be a dream?
I've had plenty of contact with senior politicians and bureaucrats Europe-wide, and every one of them comes infinitely short of the knows-their-shit-very-deeply West Wing characters. I wonder if the show is indirectly responsible for a good number of people leaving politics after a short while: as a career the other people are just too disappointing in comparison.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:03 PM on February 28, 2015 [8 favorites]
I've had plenty of contact with senior politicians and bureaucrats Europe-wide, and every one of them comes infinitely short of the knows-their-shit-very-deeply West Wing characters. I wonder if the show is indirectly responsible for a good number of people leaving politics after a short while: as a career the other people are just too disappointing in comparison.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:03 PM on February 28, 2015 [8 favorites]
...I mean, it's not a liberal fantasy, so much as a Grown-Ups In Charge fantasy: Jeb Bartlett and Jean-Luc Picard together as the secret moral centre of a generation.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:06 PM on February 28, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:06 PM on February 28, 2015 [16 favorites]
...I mean, it's not a liberal fantasy, so much as a Grown-Ups In Charge fantasy: Jeb Bartlett and Jean-Luc Picard together as the secret moral centre of a generation.
But this is exactly what's so disempowering about the fantasy, in the end: the idea that "grown-up" pragmatic elites steering the ship of state renders ideological commitments meaningless and grassroots action superfluous. You know who grown-ups are in charge of? Kids.
posted by kewb at 2:27 PM on February 28, 2015 [26 favorites]
But this is exactly what's so disempowering about the fantasy, in the end: the idea that "grown-up" pragmatic elites steering the ship of state renders ideological commitments meaningless and grassroots action superfluous. You know who grown-ups are in charge of? Kids.
posted by kewb at 2:27 PM on February 28, 2015 [26 favorites]
That is very well said, kewb
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:32 PM on February 28, 2015
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 2:32 PM on February 28, 2015
The most realistic show about politics on the air is Veep.
I used to work in government and interacted with a number of pols. I tried watching Veep. Too too close to home.
posted by Nevin at 3:30 PM on February 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
I used to work in government and interacted with a number of pols. I tried watching Veep. Too too close to home.
posted by Nevin at 3:30 PM on February 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread just made me realize that if we name our soon to be born child Jed (it's on the shortlist), several questions may be raised: 1) Will people think we're naming him after Jed Bartlett? 2) am I actually naming him after Jed Bartlett? 3) is there a cohort of Jeds growing up and about to be born so that this previously old-fashioned name will soon be represented 3-4 times in classrooms of every left-leaning area of the country?
posted by skewed at 3:47 PM on February 28, 2015
posted by skewed at 3:47 PM on February 28, 2015
I am sort of a lobbyist-manque, and House of Cards actually was quite educational for me. Some people in Congress do have ideologies they pursue, but not at the expense of losing an election.
posted by yarly at 3:58 PM on February 28, 2015
posted by yarly at 3:58 PM on February 28, 2015
Geez you guys, it sounds like you all really need someone to leave some poetry in your shoes.
posted by onlyconnect at 4:04 PM on February 28, 2015
posted by onlyconnect at 4:04 PM on February 28, 2015
It's always good to see someone outgrow Aaron Sorkin. He is the Ayn Rand of liberals, providing fantasy worlds that can trap adolescents and ultimately leave them embittered and impotent when the real world doesn't match up.
Oh, this so much. I love me some West Wing, but it most definitely is a liberal fantasy. Actually, that's precisely why I like it--because I'm a liberal! I like to think, though, that I can separate fantasy and wishful thinking from the real world.
posted by zardoz at 4:25 PM on February 28, 2015
Oh, this so much. I love me some West Wing, but it most definitely is a liberal fantasy. Actually, that's precisely why I like it--because I'm a liberal! I like to think, though, that I can separate fantasy and wishful thinking from the real world.
posted by zardoz at 4:25 PM on February 28, 2015
>> grown-up" pragmatic elites
> so liberals
Liberal fantasies anyway. Like liberals but with less adultery.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:29 PM on February 28, 2015
> so liberals
Liberal fantasies anyway. Like liberals but with less adultery.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:29 PM on February 28, 2015
Funny you should mention Rand. I just finished a fairly-enthusiastic reread of The Fountainhead, entirely on impulse, and it was remarkable to me how much of it was fairly terrific, albeit embedded with a bunch of wrongheaded assumptions that're pretty hilarious and don't entirely undermine Rand's characterizations. What fascinated me, though, is that the instant her protagonist self-actualizes, the entire story goes to shit, and the villains all go from sympathetic and/or mustache-twirling to the legendary Rand monologuers that've given her such a bad literary name. It's like the second Rand learned how to articulate what she was looking for, she abandoned all pretenses of telling a story about humans, and became full-blown idealogue, in a manner that's detectable while you're reading. Fascinating, fascinating book. And then Atlas Shrugged attempted the same feat and utterly flubbed it, because Rand's doubting protagonist is getting sneered at, by Rand, even while she struggles. Not gonna bother rereading that one for another long time to come.
