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Diabolik900 posted:I don't think there's anything outlandish about it. Their relationship wasn't really portrayed as controversial as far as I can remember. It was portrayed as being accepted by most of mainstream America, and those who were opposed to it were fringe groups. I don't think that's an unrealistic portrayal of how the nation would react to that situation, then or now. What the show did do right was portray Bartlet as uncomfortable with it to Leo and then saying "it's not because he's black - I'm Spencer Tracy at the end of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner!" As someone who's been in a lot of interracial relationships, I thought it captured some of the reflexive hesitance of professed liberal white parents. Oh Jed, it's okay, we know it's a little because he's black (but you get over it).
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Jan 30, 2013 08:12
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Remember, literally half of this country actually thought Obama was born in another country because he's black.
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Jan 30, 2013 10:40
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The Warszawa posted:What the show did do right was portray Bartlet as uncomfortable with it to Leo and then saying "it's not because he's black - I'm Spencer Tracy at the end of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner!" As someone who's been in a lot of interracial relationships, I thought it captured some of the reflexive hesitance of professed liberal white parents. I'm not sure about that, there were multiple scenes where Charlie essentially assumed the honorary role of son to Bartlett, and his relationship to his daughter didn't seem to impede any of that.
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Jan 30, 2013 11:20
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All of those really post-date his relationship with Zoey, though, or Charlie's approach to Bartlet about it in "Lord John Marbury." It's not really touched on in any depth and it's all in Martin Sheen's performance (because this show was really bad about grappling with race and issues that touched on race, despite its merits), but Leo straight up asks if Bartlet has a racial problem and Bartlet's defensiveness really sells it. Like I said, he got over it.
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Jan 30, 2013 11:35
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The Warszawa posted:All of those really post-date his relationship with Zoey, though, or Charlie's approach to Bartlet about it in "Lord John Marbury." It's not really touched on in any depth and it's all in Martin Sheen's performance (because this show was really bad about grappling with race and issues that touched on race, despite its merits), but Leo straight up asks if Bartlet has a racial problem and Bartlet's defensiveness really sells it. Like I said, he got over it. I really can't comprehend how you would consider the show really bad about race issues.  It set forth an idealized narrative and acknowledged that there are still a great many issues that merited acknowledging along the way. Also Martin Sheen's performance is the show. They created a minor role for him to anchor the ensemble and he inspired the production to center around him.
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Jan 30, 2013 17:11
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I can’t take the Mass Effect series’ Illusive Man seriously after watching this show. I think of him as President Bartlett in space, which isn’t remotely threatening.
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Jan 30, 2013 18:49
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Josh Lyman posted:Remember, literally half of this country actually thought Obama was born in another country because he's black. If a white guy is dating Sasha, what does a racist say? Good, this'll give the Obamas some class?
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Jan 30, 2013 19:03
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TheBigBad posted:I really can't comprehend how you would consider the show really bad about race issues. It was very clumsy about using black and Latino characters solely as issue soapboxes, even moreso than every other character because they rarely had characters of their own, and there were awkward moments where you could hear Sorkin justifying what might be a questionable thing by putting his argument in a black character's mouth. I mean, it was the late 90s so I understand why, but it had a uniformly upper-middle class white perspective and, for better or for worse, the show was concerned with the idealized narrative of a very specific band of American liberalism and cursorily acknowledged issues through that lens alone. So yeah, that's how it's really bad on race issues. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, but let's not pretend it's a shining ideal. MC Fruit Stripe posted:If a white guy is dating Sasha, what does a racist say? Good, this'll give the Obamas some class? "That friend of the family needs to keep to her own kind." This is a pronoun swap of what one of my high school teachers said in 2003, when Tiger Woods got married.
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Jan 30, 2013 19:24
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The Warszawa posted:It was very clumsy about using black and Latino characters solely as issue soapboxes, even moreso than every other character because they rarely had characters of their own, and there were awkward moments where you could hear Sorkin justifying what might be a questionable thing by putting his argument in a black character's mouth. Not being dense, not trying to troll, but I'm still not getting it. The show is not about or focused on racial issues. It is a show that gets on a soapbox about all of the issues that concerned the authors. The show was about great people who operated with the best intentions and presented relevant issues including race while balancing it with interesting character and interpersonal drama. They had Fitz, Nancy McNally, and Charlie as major and recurring characters that were portrayed in the highest regard but did not ignore the significance of their color. Would it have been a better show if Bartlett or Leo continually marginalized the National Security Council and took more ques from the lower ranking white guys? Would be better about it if they stemmed the drama from that seed? I guess I take issue with classifying it as 'bad' on race and women. It acknowledged it, effectively in my opinion, as well as it did anything- and sometimes better than most other comparable shows. I acknowledge we have a difference of opinion but your language seems really strong. MC Fruit Stripe posted:
Sasha is eleven. She shouldn't be dating anyone until Daddy is out of office. 
