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West Wing -- Arctic Radar (or Thing 1 senses a chill)
Just saw the ep, finally. Then I went to see what ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elynross had to say about it, because I knew she'd posted something, and found that I had some things to say in response to the comments.
I'm new to LJ and have no idea what the etiquette is for quoting things that get said in other people's LJs, particularly the comments, so I'll just start in cold. The discussion had focused on Josh telling Janice, the temp worker, that she was a fetishistic obsessive who needed to get a life, and how some people found that merely amusing rather than offensive in any way.
Likeelynross, I had no real problem with the earlier Sorkin-hates-fans bit, the Lemonlymon site (other than having a really bad yaoi moment or two). It was something Josh would do, it was something Josh would react to in the way he reacted. They all react to bad situations by going back to them over and over to make them worse -- it's a Sorkin trademark.
But this -- this was absurd. And the fact that no one outside of media fandom will see why it's absurd, and the fact that they'll all think it's just funny and true, and gee isn't Sorkin all clever to say that an overweight, middlish-aged woman who wears a Star Trek pin will necessarily be some sort of obsessive freak who needs to be set right by Josh and his patronizing commentary, makes me nuts.
I mean, earlier in the ep, we saw Toby commenting that Sam was taking his Lakers banner, right? A banner that showed his love for, devotion to, and loyalty toward an ever-changing group of men who run around in satin shorts playing with a rubber ball for hours on end. If you asked him why, he'd probably say something like "they exemplify teamwork and devotion to always bettering themselves, qualities I admire, and I think they're qualities we should be focused on around here." If he said that, everyone around him would nod and smile and agree, because yeah, of course they exemplify those things, and what a neat thing to acknowledge that, right?
Sort of like Janice's comment that for her, Star Trek exemplifies honor, loyalty, and civic duty, and how she thought those things were appropriate to the White House. But that's weird, to say that a tv show exemplifies something for you. It's only normal if it's a bunch of guys in a silly uniform, chasing a ball around. That can mean something. That's normal, that's safe, that's sane. Paying attention to tv other than sports makes you a freak, someone to be mocked and pitied for having no life.
(Unlike, say, my brother, who watches about 10 hours of sports a day on the weekend and as many hours during the week as he can; has fantasy baseball, football, basketball, and hockey teams (along with everyone in his office) -- which is part of the reason why he watches so much sports, so he can track all of "his" players on "his" teams; spends a fortune on tickets [more for one three-hour game than I pay to attend a three-day con] to events where thousands of people go to yell and clap and dress up in costumes and paint their faces in odd colors and patterns to watch the men in the funny outfits playing with the various balls and pucks; knows all the players' stats... but he has a life. Yeah. 'Cause that stuff's important, and is part of what makes a modern life fulfilling.)
So Sorkin wants us all to believe that it's wholly professional for a senior staff member to have sports banners hanging on his office walls -- an office where meetings with visitors to the White House, including at least one congressman, have happened, not to mention meetings with other senior and junior staff, and once or twice visits from the president himself. It's appropriate for an even more senior staff member to ask him to leave it behind, where it can be all professional in someone else's office.
But it's incredibly unprofessional for a temporary secretary to wear a piece of jewelry that means something to her, for the few days that she's sitting out there in the pool among a dozen or more other secretaries, because someone may walk by and notice that she's wearing a piece of jewelry that Josh doesn't like. So unprofessional that she needs to be given a little lecture about how strange and sad her life is (a lecture given on the strength of the cumulative 90 seconds Josh has spent talking to her before that point, no less).
It's the hypocrisy that gets me.
If it's unprofessional to have things that show your hobbies or passions other than work-related things, great. I get that, I've got no problem with that. But if that's the case, sports banners have to count, too.
If the sports banners don't count, it's not about professionalism. It's about Aaron Sorkin not liking media fans per se, and slamming them for no reason other than that.
elynross had to say about it, because I knew she'd posted something, and found that I had some things to say in response to the comments.I'm new to LJ and have no idea what the etiquette is for quoting things that get said in other people's LJs, particularly the comments, so I'll just start in cold. The discussion had focused on Josh telling Janice, the temp worker, that she was a fetishistic obsessive who needed to get a life, and how some people found that merely amusing rather than offensive in any way.
Like
elynross, I had no real problem with the earlier Sorkin-hates-fans bit, the Lemonlymon site (other than having a really bad yaoi moment or two). It was something Josh would do, it was something Josh would react to in the way he reacted. They all react to bad situations by going back to them over and over to make them worse -- it's a Sorkin trademark.But this -- this was absurd. And the fact that no one outside of media fandom will see why it's absurd, and the fact that they'll all think it's just funny and true, and gee isn't Sorkin all clever to say that an overweight, middlish-aged woman who wears a Star Trek pin will necessarily be some sort of obsessive freak who needs to be set right by Josh and his patronizing commentary, makes me nuts.