I don't think that Aaron Sorkin's fans are nearly as idiotic as Ayn Rand's fans are. I will give Sorkin that: he manages to be less wretched than Ayn Rand. So no, I don't think that Sorkin fans think that The West Wing is what politics looks like. What I do think, however, and we've got ample proof of this even in this very thread, is that a lot of Sorkin fans have convinced themselves that Sorkinworld is the way the world should look like.
I just read Emily Nussbaum's New Yorker review of The Newsroom, and she gives a pretty terrific description of how Sorkin operates. A Sorkin antagonist gets 25% of an argument in, 50% if Sorkin's feeling generous, and then Sorkin's liberal demolishes them with a rationality that, while compassionate on the surface, entirely precludes that the antagonist in question could be anything other than hypocritical, heartless, and/or just not as intelligent as Aaron Sorkin is. They're strawmen, only I genuinely don't think Sorkin realizes that they are. In his mind, his villains' talking points are what people who aren't Aaron Sorkin actually believe.
The worldview this leads to is one in which the problem is never Us, it's Them. We are noble and just and trying our very hardest; They are ignorant and overly-emotional and it is shameful that They are given equal voice in this country to Us, and even have fans among the American people. So of course we don't have to bother asking ourselves if We are doing something wrong, or if They are operating from a perspective which can be understood, on a level, as would-be compassionate or sincere or thought-through. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that there's a whoooole lot more awfulness on the right than the left in this country, and that there's some shameful shit going on in Washington today. But I also think that the left kind of sucks too — the institution Dems, the radical left, and any and all stripes in between. This shit is hard. Sucking is expected.
People are mentioning Veep in this thread, and that is obviously never a bad thing, because Veep is a fucking awesome show, but when I think of Aaron Sorkin the character that comes to mind isn't from Veep, it's Roman from Party Down. You know, the arrogant writer who's convinced of his superiority over all over people, and who doesn't bother to understand the people he's superior to, and whose failures are always attributable to the dumbass peons who thwart his utterly badass and awesome plans, and it turns out he's also kind of a piece of shit, and (until near the very end) the one character on staff who is almost comprehensively unsympathetic. Not because he isn't human, but because he's so fucking quick to deny his adversaries their worthiness as humans in turn.
(Also because both Roman and Sorkin are sexist pieces of shit. That too.)
Anyway, I know a lot of cocky cockbags who totally think that Sorkin's pleasing escapist fantasy, but implicit in their endorsement is the notion that this is escapist, this is how things ought to be. Those fucking awful people who disagree with me would shut the fuck up, or would only speak long enough for me to totally pwn them, and then everything I feel like doing is the best thing to be doing and everything gets better. And all my personal failings, those are what humanize me, and it's great that I'm struggling on despite them, aren't I great?, why aren't you telling me how great I am? I notice it more with liberals than with conservatives, in fact (and in part beause conservatives have other hideous patterns to call their own). I can't imagine it not being Aaron Sorkin's fault to at least a fairly major extent.
posted by rorgy at 6:41 PM on February 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
I don't think that Aaron Sorkin's fans are nearly as idiotic as Ayn Rand's fans are. I will give Sorkin that: he manages to be less wretched than Ayn Rand. So no, I don't think that Sorkin fans think that The West Wing is what politics looks like. What I do think, however, and we've got ample proof of this even in this very thread, is that a lot of Sorkin fans have convinced themselves that Sorkinworld is the way the world should look like.
I just read Emily Nussbaum's New Yorker review of The Newsroom, and she gives a pretty terrific description of how Sorkin operates. A Sorkin antagonist gets 25% of an argument in, 50% if Sorkin's feeling generous, and then Sorkin's liberal demolishes them with a rationality that, while compassionate on the surface, entirely precludes that the antagonist in question could be anything other than hypocritical, heartless, and/or just not as intelligent as Aaron Sorkin is. They're strawmen, only I genuinely don't think Sorkin realizes that they are. In his mind, his villains' talking points are what people who aren't Aaron Sorkin actually believe.
