Why I'm Shouting At The Television During The West Wing
Posted 12 November 2008 in Television by Catriona
The West Wing was always more Nick’s more cup of tea than mine—I have enjoyed it, but I rarely sought it out of my own volition.
But once we bought it on DVD—well, the first season, anyway—I both enjoyed it more and became intensely frustrated.
Oh, the frustration works on many levels. The writing is clever; the episode-level plotting is often brilliant. But there’s a strong sentimental streak, at times, and sentimentalism frequently frustrates me.
(Take the episode where C. J. falls in love with a Secret Service agent. Yes, he was charming. Yes, we all cried. But what kind of Secret Service agent doesn’t entirely clear a room when he’s aware of at least one person with a gun in the vicinity? But that’s beside the point.)
But you know what really drives me nuts about this programme? (Apart from the fact that this blog post is almost a decade too late?)
The gender politics.
It’s the gender politics that result in my shouting at the television during season one of The West Wing.
You know, I don’t need the President of the United States to be a woman to feel that our fifty percent of the world’s population is legitimately represented. I don’t. (On the same note, I have no stake in the debate as to whether the next actor to play the Doctor in Doctor Who should be a woman.)
No, my concern is largely with how the female characters on the show are presented.
(And I am excluding, except in the very broadest terms, Mrs Landingham—just because I love her.)
We were watching the second episode of season one, tonight—the one where the President’s doctor flies off to Jordan two weeks after his first child is born, and I think we all knew from the start where that was going: see my note about about sentimentality.
But halfway through the episode, I said to Nick, “This is the original Star Trek. It’s the original Star Trek, but in the White House.”
It’s not that the women aren’t President—that’s not what annoys me.
It’s that the women in the show are all—all of them, without exception that I can see—are in caretaker roles. They’re secretaries, by and large. Occasionally doctors, which I admit is a step up from nurses, as far as the gender politics of television are concerned.
I think this does shift, over the episodes. I seem to vaguely recall female generals—or someone in military uniform, anyway—in later debriefings.
But in the episodes I’ve been watching over the last few days, the women are all in caretaker roles.
And it’s not simply that.
Each one of these secretaries—to use that as a summary term—is also subject to the most egregious gender stereotypes.
They’re poor drivers. But then we all know that women don’t drive well.
They don’t understand sports. Women never understand sports. (And yet try getting Nick to wake up at 4 a.m. to watch Liverpool play A. C. Milan.)
They threaten to hit people with their shoes. Because women love shoes. And are incapable of rational debate. (Admittedly, my Aunt Dolly once hit her son-in-law with her high-heeled shoe. On the head. At his wedding. But there were mitigating circumstances. Allegedly.)
They’re easily distracted in the midst of work by photographs of babies.
Oh, is there any point continuing this list?
Yes, each of these points holds true for some woman at some point. I would imagine that they also hold true for a large number of men, as well.
But when the men are complex, distinct characters and the women are all semi-hysterical, easily distracted caregivers, then the distinction does rather jump out at you.
I don’t know if this pattern holds true in Aaron Sorkin’s other work—I don’t think I’ve ever consciously watched anything else he’s written (since his work is generally not in genres in which I am particularly interested).
But it is ensuring that there’s much shouting at the television in this house while we’re watching The West Wing.
Share your thoughts [14]
1
Wendy wrote at Nov 12, 11:22 am
It definitely improves over the various seasons..I don’t think in season one they had really settled on the tone for the program, or what sort of president jed bartlett was going to be…
the character that frustrated me the most was ainsley hayes the republican legal advisor they hired in a later season (can’t remember which one) – there was plenty of potential here for a recurring strong character that sort of fizzled out…and I did like when CJ became chief of staff (or whatever) after Leo’s heart attack…and the fact that they wrote Donna into leaving as JOsh’s assistant and going it on her own – during the race for the primaries in the last couple of season
I love it…I think sometimes because of the sentimentality (which is a bit scary I admit)…and can’t help but think that the brains trust behind obama’s win were inspired by jimmy smits
sorry..ranting..i’ll stop now!
2
Catriona wrote at Nov 12, 11:43 am
Ah, see I stopped watching before Jimmy Smits stepped in. I do love Jimmy Smits, though—one of the few mature actors, other than Scotsmen, who can get away with still using the diminutive form of his name as an adult and not look silly.
Well, him and Johnny Depp, but I don’t think there’s a power in the ‘verse can make Johnny Depp look silly.
Ainsley Hayes drove me nuts, too—if she’s the one I’m thinking about? The one that people called the Republican sex kitten? And didn’t she then go on to play Calleigh in CSI: Miami? (Shudder.)
I enjoy the show, too—at least, the seasons I’ve seen. But there’s something about the gender politics of the first season that makes me shout at the television.
