The West Wing

[Bruno]

The West Wing

Since you mention Billy Ray Cyrus, it doesn't get more smug than that type of country music, especially when it gets patriotic. The point is the left never cornered the market on smug. Smug is in the 'people suck' category - it's taking pleasure in a vision of superiority, however fleeting or insecure.

Also smug:



Most of the people who voted in the presidential election would (I assume) qualify as bourgeois. I read that the average (or maybe it was the median) income of Trump voters was higher. Both sides felt smug for different reasons. One side's reasons were far more justified. I don't think it can be overemphasized that when the left is accused of smugness, that accusation is instantly made ridiculous by the fact of Trump.

It wasn't a close contest in terms of qualifications, competence, and intelligence. It was made into a close contest on ethics, but that was mainly b.s. And people are still more convinced by the imperative of an even contest than by the notion that asymmetry could obtain to the degree that it did.

[Incandenza]

The West Wing

Reginald Christ wrote: This is absolutely brilliant, from Luke Savage.

As it so happens, yesterday's Chapo Trap House is also a deep dive into the West Wing and the political mindset it helped to create among liberals today.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

The West Wing

On the election thread I strongly defended that 1) Trump's electorte ran across the social class spectrum (and was probably overrepresented in the upper echelons) and 2) people are idiots. Still it would be disingenuous to deny there's a certain degree of smugness among the self-procaimed 'creative class'.

[Bruno]

The West Wing

I'm not denying it. I'm not sure that "self-proclaimed" captures it, or exactly what is meant by "creative class." The label doesn't appear to exclude the smug "makers" that the right are so enamored with.

[Incandenza]

The West Wing

Can you explain more about that last part? Who are the makers the right love? Maybe you're using "makers" in a different way than I think of it.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The West Wing

the smugness the West Wing Encouraged is the sort of thinking that walking around in an office in washington and thinking thoughts was the important bit, rather than campaigning in the blue-wall states which they lost narrowly.

[Bruno]

The West Wing

Incandenza wrote: Can you explain more about that last part? Who are the makers the right love? Maybe you're using "makers" in a different way than I think of it.

I was referring to the makers vs. takers shtick.

[Bruno]

The West Wing

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: the smugness the West Wing Encouraged is the sort of thinking that walking around in an office in washington and thinking thoughts was the important bit, rather than campaigning in the blue-wall states which they lost narrowly.

That doesn't jive with my memory of the last season anyway.

[Satchmo Distel]

The West Wing

There was a lot of that smugness in the Clinton surrogates who were on CNN and MSNBC in the three months prior to the election, with the assumption being that you could rebut Trump just through incredulity and mockery. But there was also smugness on Fox in 2012, whose contributors seemed to think Romney would stroll to victory and were genuinely shocked that Obama turned out the vote for a second time while the GOP base was lukewarm and/or split between Tea Party and Establishment.

But the Trump-type or Bernie-type seems to come over to an intelligent viewer as shouty and shrill on TV, and this would be magnified in drama. A Trump-like character in the West Wing would have been like putting Mussolini in Downton Abbey. Joe Biden might have worked in the John Spencer role (RIP). Bartlett in real life in 2017 would be, what, a white Obama: decent, articulate, intelligent but viewed as indecisive?

[Bruno]

The West Wing

Like I said, plenty of smugness to go around. Without suggesting automatic false equivalence, that is, since I don't have a sense of which side is actually worse. The fact that I'm unsure suggests to me that it's at least close.

Bartlet wouldn't be a white Obama because Obama is irreligious, whereas TWW had nightly wet dreams about faith-shaming the right. Like when he's riding with Jimmy Smits to the inauguration and asks him what Bible verse he'll be quoting and Santos gives him chapter and verse and blam he starts reciting it. And they run Santos against an irreligious Republican, so as to wonder at length whether values voters are for real.

It's too bad TWW didn't survive into the Palin era. It would've been fun to see how they processed that. I don't remember Breitbart even being a thing as early as 2006. Let alone Alex Jones. As for Trump, I can imagine him guest-starring on TWW and playing himself, successfully. He's got tons of camera experience and if you watch him in one-on-one interviews, it's compellingly sinister. A Trump episode could've been brilliant.

[Bruno]

The West Wing

He'd be like a dumb version of Ron Silver.

[Levin]

God, it just hammers home the importance of being centrist and that trying anything is doomed to failure.

Yes, I have been feeling a bit down lately and yes I've binged this in an attempt to recall younger days.

The first few series are pretty good TV though. It drops of a cliff when Josh Malina joins though. It's not his fault, and he's not any worse than anyone else. It;s simply that it stops being good tv at the same time as he starts.

Josh the character is really unpleasant.

[Hot Pepsi]

God, it just hammers home the importance of being centrist and that trying anything is doomed to failure.

Yes, I have been feeling a bit down lately and yes I've binged this in an attempt to recall younger days.

The first few series are pretty good TV though. It drops of a cliff when Josh Malina joins though. It's not his fault, and he's not any worse than anyone else. It;s simply that it stops being good tv at the same time as he starts.

Josh the character is really unpleasant.

He was in it from the first episode, wasn't he?

[San Bernardhinault]

I'd have defined it as the departure of Rob Lowe rather than the arrival of Joshua Malina as the dividing line between watchably entertaining if you don't think too hard, and pretty rubbish all round. But it's basically around the same time.