The worldview this leads to is one in which the problem is never Us, it's Them. We are noble and just and trying our very hardest; They are ignorant and overly-emotional and it is shameful that They are given equal voice in this country to Us, and even have fans among the American people. So of course we don't have to bother asking ourselves if We are doing something wrong, or if They are operating from a perspective which can be understood, on a level, as would-be compassionate or sincere or thought-through. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that there's a whoooole lot more awfulness on the right than the left in this country, and that there's some shameful shit going on in Washington today. But I also think that the left kind of sucks too — the institution Dems, the radical left, and any and all stripes in between. This shit is hard. Sucking is expected.
People are mentioning Veep in this thread, and that is obviously never a bad thing, because Veep is a fucking awesome show, but when I think of Aaron Sorkin the character that comes to mind isn't from Veep, it's Roman from Party Down. You know, the arrogant writer who's convinced of his superiority over all over people, and who doesn't bother to understand the people he's superior to, and whose failures are always attributable to the dumbass peons who thwart his utterly badass and awesome plans, and it turns out he's also kind of a piece of shit, and (until near the very end) the one character on staff who is almost comprehensively unsympathetic. Not because he isn't human, but because he's so fucking quick to deny his adversaries their worthiness as humans in turn.
(Also because both Roman and Sorkin are sexist pieces of shit. That too.)
Anyway, I know a lot of cocky cockbags who totally think that Sorkin's pleasing escapist fantasy, but implicit in their endorsement is the notion that this is escapist, this is how things ought to be. Those fucking awful people who disagree with me would shut the fuck up, or would only speak long enough for me to totally pwn them, and then everything I feel like doing is the best thing to be doing and everything gets better. And all my personal failings, those are what humanize me, and it's great that I'm struggling on despite them, aren't I great?, why aren't you telling me how great I am? I notice it more with liberals than with conservatives, in fact (and in part beause conservatives have other hideous patterns to call their own). I can't imagine it not being Aaron Sorkin's fault to at least a fairly major extent.
posted by rorgy at 6:41 PM on February 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
Hopefully a lot of the author's cohort will follow suit. I always feel better about the U.S. when we have mildly cynical liberals running Washington.
You must be in clover. One point of the OP is that deeply cynical liberals run Washington today.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:57 PM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
You must be in clover. One point of the OP is that deeply cynical liberals run Washington today.
During the Q&A afterwards, one of the Pipeline protesters asked Messina pointedly: “If you’re going to make fun of our protest, what do you recommend we should do instead if we have a message we want to send to the president?” Messina responded, “Become Deputy Chief of Staff.”Another point is that even the Bartlet administration isn't really idealistic at all:
As the laughs died down, Messina elaborated, describing how, “it’s really incredible to see democracy up close and find that some piece of legislation that I had worked on become enacted into law.”
Shocked at his dismissal of an earnest young citizen, I followed her question up with another critical question:
“In 2008, the campaign told us that ‘we were the ones we had been waiting for’ – that this would be a different, more participatory administration – but as soon as the election was won, you shut down the entire grassroots organization. Now, all of your emails to us only ask for our money and votes. Aren’t we more than money and votes to you?”
Messina, caught off guard, rambled on a bit about the technical details of the allegedly-grassroots “Organizing for America” arm of the administration, eventually admitted to having not pursued a bottom-up approach during the first term, and concluded by saying again that we should come out to New Hampshire and knock on doors for the president during the re-election campaign. And with that, Messina – one of the few men to actually live the West Wing dream about which so many in my generation have fantasized – showed his true colors, a revealing answer even a Sorkinesque inspirational soundtrack could not have glossed over.
[...]
Like the fictional Bartlet administration, the Obama administration’s eloquence and smarts is betrayed by its lack of clear and consistent vision and integrity. Take Jim Messina himself as an example. The Obama team assuredly knew, before hiring him, that he had released what has been called “one of the most homophobic ads of modern political times” while managing Senator Max Baucus’ 2002 Senate campaign. They knew he kept an “‘enemies’ list on an Excel spreadsheet.”