TheBigBad fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jan 30, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 19:58
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:If a white guy is dating Sasha, what does a racist say? Good, this'll give the Obamas some class? Here's the story: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160293862/romney-courts-veterans-at-american-legion-convention
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Jan 30, 2013 20:18
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TheBigBad posted:Not being dense, not trying to troll, but I'm still not getting it. While not as bad as, say, The Newsroom, there was a bad habit of making the women lovestruck flibbertigibbets and sources of slapstick. The "stiletto feminism" discussion from Night Five also stands out as a low point, to be honest (as does most of Ainsley Hayes, who was said not to be "just another blonde Republican sex-kitten" and then used pretty much exclusively as a blonde Republican sex-kitten/flibbertigibbet). On race, this show unfortunately got my hopes up with Celestial Navigation, which is an imperfect but still great exploration of what Paul Mooney has called the "friend of the family Wake-Up Call" - which, generalized, is the idea that as a nonwhite person in America, you're pretty much at constant risk of being singled out and dehumanized because of your ethnoracial identity. But this show clearly had an unsubtle "race gear" that they shifted into whenever they wanted to talk about race stuff, and it showed. For example, take Josh going to Leo about the optics of hiring Charlie as body man in Post Hoc Egro Propter Hoc - Leo gives the intuitive argument, but then runs it by Fitzwallace who basically just regurgitates that and then adds "I have real battles, I don't have time for the cosmetic ones." I mean, it's at least in part a metacommentary on some of the pre-release critical response to the show ("This show is crazy white," which was coming off the heels of some of the late-game Friends backlash (and in part because they'd originally cast CCH Pounder as CJ and then went back on it, and then "made up for it" by casting Dule Hill as Charlie when Charlie was in the pilot script as a white college student - why Charlie goes from college student to orphan raising his sister as he goes from white to black is also questionable, but I think it comes out okay because of the overabundance of elite/prestigious backgrounds). EDIT: I left this part kind of unfinished by mistake - it's the implication that the conversation isn't worth having - that the criticism itself is bad - through Fitzwallace that I find clumsy and even offensive, because Sorkin's just putting his argument why it's not a problem in a black mouth and expecting that to fly. Sorry, when your show about top-level national politics featuring the idealized American elite has one black regular character and he's basically a manservant, yeah, you will and should get raised eyebrows. I don't think good representation is the same as good tackling of issues, though. This show pretty routinely had decent, if shallow, single-episode and recurring nonwhite characters (Nancy McNally is great representation, but she doesn't have a character beyond some quips and being an expository device). There's nothing really objectionable about McNally, but nor is there anything particularly commendable (I think backpatting for diverse casts is kind of banal - they should be an expectation, not exceptional). I also don't think the show has to be "about" or "focused on" racial issues to deal with them adequately and integrally (though probably not with one black regular character). The idea that a show about American politics through the lens of the Democratic Party isn't about or shouldn't be focused in significant part on racial issues is kind of funny, though, considering that without us, Democrats lose every election. But like I said, this show was always about a very specific, narrow band of American liberalism. When I say really bad, I mean clumsy as hell. I use strong language because without it, the problems are either glossed over or discussions have to go through eight rounds of what was done right before we can even start talking about what was done wrong. This isn't a flaw in this discussion necessarily, but it's a problem in discussions of problematic media and other race-related issues and general advocacy that comes up so much that the counteraction has become ingrained in my response. So that may be on me. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Jan 31, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 21:34
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I'm not saying you're saying this, but having an administration that prominently featured African Americans would be quite unrealistic in 1999. Hell, Condoleeza Rice wasn't appointed Secretary of State until 2005, and the same arguments that Obama isn't "black enough" would certainly apply to Rice.
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Jan 30, 2013 21:50
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Josh Lyman posted:I'm not saying you're saying this, but having an administration that prominently featured African Americans would be quite unrealistic in 1999. Hell, Condoleeza Rice wasn't appointed Secretary of State until 2005, and the same arguments that Obama isn't "black enough" would certainly apply to Rice. I don't know why you're citing Rice when her predecessor, Colin Powell, was also black and appointed in 2001 (when Rice was NSA). I'm not sure what the "black enough" stuff has to do with anything though, since that's always been a weird line of bullshit no matter who's spouting it. For reference, the first Clinton cabinet had four black members (Espy at Agriculture, Ron Brown at Commerce, O'Leary at Energy, and Jesse Brown at Veterans' Affairs) and two Hispanic members (Peña at Transportation and Cisneros at HUD). If we go to Cabinet-level (which would include Leo, Nancy, etc.), we have Lee Brown as Director of National Drug Control Policy for a total of five black members and two Hispanic members in 1993. By 1999, Eric Holder had become a prominent part of the administration notwithstanding only being AAG. Diverse Cabinets were only unrealistic if you weren't paying attention. Given the West Wing's open embrace of an idealized narrative of American liberalism, I'm not sure why the realism of diversity really comes into play here, though. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 30, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 21:56
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So I guess we're pretending seasons 6 and 7 never happened for the purposes of making a point?
