Letters to the Editor
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I will miss intelligent people acting intelligent
The first three years of The West Wing was exhilirating, intelligent television. The diologue never waited for us to catch up with it. We had to listen and digest as fast as the characters smart talking (often mumbling) and rapid walking through the fictional White House. I got a great civic's lesson for three years. Even when the writing twisted itself inside out to create a crisis (Bartlett's undisclosed multiple sclerosis and anything with his daughter, Zoe) and anoyed me, I watched anyway because for one hour out of each week I got to invision an administration that was neither mean-spirited nor corrupted by power and/or money. The President and his staff were often admirable and I liked watching them struggle with what was morally right and what expedience demanded they do. For an hour each week I imagined I could be proud to be an American. What a concept.
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The 9/11 Episode Killed It For Me
I gotta say: it's one thing to have a show treat its audience like a civics class. That's kind of what the WW did in its first couple of seasons - it was like tuning in to watch a particularly entertaining teacher who, while you knew he had an ax (or ten) to grind, you forgave him because he entranced you. You learned about government, and you could rattle off Josh's random factoids about the federal budget at cocktail parties and sound cool.
Then came the 9/11 episode. You remember: there's a threat to the capital and so the white house shuts down. Somehow, a group of visiting students gets stuck inside. I think they were in the kitchen. Toby, Josh, Leo, C.J., and all the rest end up cycling through and delivering their solemn words on "why they hate us."
And in a blink, the show stopped conveying - it started preaching. It revealed that, deep down, it doesn't really respect its audience all that much. After all, regardless of what Neilson says about the show's demo, we're still just a bunch of prime-time zombies looking for our fix. Ever since that episode, I felt like the show was talking down to me. I was just a poor t.v. viewer, and Sorokin and his ilk had to save me from myself. After that, I couldn't stomach it anymore.
So, good-bye West Wing, hello Steven Colbert!!!!
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An 18-year old girl can do worse for a role model
I finished the sixth season today and did't cry. I guess that means I'm ready to let it go – although, of course, I'll see every last episode they make.
A close friend of mine researches international conflicts and hates, absolutely hates the way the West Wing portrayed government as essentially a positive, manegeable process in which good intentions and hard work will prevail. I love it for the same reasons: it makes me want to take charge and change those (few?) things that I canaffect. It is a pill against political apathy. My friend claims not to believe that pop culture can be inspirational anymore, not like it was in the sixties, but I wonder.
At 27, I've followed the West Wing for most of my adult life. I kept returning to it because it was great entertainment, but of course it's affected me. It must have: that's what stories do. I was raised to look primarily to my own back yard, to follow the news and vote, but not get too involved. When my work as a critic took me into the field of cultural commentary, I was warned by so many people to stay away from political engagement. It would come across as posturing. It took me years to really let my analysis reflect my convictions as a feminist, environmentalist, liberal lefty, but it earned me more readers than I lost. A weekly shot of Sorkin idealism, sense of civic-duty-and-cue-the-pompous-music, probably helped me break out of my elitist, individualist, postmodern, cultural relativist, laissez-faire media whore lifestyle. Who knows, maybe it was the incessant mentions of Fulbright scholarships and elite universities that prompted me to apply to one of them and go back to school.
Most of the time, the West Wing was about loyalty and duty. As a liberal humanist, I find the concept of freedom through obeisance difficult; I am mistrustful of political parties, because they seem to demand fealty. Only on the West Wing did I hear religious, agnostic and atheist intellectuals discussing these issues in the context of public service – a service performed at the cost of family, health and individual liberties, but understood, somehow, to be worth it.
Also, for once, it cast people who looked like the people I work with: sometimes fabulous, but mostly just well-groomed ordinary. Not just looked, come to think of it: there is no other show with such plausible, brilliant, every-day women. Mrs Landingham to Abby Bartlett, Donna Moss to the incomparable C.J. Cregg – an 18-year old girl can do worse for a role model. I'm afraid neither the O.C. not Desperate Housewife will quite cut it.
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Yes, I'm still watching
Even though the show is just a wisp of its early season promises, I still watch. Why? I'm hooked on politics, but not just hooked on politics, but hooked on politics as I WISH they would work, not on the way they actually DO work.
The West Wing is for me, a brief, hour-long fantasy into how things could work. All things NOT considered, obviously.
Plus, although I think it's probable that Alan Alda's character will win the presidency at the end of the season, I still keep rooting for the Democrat with the good ideas and the spin problem.
For me, it's kind of like a C-SPAN light with commercials. Total fantasy in this case, but still somewhat satisfying, particularly in light of recent events.
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Was what I wished Washington could be
I was a devout watcher of TWW until it was moved from Wednesday to Sunday evenings. Somehow, putting it in the time slot of Disney just convinced me it was not real. I especially loved this show up until the episode where they tried to incorporate the present WH and administrative people into the show--it felt heavy and forced, as though someone had decreed that they do this examination of the present real-life administration. After that, mostly I watched with suspicion, but continued to watch because I enjoyed most of the shows...........until the move from Wednesday to Sundays, where I simply kept forgetting to tune in.