During the administration, they encouraged him to crony corporatize health care reform, as well as execute the tactics that would gut the transformative, participatory legacy of the 2008 campaign in favor of, as The Nation reports, an administrative strategy “committed to working the system inside Washington rather than changing it.” It should have come as no surprise that Messina cashed in on his connections after his term of service, accepting consulting windfalls with little regard for his clients’ ideological positions. Indeed, the real-life Josh Lyman is just as much of a winner as his fictional counterpart, but the stark reality of how these ‘wins’ play out is not as inspiring as Sorkin would have scripted.
As I rewatched The West Wing after meeting Messina, the show was different for me. It became clear to me that the show suffers from the same problems that Messina does. Despite racking up dozens of rhetorical takedowns of fictional conservatives, countless hours of eloquent explanations of turn-of-the-21st century minimalist Democratic Party policies, and neverending historic anecdotes quoted perfectly by the encyclopedic staff, the Bartlet administration rarely lays out nor consistently advances a national vision beyond Clinton-like marginal policies which they only occasionally enacted. As Ian Millhiser points out, President Bartlet, relative to his sweeping liberal rhetoric,“was a mediocre president”:The House of Cards view of politics and power, from the perspective of the OP, would hardly be any better than that of The West Wing, because both shows are about political intrigue in the highest halls of power. Neither show really cares about the effects of all that politicking on anyone less powerful than its protagonists.
“The Bartlet Administration had few bold ideas. What was the Bartlet plan to ensure universal access to health care? Or the Bartlet plan to combat global warming? What did President Bartlet do to close the education gap between poor and rich children? Or to ensure that every child who does succeed in high school will be able to pay for college?”
“Ultimately,” Millhiser concludes, “his presidency advances a very small kind of liberalism that appeals mostly to people who’ve never worried if they could pay their medical bills or if their children can afford college.”
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:57 PM on February 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
Most of we West Wingnuts – myself included – were nerds back in our school days, incapable or uninterested in the type of winning that playing (or even watching) sports brings.
A real irony here is that most high-powered Washington movers and shakers were both nerds AND athletes in their school days. You see lots of fat guys over at the State Department?
A real drive to excel will manifest itself regardless of the arena.
Real stars aren't good because they practice a lot. They're good people, period. That comes first. Then they practice a lot.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:35 PM on February 28, 2015
A real irony here is that most high-powered Washington movers and shakers were both nerds AND athletes in their school days. You see lots of fat guys over at the State Department?
A real drive to excel will manifest itself regardless of the arena.
Real stars aren't good because they practice a lot. They're good people, period. That comes first. Then they practice a lot.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:35 PM on February 28, 2015
They're strawmen, only I genuinely don't think Sorkin realizes that they are. In his mind, his villains' talking points are what people who aren't Aaron Sorkin actually believe.
I don't know. The man is an accomplished storyteller in his particularly niche. It would not surprise me to find out that he doesn't actually care much what other people believe as long as he can write a good riff off of it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:39 PM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't know. The man is an accomplished storyteller in his particularly niche. It would not surprise me to find out that he doesn't actually care much what other people believe as long as he can write a good riff off of it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:39 PM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]
It would not surprise me to find out that he doesn't actually care much what other people believe as long as he can write a good riff off of it.
That might be my inclination, too, except for the many incidents wherein Sorkin got offended by some critic of his or other and wrote them into the show, just so he could smack them around. He strikes me as incredibly thin-skinned and incredibly concerned with feeling like he's the smartest man in the room.
posted by rorgy at 4:20 AM on March 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
That might be my inclination, too, except for the many incidents wherein Sorkin got offended by some critic of his or other and wrote them into the show, just so he could smack them around. He strikes me as incredibly thin-skinned and incredibly concerned with feeling like he's the smartest man in the room.
posted by rorgy at 4:20 AM on March 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of the discussion of whether romcom tropes are creepy--I don't think they're creepy in the romcoms because the audience is in on the fact that the main characters are destined to be together. So something that would be stupid because you had no idea how the other person would respond... isn't stupid in the context of that movie because the audience knows it's okay. West Wing, looking back at it, has a similar feel. The arguments work because they're meant to work. Unfortunately, I do know a lot of people who try to have arguments like this. You eat shellfish, you ought to be okay with homosexuality, checkmate! But I don't think it's West Wing's fault, it's just... operating like lots of popular fiction operates, how we want popular fiction to operate. I don't assume politics works that way any more than I assume a private investigator can really access your phone records just because it happened on Veronica Mars.
posted by Sequence at 4:47 AM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Sequence at 4:47 AM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately, I do know a lot of people who try to have arguments like this. You eat shellfish, you ought to be okay with homosexuality, checkmate! But I don't think it's West Wing's fault, it's just... operating like lots of popular fiction operates, how we want popular fiction to operate. I don't assume politics works that way any more than I assume a private investigator can really access your phone records just because it happened on Veronica Mars.