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Jan 30, 2013 21:59
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Asiina posted:So I guess we're pretending seasons 6 and 7 never happened for the purposes of making a point? I think we pretend seasons 5 through 7 never happened for other reasons. But really, I think untangling Santos is a pretty daunting enterprise, not in the least because untangling which get the gently caress out of here moments come from race-related clumsiness and fuckups and which come from just poo poo writing. (Plus the idea that one character is going to undo past mistakes, especially widespread past mistakes, is pretty flawed.) The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jan 30, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 22:04
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17 people is probably in my top 3 favourite episodes. I didn't even notice that it was a bottle episode until I saw it pointed out online.
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Jan 30, 2013 22:49
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Early West Wing is a bit clumsy with race stuff, but I think we all forget that attitudes can change in a relatively short space of time, and what was on-point/relevant/progressive in 1999 is actually fairly different to standards now.
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Jan 30, 2013 23:03
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I finished season 6 tonight. Santos and Vinick both own pretty hard. Leo as the VP candidate seemed a bit contrived though.
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Jan 31, 2013 02:54
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The Warszawa posted:While not as bad as, say, The Newsroom, there was a bad habit of making the women lovestruck flibbertigibbets and sources of slapstick. The "stiletto feminism" discussion from Night Five also stands out as a low point, to be honest (as does most of Ainsley Hayes, who was said not to be "just another blonde Republican sex-kitten" and then used pretty much exclusively as a blonde Republican sex-kitten/flibbertigibbet). On race, this show unfortunately got my hopes up with Celestial Navigation, which is an imperfect but still great exploration of what Paul Mooney has called the "friend of the family Wake-Up Call" - which, generalized, is the idea that as a nonwhite person in America, you're pretty much at constant risk of being singled out and dehumanized because of your ethnoracial identity. But this show clearly had an unsubtle "race gear" that they shifted into whenever they wanted to talk about race stuff, and it showed. Excellent post. Thank you for taking the time.
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Jan 31, 2013 03:09
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Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:I finished season 6 tonight. Santos and Vinick both own pretty hard. Leo as the VP candidate seemed a bit contrived though. I agreed with what you posted in the spoiler when I first saw it. But don't worry, season 7 will make you feel better. There's a couple episodes that address this very point.
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Jan 31, 2013 05:12
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I'm finishing up my 5th or 6th rewatch. Maybe 7th. Leo dying still makes me cry. EVERY. GODDAMNED. TIME. 
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Feb 13, 2013 04:10
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BrooklynBruiser posted:(final season) Leo dying still makes me cry. EVERY. GODDAMNED. TIME. It's the (finale) napkin on the plane that gets me. Really the whole episode. The pardon, CJ's walk outside, Jed and Abbey's moment in the ballroom, Jed's parting words to Matt, Sam coming back to the White House , but the ultimate scene is the coup de grace. Before I started watching the show, I'd considered the possibility that the sweep of awards in the first 4 seasons was bullshit. How wrong was I.
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Feb 13, 2013 04:43
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Whatever you might think of the development, how it was handled, and the resolution foisted upon the show, That Scene in 2162 Votes never fails to get right at me. "Who is it?" "You."
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Feb 13, 2013 06:43
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The Warszawa posted:Whatever you might think of the development, how it was handled, and the resolution foisted upon the show, That Scene in 2162 Votes never fails to get right at me. My single favorite shot in the entire series is right after that when Bartlet and Leo pass wordlessly off the stage while the DNC chair runs off the Bartlet administration's accomplishments and the title theme swells. That's the one that gets me.
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Feb 13, 2013 06:58
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My favorite shot is after Vinick's campaign manager resigns and he gets out of the car and faces the press. It's the most cinematic shot of the whole series. e: I love that it's on Netflix streaming. 
Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Feb 13, 2013 |
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Feb 13, 2013 07:05
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There is a lot of really cool directing in seasons 6 and 7 in between overuse of the shaky cam.
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Feb 13, 2013 07:12
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twoot posted:17 people is probably in my top 3 favourite episodes. I didn't even notice that it was a bottle episode until I saw it pointed out online. It's definitely the episode that cements Toby as the stand-out best character in the whole show. Schiff's whole character and demeanor while playing him is so perfect. "And I would bet all of the money <beat> in my pockets, against all of the money <beat> in your pockets, that it was Leo. Who no one elected."
