I know you weren't arguing with me, but your response touched off some other stuff for me, so:
People who play fantasy baseball or rotisserie sports are mocked mercilessly by other sports fans.
Which is interesting, but not entirely relevant to what I was saying. The point is, my brother can talk about rotisserie sports to practically anyone, whether they're involved in sports or not, and be understood and not mocked (assuming whoever he's talking to isn't in a part of sports fandom that finds rotisserie sports laughable). He can talk about spending $50-100 per ticket going to games (those are for the cheap seats), or about staying up hours late to catch something that went into double overtime and being exhausted at work the next day. No one thinks he's an obsessive freak who's lost touch with reality.
Sports fandom is no different from media fandom in theory (or in practice, really).
Yes, absolutely, and that is entirely my point. It's the same damn thing. So for Sorkin to claim that that behavior (keeping fan-related decorative objects in one's workspace) regarding sports is professional, while the identical behavior regarding television is unprofessional, is hypocritical.
Hell, in one ep, Josh blew Donna off when she was trying to give him the information he needed to start his professional day, so he could bitch about his team's performance the night before, and all day he was distracted by it, bringing it up to pretty much everyone he came into professional contact with. No one told him he was a fetishistic freak for constantly harping on what should have happened, rather than just accepting what had happened and letting it go. Amy even mentioned in a meeting with her own people that Josh would be off his professional game that day as a result of the sports event the night before.
So somehow it's charming when his hobby interferes with his professional life, and freakish when a woman wears a piece of jewelry while typing.
Sorkin will get laughs a'plenty by roasting the people who smacked him down when he was an idiot.
I think a big part of my problem with this beyond the obvious is that most people just don't know that this is Sorkin having a tantrum. And that sucks, because he's getting away with it.
It's his show, obviously, he can do what he wants -- but usually when it's something personal for him, you can tell, and you can take it with a grain of salt (I mean, I don't think anyone took his "Ritchie is a total idiot" storyline to be objective in any way, right?). Here, though, it won't even cross most people's minds that he's talking about the fans of his own show, that he's slamming the people who care enough about his work to actively think and talk about it.
There's no way for people to realize that what he's doing is taking petty potshots at people who didn't let him be god when he walked into their room, the way he wanted to be. Instead, he gets to present himself (through Josh) as superior, looking down from above to mock the poor benighted fools who actually get involved in television. Casual watchers are only going to see that Trekkies (as personified by a fat female temporary secretary, no less) are yet again totally safe targets for mockery, because they deserve no respect at all from anyone.
And Sorkin did this not only pettily, but lazily, with the whole Lakers pennant thing. That scene completely negated Josh's saying that bringing one's hobbies into work is unprofessional. But everyone's just supposed to ignore that fact, because, hee!, lookit the silly fat Trekkie chick! Let's laugh!
So this wasn't only insulting to the group of people I'm a part of, it was bad writing. And he wrote it badly because he wanted to have a tantrum without anyone knowing he was having a tantrum, 'cause he's got to be able to have his cake and eat it too. He didn't want to waste any time thinking about how to logically work that tantrum into a storyline, to make it something meaningful or effective.
And he did that in an episode whose ending was all about how good writing is the pinnacle of what Sorkin considers greatness, and how bad writing is a matter of personal shame.
Bah.
And now I've just rambled myself into a place I wasn't expecting to be, so I'll stop now. *g*
no subject
People who play fantasy baseball or rotisserie sports are mocked mercilessly by other sports fans.
Which is interesting, but not entirely relevant to what I was saying. The point is, my brother can talk about rotisserie sports to practically anyone, whether they're involved in sports or not, and be understood and not mocked (assuming whoever he's talking to isn't in a part of sports fandom that finds rotisserie sports laughable). He can talk about spending $50-100 per ticket going to games (those are for the cheap seats), or about staying up hours late to catch something that went into double overtime and being exhausted at work the next day. No one thinks he's an obsessive freak who's lost touch with reality.
Sports fandom is no different from media fandom in theory (or in practice, really).
Yes, absolutely, and that is entirely my point. It's the same damn thing. So for Sorkin to claim that that behavior (keeping fan-related decorative objects in one's workspace) regarding sports is professional, while the identical behavior regarding television is unprofessional, is hypocritical.
Hell, in one ep, Josh blew Donna off when she was trying to give him the information he needed to start his professional day, so he could bitch about his team's performance the night before, and all day he was distracted by it, bringing it up to pretty much everyone he came into professional contact with. No one told him he was a fetishistic freak for constantly harping on what should have happened, rather than just accepting what had happened and letting it go. Amy even mentioned in a meeting with her own people that Josh would be off his professional game that day as a result of the sports event the night before.
So somehow it's charming when his hobby interferes with his professional life, and freakish when a woman wears a piece of jewelry while typing.
Sorkin will get laughs a'plenty by roasting the people who smacked him down when he was an idiot.
I think a big part of my problem with this beyond the obvious is that most people just don't know that this is Sorkin having a tantrum. And that sucks, because he's getting away with it.
It's his show, obviously, he can do what he wants -- but usually when it's something personal for him, you can tell, and you can take it with a grain of salt (I mean, I don't think anyone took his "Ritchie is a total idiot" storyline to be objective in any way, right?). Here, though, it won't even cross most people's minds that he's talking about the fans of his own show, that he's slamming the people who care enough about his work to actively think and talk about it.
There's no way for people to realize that what he's doing is taking petty potshots at people who didn't let him be god when he walked into their room, the way he wanted to be. Instead, he gets to present himself (through Josh) as superior, looking down from above to mock the poor benighted fools who actually get involved in television. Casual watchers are only going to see that Trekkies (as personified by a fat female temporary secretary, no less) are yet again totally safe targets for mockery, because they deserve no respect at all from anyone.
And Sorkin did this not only pettily, but lazily, with the whole Lakers pennant thing. That scene completely negated Josh's saying that bringing one's hobbies into work is unprofessional. But everyone's just supposed to ignore that fact, because, hee!, lookit the silly fat Trekkie chick! Let's laugh!
So this wasn't only insulting to the group of people I'm a part of, it was bad writing. And he wrote it badly because he wanted to have a tantrum without anyone knowing he was having a tantrum, 'cause he's got to be able to have his cake and eat it too. He didn't want to waste any time thinking about how to logically work that tantrum into a storyline, to make it something meaningful or effective.
And he did that in an episode whose ending was all about how good writing is the pinnacle of what Sorkin considers greatness, and how bad writing is a matter of personal shame.
Bah.
And now I've just rambled myself into a place I wasn't expecting to be, so I'll stop now. *g*