I wouldn't say that it's the fault of people believing it's how fiction operates so it must be true (although there are a lot of people who do think that way); I would instead say that the problem is people who have mistaken clever turns of phrase for substantive argument.
I mean, yeah, a well-turned phrase is good and memorable, and can express a thought you have succinctly. But the clever phrase isn't the thought itself, it's just, like, that thought's picture. So you have people who haven't put much thought into an issue, but have heard a clever slogan that sums up their view, and they repeat it and think that they'll win the argument that way. It's argument via bumper sticker.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:19 AM on March 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
I wouldn't say that it's the fault of people believing it's how fiction operates so it must be true (although there are a lot of people who do think that way); I would instead say that the problem is people who have mistaken clever turns of phrase for substantive argument.
I mean, yeah, a well-turned phrase is good and memorable, and can express a thought you have succinctly. But the clever phrase isn't the thought itself, it's just, like, that thought's picture. So you have people who haven't put much thought into an issue, but have heard a clever slogan that sums up their view, and they repeat it and think that they'll win the argument that way. It's argument via bumper sticker.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:19 AM on March 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: showed us a game that we could play and win at: I can memorize facts, I can make snarky comments, I can win debates… and all the while I can feel good about myself .
posted by spock at 6:35 AM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by spock at 6:35 AM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
The 1993 documentary The War Room had a similar but smaller effect on a number of young political types.
posted by swerve at 9:44 AM on March 1, 2015
posted by swerve at 9:44 AM on March 1, 2015
I really liked drugs. I mean, the West Wing. I mean, I liked drugs, too. The West Wing was some good shit at the time, but I knew it was shit. I don't really know how, like in the article, you could ever genuinely conflate reality with its depiction on a TV show. Maybe in broad strokes, but, you know, its still a fucking TV show. Its there to sell soap.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:09 PM on March 1, 2015
posted by From Bklyn at 1:09 PM on March 1, 2015
You must be in clover. One point of the OP is that deeply cynical liberals run Washington today.
I suspect we work on different scales. Dick Cheney routinely flaunting the fact that he was untouchable -- now, that approached deep cynicism. The folks in Washington now still care enough to pretend.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:24 PM on March 1, 2015
I suspect we work on different scales. Dick Cheney routinely flaunting the fact that he was untouchable -- now, that approached deep cynicism. The folks in Washington now still care enough to pretend.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:24 PM on March 1, 2015
hint if you are learning about the world from a Daily Show, the problem is you, not Fox news...
The science disagrees. If you are learning about the world from a / the Daily Show, maybe you've got a problem, but Fox News still remains a demonstrably much larger and much more severe problem.
posted by anonymisc at 5:01 PM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
The science disagrees. If you are learning about the world from a / the Daily Show, maybe you've got a problem, but Fox News still remains a demonstrably much larger and much more severe problem.
posted by anonymisc at 5:01 PM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
The House of Cards view of politics and power, from the perspective of the OP, would hardly be any better than that of The West Wing, because both shows are about political intrigue in the highest halls of power. Neither show really cares about the effects of all that politicking on anyone less powerful than its protagonists.
I prefer to take that pill in the form of "Game Of Thrones". At least then I can look upon the self-serving struggles and squandered opportunity for greater good, and say "Wow, I'm so glad I don't live in Westeros!". Watching the same idiotic pointless struggles here, instead of addressing things that desperately need addressing... I DO live here, so it's kind of depressing.
posted by anonymisc at 5:08 PM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I prefer to take that pill in the form of "Game Of Thrones". At least then I can look upon the self-serving struggles and squandered opportunity for greater good, and say "Wow, I'm so glad I don't live in Westeros!". Watching the same idiotic pointless struggles here, instead of addressing things that desperately need addressing... I DO live here, so it's kind of depressing.
posted by anonymisc at 5:08 PM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lots of people decided to go to law school because they loved L.A. Law
This happens even for shows with an overtly fantastical/unrealistic premise. The US Air Force absolutely loved Stargate SG-1 for all the good PR it offered amid the aliens and space wormholes.