[Bored Of Education]

I still haven't finished watching it. That may say something. Since breaking off half way through, trying again and breaking off again, I have watched The Sopranos (again), Breaking Bad, Better Caul Saul, Ozark and have almost finished The Wire. I expect I will finish West Wing at some point but Mrs Bored has gone right off it so that makes it difficult. She says that she just doesn't understand the politics. However, neither of us understand the politics of The Wire neither but we can let that flow over us.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'd have defined it as the departure of Rob Lowe rather than the arrival of Joshua Malina as the dividing line between watchably entertaining if you don't think too hard, and pretty rubbish all round. But it's basically around the same time.

Sorry, I got him mixed up with Josh Lyman, Brad Whitford's character, who was on every episode.

I lost interest as the reality of the Bush presidency got worse and worse and I just couldn't handle being that uncynical about Washington anymore.

[Patrick Thistle]

We watched it on TV then for some reason that got interrupted and we never went back to it. Then when I got made redundant 10 years ago I bought the box set and we watched it all again until the middle of season 6 (I think). Whichever series where Donna is in a car that gets blown up in the middle east. That was round about where we stopped.

I remember a really worthy episode around the time of 9/11 when the White House went into lockdown and characters took it in turns to explain how real Muslims don't engage in terrorism. That was cringey in the extreme.

I liked the politics because I studied American politics at A level so I knew what was going on. But the manufactured reasons why people would hate such a wonderful president were annoying.

[Mr Delicieux]

Reading the earlier posts, I think one point worth making to Bruno would be while America can hardly consider itself alone in its dubious behaviour, I struggle to think of any other country quite so quick to cheerlead itself via programs like the west wing.
For some reason, over the past two weeks YouTube's algorithms have decided that videos relating to 9/11 is something I'd like to watch.
I did relent, and found myself watching a few videos which was mostly local news coverage and various live broadcasts that were happening around America at the time ofthe attack. One comment that I kept seeing was how 'the world lost its innocence' when the second plane hit.
I'm sure i believed that at the time, and yet it simply wasn't true. We were just so much more naive collectively, we bought what programs like the west wing had sold us, reinforced by the 'reality' of news reports showing us how much worse it was elsewhere.
what a crock.

[hobbes]

I'd have defined it as the departure of Rob Lowe rather than the arrival of Joshua Malina as the dividing line between watchably entertaining if you don't think too hard, and pretty rubbish all round. But it's basically around the same time.

Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Sclamme left after season 4, which is why it dived so pecipitously off the cliff.

[NHH]

I'm currently watching it again, and what's apparent is that it really dives off a cliff in season 5, once they bring Santos in and it starts to be the West Wing prehistory (AKA how do you get elected against the odds) it gets more interesting, to the extent that White House episodes are dull as ditchwater. Though even in the 'classic' phase, the grinding centrism is pretty nauseating on reflection (though it was kind of more palatable as we lived in a world where it was seemingly all which was on offer).

[Levin]

I got to Israel/Palestine last night and I'm not sure I have the energy for West Wing makes Middle East peace.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The Palestine stuff is kind of all over the place. but mostly bad, like you'd expect.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The West Wing

This guest has my biscuit and location

[Bruno]

Reading the earlier posts, I think one point worth making to Bruno would be while America can hardly consider itself alone in its dubious behaviour, I struggle to think of any other country quite so quick to cheerlead itself via programs like the west wing.

Setting aside that many other countries have dabbled in film propaganda, I'm not sure how many "programs like" TWW there have been, and I don't regard it as unalloyed cheerleading. Primarily it dramatizes political polarization in order to cheerlead our better angels. It's pretty self-aware about compromising forces, it just tends to indulge in letting the better angels win. The worse angels never disappear. And once Bush was in office, it was very much an alternate reality kind of cheerleading, which everyone watching was acutely aware of.

We've also had some shows that don't cheerlead, e.g. House of Cards and let's say Veep. But yeah, being the world's leading superpower and the only "good guy" superpower gets people excited about the potentialities. TWW followed on the heels of The American President (also Sorkin, starring Michael Douglas) so he was going with a winning formula of "why the hell did no one think to turn our government into a TV series before now?" (Did anyone? Am I forgetting something really obvious right now?) Might as well include the idealism that has always been embedded in the national consciousness, which made for good TV.

For some reason, over the past two weeks YouTube's algorithms have decided that videos relating to 9/11 is something I'd like to watch.
I did relent, and found myself watching a few videos which was mostly local news coverage and various live broadcasts that were happening around America at the time ofthe attack. One comment that I kept seeing was how 'the world lost its innocence' when the second plane hit.
I'm sure i believed that at the time, and yet it simply wasn't true. We were just so much more naive collectively, we bought what programs like the west wing had sold us, reinforced by the 'reality' of news reports showing us how much worse it was elsewhere.
what a crock.

Maybe so, but I didn't feel especially naive watching TWW when it was current, I was already cynical about American exceptionalism, and for me that made it a more interesting show. If you're naive, much of the show can look like cheerleading. If you're not and you squint, you can see the characters believing the hype but aren't required to identify with them.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The politics of the show were terrible, and that reflected the politics of the writer, for sure. I really enjoyed it though.