And the sentimentality can work beautifully—but I think it’s down to the actor. I tear up every time Mrs Landringham tells that story about her boys dying in Vietnam, but I think it’s precisely because the actress (who is fantastic) plays it deadpan.
3
John wrote at Nov 12, 11:39 pm
Wendy: “can’t help but think that the brains trust behind obama’s win were inspired by jimmy smits”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/barackobama.uselections2008
[hope links work in the comments]
“For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.”
4
Catriona wrote at Nov 13, 12:09 am
The link won’t work like that, no. I think TextPattern has its own fancy way of doing things.
If you’d like, I can edit the comment to embed it as a hyperlink, or I can leave it as a cut-and-paste situation.
5
John wrote at Nov 13, 12:34 am
Of course, I should have remembered that it’s a TextPattern blog: I could have inserted the link myself.
Don’t bother though, it will work fine as a cut & paste.
6
John wrote at Nov 13, 03:00 am
…As an aside, there is an interesting discussion building on Circulating Library about The West Wing…
7
Wendy wrote at Nov 13, 03:17 am
Hey John – thanks for the link! I shall read with great interest
Also been following the story that Obama’s choice for chief of staff was the model for Josh Lyman – noticed he sported the same backpacking style the other night on the news
Mrs Landingham is a fantastic character and it is a shame she is written out after a little while.
I loved the later Matt Santos storyline arc as Jed Bartlett took a back seat in many episodes…and the other interesting female characters are Toby’s ex-wife, as well as the later press secretary Annabeth, and of course Mrs Bartlett – Stockard Channing excellent as the flawed first lady. These female characters do develop much later in the entire series. Oh…and Nancy McNally – whose official title I can’t remember but it’s something high up in defence/foreign affairs. I don’t know if the change had anything to do with when Aaron Sorkin took a step back from production. Probably not…probably just more to do with the development of the show necessary to keep things interesting
8
Nick Caldwell wrote at Nov 13, 03:54 am
I have to admit I stopped being interested in the show at the exact moment Sorkin stopped writing it. But that may be partially because I was in a heavy “TV Auteur fanboy” phase (ah, just blame Joss Whedon) and regarded Sorkin’s firing as the most shocking blasphemy.
Descriptions of some of the later plot developments didn’t do much to convince me I was wrong, though.
For all his many (and there are many) flaws he’s still one of television’s most interesting and complicated writers. The West Wing‘s producers needed to find a writer with a distinctive voice to follow him. But not David E. Kelly. Hell no.
9
Catriona wrote at Nov 13, 04:40 am
D’you know, I thought the actress had died and that’s why they wrote Mrs Landringham out? But she’s still alive—so why did they write her out? Her interactions with President Bartlet were delightful.
Nick’s point is an interesting one—Sorkin was, in many ways, at the forefront of the writer-as-auteur movement that was suddenly everywhere about seven or eight years ago. David E. Kelley was the poster boy for that, of course, and Joss Whedon’s success didn’t hurt—and it was happening in film, as well (when Charlie Kaufman was everywhere at once, and people started talking about “a Charlie Kaufman film” in a way normally reserved for directors—and good on him).
But it was happening in television, too, and Sorkin was right at the forefront—along, of course, with J. J. Abrams (on Alias and Lost) and Rob Thomas (on Veronica Mars) and a number of others.
It was odd, because I don’t remember seeing that kind of debate a decade earlier.
People would say things like, “I can’t believe John Goodman left Roseanne! I’m never watching again!” But they rarely if ever said things like, “I can’t believe they sacked the head writer on Roseanne! I’m never watching again!”
And yet that’s exactly what people said with The West Wing—and in the latter stages of Buffy and Angel, as well, when we all feverishly calculated how many episodes a season Joss Whedon would be writing.
This has nothing to do with gender politics. But it intrigues me.
10
Nick Caldwell wrote at Nov 13, 05:09 am
The idea that TV can be an auteur’s medium has been percolating at least since Twin Peaks, but yeah, you’re right to say it exploded in the public consciousness at the height of Sorkin’s popularity with the press.
I suspect we’ve always been sensitive to it, whether because people who find the conditions of cultural production interesting are more likely to become literature and media studies academics or because that training develops our awareness of those conditions.
Personally, I put it down to my rabid Doctor Who fandom. Lance Parkin (a New Adventures novelist) once pointed out that the main difference between Doctor Who fans and Star Trek fans is that we notice who the writers and directors are, and Star Trek fans generally don’t care.
11
Catriona wrote at Nov 13, 05:28 am
Ah, yes: I should have mentioned Twin Peaks—although David Lynch is something of an unusual case, because he is predominantly a film writer.
(I was going to say that Twin Peaks was his sole foray into television, but I see that he has at least two other TV series to his credit—I’ve never heard of them, and have no idea how successful they were.)