It's not at all surprising that the West Wing inspired people to go into politics. What's painful is to think that the education that people would develop on the way into a political career didn't disabuse them of the notion that they should expect the real thing to play out like the fantasy they saw on television.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:01 PM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
This happens even for shows with an overtly fantastical/unrealistic premise. The US Air Force absolutely loved Stargate SG-1 for all the good PR it offered amid the aliens and space wormholes.
It's not at all surprising that the West Wing inspired people to go into politics. What's painful is to think that the education that people would develop on the way into a political career didn't disabuse them of the notion that they should expect the real thing to play out like the fantasy they saw on television.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:01 PM on March 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
(also, the idea that you would base your politics based on watching a TV drama is about ludicrous as the idea that you would get news from a TV comic: hint if you are learning about the world from a Daily Show, the problem is you, not Fox news...)
I think that, given the astonishingly hard-hitting journalism of Last Week Tonight, we need to put an end to the notion that humor is somehow anathema to good reporting. This has been the case for a while, of course — Hunter S. Thompson, Matt Taibbi, and even H. L. Mencken, to some extent — but we nonetheless assume that "news" and "entertainment" are necessarily at odds with one another.
No, the problem Jon Stewart had was focusing on the media's corruption to the exclusion of political examination — that is, he wanted to shine a spotlight on the single greatest problem with contemporary Western civilization (and if you think that our political parties are more responsible for the shit we're in than the media infrastructure which enables them, you've missed something tremendously important), but somehow avoid the possibility that the two political parties were somehow inextricably tied up in that media process themselves.
Speaking as a user who wrote a long, favorable, and very popular comment about Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity back in the day, I've since learned that there's a more fundamental problem politically than a mere difference of opinion, and it's how the right wing has perfectly fused their media and political operations into a paranoid-style echo chamber, so good at convincing their audience that they're the "fair and balanced" operation in question that their audience effectively loses the ability to communicate with anybody they're not in agreement with. That's nothing new — Al Franken's fairly excellent (and also comedic!) books about Fox News and the Bush administration taught me all this while I was in high school — but once you see the media machine in operation, which online comments do a pretty wonderful job at, you start to realize that centrism is itself too lofty-minded to be effective. Jon Stewart demolished Tucker Carlson on Crossfire, sure, but every Fox interview he went to followed the same pattern: "Why are you a liberal?" followed by "I'm not really a liberal" followed by a follow-up the next day entitled Jon Stewart: What A Fucking Liberal. Stewart's brand of skepticism was pretty damn good at getting my generation to understand this problem in the media, but his refusal to delve deeper into politics proved ultimately ineffective as far as genuine sociopolitical understanding was concerned.
The problem, in other words, is not one of individuals conflicting over opinions; it's that there's a single system which is designed to generate conflict detached from rational assessments of a situation. That system includes both left and right, and both buy into it in different problematic ways. The left's problem, oftentimes, is that it willingly cedes territory to its opposition, by assuming that it's above the grueling cynicism of it all — itself a somewhat cynical decision, not always but certainly some of the time — whereas the right, as aforementioned, is fucking brilliant at ratcheting up the tension, and taking things to scarier and scarier territory over time. The systemic degradation is the real threat, and it isn't easily overcome, but Stewart's approach was ultimately not entirely perfect, in that it attempted to avoid deeper analysis for the focus on pettier media issues, relative to the ones that really get shit stirring.
I think that, in this assessment of things, The West Wing falls far more into the territory of Us vs. Them paranoia than The Daily Show does — I mean, you assume that the right would LOVE a popular show about right-wing politicians, whereas I can't see them truly wanting a show that offered systemic critique of the media landscape (their attempts to clone The Daily Show failed, not due to ideology, but due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the show's intent in the first place). Meanwhile, Jon Oliver's done some brilliant reporting in the little time he's had to establish a name for himself, and a show like Veep manages the sort of systemic critique that The West Wing, from what I've seen of it, never really bothered with. (Armando Iannucci, of course, is an old hand at this, as is Chris Morris, who occasionally directs Veep and who's written some devastating political satire in its own right.)