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Feb 14, 2013 17:49
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I've always said that the sound team is always the most overlooked part of a television show's production team. The ball bouncing against the wall is the best part of that cold open. Likewise, one of my favourite scenes is the cold open of "Twenty Five" where the sound team, especially Snuffy Walden, really outdid themselves.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:32
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TinTower posted:I've always said that the sound team is always the most overlooked part of a television show's production team. The ball bouncing against the wall is the best part of that cold open. Likewise, one of my favourite scenes is the cold open of "Twenty Five" where the sound team, especially Snuffy Walden, really outdid themselves. That they did but then you had to put up with the sound of rustling paper and awkwardly balanced sound in every other scene set in the Oval Office. I have no idea why it is, and maybe I'm imagining it, but the sound quality in that room almost always seems rather poor. Anyway, I've recently introduce my aunt and some family friends to the West Wing and Newsroom and they've gone down a storm. They're very fond of Charlie and Congresswoman "drat Right!" Wyatt. That said, they're now upset the closest thing the UK had to WW was Yes, [Prime]Minster. Popo fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Feb 14, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 23:53
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TinTower posted:I've always said that the sound team is always the most overlooked part of a television show's production team. The ball bouncing against the wall is the best part of that cold open. Likewise, one of my favourite scenes is the cold open of "Twenty Five" where the sound team, especially Snuffy Walden, really outdid themselves. This is definitely it. Without the music or the sound, this pre-title sequence would never work as well.
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Feb 15, 2013 00:22
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Since we're on the subject of the sound mix, why is that drat jingle always playing in the credits? It really pulls me out of the moment, especially during the season 1 finale. Seems like they could have muted it, like they did occasionally on 24.
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Feb 15, 2013 00:40
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I don't think that jingle was ever on the original airing, so I'm guessing nobody actually cared about it.
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Feb 15, 2013 01:01
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It was used for some of the episodes, but they did that thing where the station makes the credit tiny to preview the next show or the news or whatever. It was put as the credit music for every episode on the DVD set, which was an awful, awful decision since it clashes harshly with the episodes that end on a more somber tone.
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Feb 15, 2013 01:04
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Annnnnnd that's my umpteenth re-watch finished. What's next?
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Feb 15, 2013 03:44
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I've been wanting to watch this show for awhile. I'm glad it recently came up on Netflix. I'm on the 17th or so episode of season one right now and taking my sweet rear end time. I'd love to binge through it, but I just don't have the time. It's nice to unwind with an episode at night. This way I'll spend more time paying attention and watching than pure-binging and forgetting everything. It also goes along nicely with my American Government class I'm taking... I've avoided reading anything in this thread though, I don't want to get spoiled like I always seem to do (poor impulse control, I just have to highlight the black bars in spoiler threads).
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Feb 15, 2013 04:40
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Minimaul posted:I've been wanting to watch this show for awhile. I'm glad it recently came up on Netflix. I'm on the 17th or so episode of season one right now and taking my sweet rear end time. I'd love to binge through it, but I just don't have the time. It's nice to unwind with an episode at night. This way I'll spend more time paying attention and watching than pure-binging and forgetting everything. It also goes along nicely with my American Government class I'm taking... Well the show's a good 10+ years old, so avoiding spoilers might be harder than you'd like. Still, it's good that you are taking your time with it. I like the freedom of being able to watch it at my own pace, without having to wait for weekly broadcasts like I used to when it was originally broadcast. Christ those season finales were terrible back then.
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Feb 15, 2013 05:51
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BrooklynBruiser posted:Annnnnnd that's my umpteenth re-watch finished. Season 1 episode 1 I'd say  . Comedy option: Make it the first episode of The Newsroom!
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Feb 15, 2013 08:57
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BrooklynBruiser posted:Annnnnnd that's my umpteenth re-watch finished. I'm going with Band of Brothers.
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Feb 15, 2013 09:41
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Popo posted:Anyway, I've recently introduce my aunt and some family friends to the West Wing and Newsroom and they've gone down a storm. They're very fond of Charlie and Congresswoman "drat Right!" Wyatt. That said, they're now upset the closest thing the UK had to WW was Yes, [Prime]Minster. House of Cards, A Very British Coup, The Thick of It, My Dad is the Prime Minister 
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Feb 15, 2013 12:29
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Arbite posted:House of Cards, A Very British Coup, The Thick of It, My Dad is the Prime Minister Yeah, I thought of most of those and while House of Cards and Thick of of It are great they just doesn't scratch the same itch, though I'd love to hear Toby swearing like Malcolm. Really, if the West Wing had been allowed to curse it up it would be Toby turning the air blue at every opportunity. It's just strange that the UK hasn't made a full on political drama in a while (at least that I can remember). You'd think with BBC4 importing Borgen (which is pretty drat great Dutch West Wing) the Beeb would try their hand at this again.
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Feb 15, 2013 13:12
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