But Kelley, of course, precedes Sorkin’s success, so I wasn’t trying to claim that Sorkin was a pioneer. He was, though, in the vanguard.
(The Doctor Who versus Star Trek point is an interesting one, but I’m convinced that there are people out there whose sole interest is in tracing parallels or differences between those two shows in order to prove that one or the other is superior.)
But Aaron Sorkin was, I think, unusually closely associated with The West Wing. Did you ever read an interview or an article that didn’t mention the fact that he personally wrote every episode? And that means it’s easier to slip into the type of lazy argument that I’m trying not to make here: that it’s Aaron Sorkin whose gender politics are a little dodgy.
That’s why I’m rather wishing I had watched the later seasons, which Wendy’s suggesting do more complicated things with gender than these early ones do.
12
Wendy wrote at Nov 13, 06:54 am
Not a fan of any David E. Kelley myself so I’m with you there Nick! I do agree that the later series post-Sorkin sometimes tipped too far into the melodramatic personal storylines..and perhaps the quality was uneven…but hey I like a bit of soap opera…. For instance, one episode I really disliked was Leo McGarry’s heart attack recovery episode with the Indian carer and the interweavingof a critique of the effects of globalisation of the third world narrative which was extremely awkward. and it was very strange watching the final series knowing the John Spencer had passed away yet continued to be referrecd to in the plot for some time. What I did really enjoy were the behind the scenes on the campaign trail episodes with Santos vs Vinick. who can resist Alan Alda playing against type as a Republican? Not me. (I’m just waiting for Barack Obama to appoint John McCain to his Cabinet! HA!)
What I also think is interesting is to compare Sorkin’s The American President with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening (and also MArtin Sheen) to see where the seeds of The WEst Wing were sown. the tone and style is very different of course. And it’s interesting I have read somewhere I think that the initial idea for the west wing was to be a hollowmen style conceit where the president was never seen and the focus would be on the speechwriters, particularly Rob Lowe’s Sam Seaborn. The moroseness of Toby Zeigler is a delight as well, and his character develops in a very unusual way as the series continues. this would have been a very different program again…not sure if it would have worked though.
On the auteur thing, Seinfeld (my fall back example) definitely changed in tone and substance when Larry David left the program. Still good and nobody stopped watching, but defniitely something different.
13
Catriona wrote at Nov 13, 07:13 am
Oh, don’t get me started on David E. Kelley. Now, there are some disturbing gender politics (though I suppose living with Michelle Pfeiffer is enough to throw anyone’s idea of ordinary women for a loop.)
I admit, I rather enjoyed the first season of Boston Public—at least, I giggled a fair bit during it, though it also annoyed me. But Ally McBeal? Oh, definitely not: the show that reinforced the idea that all women—no matter how much money, effort, and intelligence it took them to carve out a certain career path—are fragile (both physically and emotionally) child-women who only do what they do to please their fathers and would actually rather be doing anything else, preferably marrying and having babies.
But that’s beside the point, really.
It’s odd, Wendy, that you should mention Leo’s recovery episode and the awkwardness of the interwoven narrative about the Third World and globalisation—I don’t remember seeing that episode and am speaking from a position of total ignorance, here, but that sounds like someone mimicking Sorkin’s style and not making a success of it. Part of the joy of the early episodes was the way in which he could weave in the oddest events and people—the one that always sticks in my mind is the episode where the Cartographers for Social Change talked about maps skewing world politics. But I’m not sure that’s the easiest technique to mimic.
Now, Larry David’s an interesting example—I was never a huge fan of his (not anti, just not much interested), but he’s another television auteur who has come to be closely associated with the success of his show—so much so that I insisted to Nick the other day that Curb Your Enthusiasm was called The Larry David Show.
14
Wendy wrote at Nov 13, 09:12 am
oh…that dancing baby was so ridiculous!
I loved the new map of the world that the cartographers came up with…i think the early episodes had more humour than the later ones…and that’s always a tricky balancing act in a drama. Maybe that was sorkin’s influence that was lost as the show went on.
Larry David is certainly an idiosyncratic voice in television. What I like about his work in Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm is the focus on the everyday, what Elaine (I think) in Seinfeld at one point frustratingly calls “the excruciating minutiae of everyday life” – or something like that. He is a keen observer of social interactions, of cultural etiquette, of the difficult art of living in what is often a mystifying contemporary culture, governed by unspoken rules which usually go unquestioned.
(Ever since the episode of Curb where he was offended when he waved to a fellow Prius driver and they didn’t wave back…I always have the urge to wave to fellow like car drivers. Wouldn’t the world be a friendlier place if we all did that?)
and to return right back to the beginning…jimmy Smits is usually quality…I much preferred his NYPD blue era to that of David Caruso