My personal take, and I've seen nothing to dispute this, is that if you're going to reach people in the 21st century, it's going to be via a process of systemic entertainment — that is, something that's genuinely appealing in a fairly basic way but that guides people towards structures of political and media reform. The right is already doing this, in some marvelously grotesque ways — witness Fox Nation, i.e. Fox for believers, which offers a perfect doublethink stream of news-biased-against-liberals and sexy pictures of women (the latter of which is conveniently unarchived). Structured thought in the guise of entertainment is more possible now than ever, and extraordinarily prevalent, by which I mean that this is BuzzFeed's model for producing journalism and tricking people into reading it, right next to hosting arguments about what color a freakin' dress is. Which, eh, I find that model kind of sickening, but it's at least dealing with the problem, which is that people have more freedom to choose what they spend their time doing than ever, and the result is them pursuing entertainment more relentlessly than ever before. This is not necessarily a problem, but it requires a reworking of our understanding of how communication with people operates, and how ideas are transmitted — and while all the "solutions" so far seem pretty cynical and shallow, I have faith that better possibilities exist, and will be discovered in time.
For what it's worth, this connection between entertainment and information was at the heart of my undergraduate studies, and I've spent the last close-to-four years mapping out a field that, depending on how you look at it, either feels wildly counterintuitive or completely instinctual. Interactive architecture is at the heart of the media landscape in the post-computer world (just look at the web site you're reading this on), and it follows unusual rules compared to conventional thinking — but among them is the notion that both entertainment and information are procedural, and not necessarily bound to a single format. From that vantage point you can assess Stewart, Sorkin, Taibbi, Oliver, etc. from their assorted rhetorical approaches, and see which ones of them really get at making a point and which ones turn the notion of enlightenment itself into a crowd-pleasing pander. By which, of course, I'm still talking about Sorkin, whose latest show was literally based around the notion of "what if Aaron Sorkin, not actual news reporters, got to report on the news from several years ago?"
There's nothing wrong with combining news reporting or politics with entertainment. In fact, there are a hundred different ways to do it well. But I find Sorkin's work to be unnecessarily divisive, and (for what it's worth) poor artistically because of that. Stewart isn't the greatest by any means, but he's a lot better than most of what you find on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, and he helped create a media landscape in which information can go hand-in-hand with entertainment, which is pretty invaluable as well.
posted by rorgy at 5:42 PM on March 2, 2015
I think that, given the astonishingly hard-hitting journalism of Last Week Tonight, we need to put an end to the notion that humor is somehow anathema to good reporting. This has been the case for a while, of course — Hunter S. Thompson, Matt Taibbi, and even H. L. Mencken, to some extent — but we nonetheless assume that "news" and "entertainment" are necessarily at odds with one another.
No, the problem Jon Stewart had was focusing on the media's corruption to the exclusion of political examination — that is, he wanted to shine a spotlight on the single greatest problem with contemporary Western civilization (and if you think that our political parties are more responsible for the shit we're in than the media infrastructure which enables them, you've missed something tremendously important), but somehow avoid the possibility that the two political parties were somehow inextricably tied up in that media process themselves.
Speaking as a user who wrote a long, favorable, and very popular comment about Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity back in the day, I've since learned that there's a more fundamental problem politically than a mere difference of opinion, and it's how the right wing has perfectly fused their media and political operations into a paranoid-style echo chamber, so good at convincing their audience that they're the "fair and balanced" operation in question that their audience effectively loses the ability to communicate with anybody they're not in agreement with. That's nothing new — Al Franken's fairly excellent (and also comedic!) books about Fox News and the Bush administration taught me all this while I was in high school — but once you see the media machine in operation, which online comments do a pretty wonderful job at, you start to realize that centrism is itself too lofty-minded to be effective. Jon Stewart demolished Tucker Carlson on Crossfire, sure, but every Fox interview he went to followed the same pattern: "Why are you a liberal?" followed by "I'm not really a liberal" followed by a follow-up the next day entitled Jon Stewart: What A Fucking Liberal. Stewart's brand of skepticism was pretty damn good at getting my generation to understand this problem in the media, but his refusal to delve deeper into politics proved ultimately ineffective as far as genuine sociopolitical understanding was concerned.
The problem, in other words, is not one of individuals conflicting over opinions; it's that there's a single system which is designed to generate conflict detached from rational assessments of a situation. That system includes both left and right, and both buy into it in different problematic ways. The left's problem, oftentimes, is that it willingly cedes territory to its opposition, by assuming that it's above the grueling cynicism of it all — itself a somewhat cynical decision, not always but certainly some of the time — whereas the right, as aforementioned, is fucking brilliant at ratcheting up the tension, and taking things to scarier and scarier territory over time. The systemic degradation is the real threat, and it isn't easily overcome, but Stewart's approach was ultimately not entirely perfect, in that it attempted to avoid deeper analysis for the focus on pettier media issues, relative to the ones that really get shit stirring.
