I just deleted a long and bitter rant about politics. I am not going there, and I hope if you choose to comment, that you won’t either. As I said to my mum today (waves at mum through the internet), I know how I’m voting. I don’t need to preach and I sure don’t need to be converted.
But you know… sometimes I need to wish that things could be different. And right now I wish real government was more like TV. I wish that Jed Bartlet could be the president.
It feels a little disrespectful to talk about TV characters being president when so much hangs in the balance of this election. I don’t mean any disrespect. But real politics, like everything else about reality, is often messy, often murky, and often mundane (which is where some of the real horror happens… well, ma’am, I’m just doing my job.) TV is story, and story is constructed to make mess only so that clarity can come from it, so that we may find a meaning to take away. Right now, I wish for some better meaning to all the meanness and the fear and the helpless rage I see around me…
… but we’re not going there today. Instead, we are going to The West Wing.
I loved this show. Beautifully written, passionate particular characters, issues that I cared about, resolutions that I wasn’t always comfortable with. A cold clear look at the realities of power and what kinds of people are best suited to exercise it. Incredible seasonal arcs of story that mingled the personal and political. When I watch story, when I read, when I listen, I like to laugh and cry and hold my breath waiting to see what will happen… The West Wing did that for me, and I miss it.
But now there is the InterMagicalNet, and today I have two clips for you. The first is from the pilot episode. We have spent an entire hour with the West Wing staff but haven’t met the president yet — and when we do, wow, what an entrance, and then it’s all about who’s got the power in the room. I was enraptured the first time I saw it, and still am, because that is what power can feel like sometimes. There a whole post in me about power someday, but for today this scene will stand just fine.
In the second clip, President Bartlet is making a midnight deal with Arnie Vinick, his Republican rival, and then there’s ice cream and conversation…
I know it’s simplistic. I know it’s a five-act structure timed to commercial breaks. I know it’s just a story. But it’s a good story, and good story makes us better. It makes us remember who we can be.
Wow. I haven’t watched this series, but after that pilot, I must. What a way to introduce Mr. President:
“Then what’s the first commandment?”
“I am the Lord, your God, thou shalt worship no other god but me. Boy, those were the days, huh?”
Our prof. Peggy Thompson was so right when she told us that there’s nothing subtle about writing for the screen. Really, it’s more like writing with a baseball bat.
During the last presidential elections in Mexico, I fell out of grace with some of my left-wing friends (most of them are left-wing radicals). They just didn’t understand that fundamentally, I believe that our political systems are just breeding vultures. If you aren’t one when you go in, you soon grow sharp talons and a taste for rotting flesh. Or your eyes get pocked out and your innards eaten by your fellow politicians, the way it happened to Vicente Fox, who was clearly not a politician. Or you get executed by your own party. So if you must vote, and I believe you must, then you vote for the one vulture who doesn’t seem so hungry for power and people’s approval. You vote for the most educated vulture, the one who at least has enough brains to participate and be able to hold a public debate. You vote for the vulture who has money already and won’t pull the rug from under the whole country because it just discovered it could steal all those shiny pretty things it never had before. You are not voting for a hero. You are voting for the least dangerous of the vultures, the least hungry. Most of my friends in Mexico still believe in heroes. It would be a different world if leaders were like Jed Bartlet. I’d vote for him.
Power is hard to wield. I stay clear of it. I know that I’d become a dictator if I was ever elected Mexican President. I’d need a loyal army to do my bidding because I have radical ideas about what needs to be done in the country that gave birth to me. And that’s not cool, even if I do believe it’d do a greater good in the long run. And all my family members would probably end up being executed. Self-sacrifice is okay in my books, but having others die for my beliefs is not. Also, power is addictive. I think Che Guevara and Fidel Castro were onto something with their revolution, but Castro became a power-junkie and didn’t know when his nation was strong enough to walk on its own feet. That’s another one of my fears around power. How it captures and deforms our spirit by its very nature and weight.
Now I’m going to watch clip 2. Thanks for sharing these with us.
Again, the baseball bat:
“I think I could live on coffee ice-cream.”
“Hardest thing about his job is knowing the stash is down here twenty-four hours a day.”
Did you notice that the pistachio bucket was the emptiest of all? Pistachio rules. I’d have a hard time staying away from it, too.
This show is so well written. I’ll put it on my to-study list.
And I agree with you, Kelley, I also wish real government was more like TV. I wish life had skilled and aware authors plotting out every scene.
Third line “his” –> “this”.
It was a brilliant show. I loved it to; I was the best written show I’ve ever seen, I think. One had to actually pay attention to keep up with what was happening. I was surprised it lasted past the first season, really. Would that the people in the white house were that Bright, passionate, and in-line with what I also believe to be right and good.
Totally off-topic:
Happy Birthday, Kelley!!
May your days be filled with joy, love, and Nicola. .grin.
I’ll be toasting you today.