I think that, in this assessment of things, The West Wing falls far more into the territory of Us vs. Them paranoia than The Daily Show does — I mean, you assume that the right would LOVE a popular show about right-wing politicians, whereas I can't see them truly wanting a show that offered systemic critique of the media landscape (their attempts to clone The Daily Show failed, not due to ideology, but due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the show's intent in the first place). Meanwhile, Jon Oliver's done some brilliant reporting in the little time he's had to establish a name for himself, and a show like Veep manages the sort of systemic critique that The West Wing, from what I've seen of it, never really bothered with. (Armando Iannucci, of course, is an old hand at this, as is Chris Morris, who occasionally directs Veep and who's written some devastating political satire in its own right.)
My personal take, and I've seen nothing to dispute this, is that if you're going to reach people in the 21st century, it's going to be via a process of systemic entertainment — that is, something that's genuinely appealing in a fairly basic way but that guides people towards structures of political and media reform. The right is already doing this, in some marvelously grotesque ways — witness Fox Nation, i.e. Fox for believers, which offers a perfect doublethink stream of news-biased-against-liberals and sexy pictures of women (the latter of which is conveniently unarchived). Structured thought in the guise of entertainment is more possible now than ever, and extraordinarily prevalent, by which I mean that this is BuzzFeed's model for producing journalism and tricking people into reading it, right next to hosting arguments about what color a freakin' dress is. Which, eh, I find that model kind of sickening, but it's at least dealing with the problem, which is that people have more freedom to choose what they spend their time doing than ever, and the result is them pursuing entertainment more relentlessly than ever before. This is not necessarily a problem, but it requires a reworking of our understanding of how communication with people operates, and how ideas are transmitted — and while all the "solutions" so far seem pretty cynical and shallow, I have faith that better possibilities exist, and will be discovered in time.
For what it's worth, this connection between entertainment and information was at the heart of my undergraduate studies, and I've spent the last close-to-four years mapping out a field that, depending on how you look at it, either feels wildly counterintuitive or completely instinctual. Interactive architecture is at the heart of the media landscape in the post-computer world (just look at the web site you're reading this on), and it follows unusual rules compared to conventional thinking — but among them is the notion that both entertainment and information are procedural, and not necessarily bound to a single format. From that vantage point you can assess Stewart, Sorkin, Taibbi, Oliver, etc. from their assorted rhetorical approaches, and see which ones of them really get at making a point and which ones turn the notion of enlightenment itself into a crowd-pleasing pander. By which, of course, I'm still talking about Sorkin, whose latest show was literally based around the notion of "what if Aaron Sorkin, not actual news reporters, got to report on the news from several years ago?"
There's nothing wrong with combining news reporting or politics with entertainment. In fact, there are a hundred different ways to do it well. But I find Sorkin's work to be unnecessarily divisive, and (for what it's worth) poor artistically because of that. Stewart isn't the greatest by any means, but he's a lot better than most of what you find on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, and he helped create a media landscape in which information can go hand-in-hand with entertainment, which is pretty invaluable as well.
posted by rorgy at 5:42 PM on March 2, 2015
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On the show, the conservatives lost because they were not the main characters, and were thus given the straight-man lines - they were characters scripted to lose. It's not as cartoonish as when you read those dippy "a Christian student stands up to a science teacher" things, where a student effortlessly outwits a one-note evil teacher, but it's also not as true-to-life necessarily.
So maybe the challenge encountered by idealists entering government is suddenly coming face-to-face with people who not only don't want reform, but also have GOOD REASONS why they don't. People who aren't one-note buffoons, but PEOPLE, with THOUGHTS and IDEAS of their own. And the witty comeback isn't going to convince them - instead, you need negotiation and compromise.
And that takes time. A lot of time. And it is loud and messy and you backtrack a lot, especially when you have people complaining why you don't just do what Jeb Bartlett did on the show, or people complaining that "well, your campaign promise said....and it's been a month now already, what have you been doing?"
This is not to say that there AREN'T stubborn types who are hanging onto a position out of sheer cussedness, but that's all the more reason to discredit the witty-comeback approach, because someone being stubborn isn't gonna shrivel up in the face of a witty comeback, they're instead gonna realize they're being mocked and will say "well, fuck you, then," and get even MORE stubborn.
THE WEST WING was great, but it was a fiction, and the real world -and government - work different, because there are two sides, rather than being one side and a straw man.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:08 AM on February 28, 2015 [24 favorites]