I mean, earlier in the ep, we saw Toby commenting that Sam was taking his Lakers banner, right? A banner that showed his love for, devotion to, and loyalty toward an ever-changing group of men who run around in satin shorts playing with a rubber ball for hours on end. If you asked him why, he'd probably say something like "they exemplify teamwork and devotion to always bettering themselves, qualities I admire, and I think they're qualities we should be focused on around here." If he said that, everyone around him would nod and smile and agree, because yeah, of course they exemplify those things, and what a neat thing to acknowledge that, right?
Sort of like Janice's comment that for her, Star Trek exemplifies honor, loyalty, and civic duty, and how she thought those things were appropriate to the White House. But that's weird, to say that a tv show exemplifies something for you. It's only normal if it's a bunch of guys in a silly uniform, chasing a ball around. That can mean something. That's normal, that's safe, that's sane. Paying attention to tv other than sports makes you a freak, someone to be mocked and pitied for having no life.
(Unlike, say, my brother, who watches about 10 hours of sports a day on the weekend and as many hours during the week as he can; has fantasy baseball, football, basketball, and hockey teams (along with everyone in his office) -- which is part of the reason why he watches so much sports, so he can track all of "his" players on "his" teams; spends a fortune on tickets [more for one three-hour game than I pay to attend a three-day con] to events where thousands of people go to yell and clap and dress up in costumes and paint their faces in odd colors and patterns to watch the men in the funny outfits playing with the various balls and pucks; knows all the players' stats... but he has a life. Yeah. 'Cause that stuff's important, and is part of what makes a modern life fulfilling.)
So Sorkin wants us all to believe that it's wholly professional for a senior staff member to have sports banners hanging on his office walls -- an office where meetings with visitors to the White House, including at least one congressman, have happened, not to mention meetings with other senior and junior staff, and once or twice visits from the president himself. It's appropriate for an even more senior staff member to ask him to leave it behind, where it can be all professional in someone else's office.
But it's incredibly unprofessional for a temporary secretary to wear a piece of jewelry that means something to her, for the few days that she's sitting out there in the pool among a dozen or more other secretaries, because someone may walk by and notice that she's wearing a piece of jewelry that Josh doesn't like. So unprofessional that she needs to be given a little lecture about how strange and sad her life is (a lecture given on the strength of the cumulative 90 seconds Josh has spent talking to her before that point, no less).
It's the hypocrisy that gets me.
If it's unprofessional to have things that show your hobbies or passions other than work-related things, great. I get that, I've got no problem with that. But if that's the case, sports banners have to count, too.
If the sports banners don't count, it's not about professionalism. It's about Aaron Sorkin not liking media fans per se, and slamming them for no reason other than that.
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See, this shows you how under the radar anything sports-related is for me. I didn't catch this *g*. However, I have now pointed to you again and ranted.
grr. argh. sigh.
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Just a tiny nit, as an active sports fan:
fantasy baseball, football, basketball, and hockey teams
People who play fantasy baseball or rotisserie sports are mocked mercilessly by other sports fans. On the sports fan hierarchy, they're in the same spot as LARPers or Furries are on the media fandom hierarchy; in other words, pretty damn low.
Sports fandom is no different from media fandom in theory (or in practice, really). The arguments are the same, the behavior is the same, etc. It just happens to make billions of dollars for media conglomerates, rather than operating under the radar because of the quasi-illicit nature of the activity (whereas betting... betting on sports is illegal so many places, yet it occurs) and the 'creative' nature of writing/making movies/television shows.
Fanfiction is like bootlegging concerts - eventually it'll be respectable and endorsed by many of the authors/copyright owners.
Until that happens, and it's somehow making money for someone, and the province of people other than 'overweight, middle-aged women', it's not going to be mainstream, and Sorkin will get laughs a'plenty by roasting the people who smacked him down when he was an idiot.
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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*
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I find myself wishing I had taped the ep in question, because after it ended, I was left with the feeling that the secretary had, to use a sports metaphor, scored some points with her comments to Josh about what Trek and the Federation stands for and means to her. It seemed to me that detente had been reached, which is why I have found some of the extreme reactions (both anti-Sorkin and anti-Josh) puzzling. Perhaps this was wishful thinking on my part?
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If it had ended after the part where she said that ST was about honor, etc., for her, I wouldn't have had as big a problem with it. Josh at least ended that exchange on "it's unprofessional, we can't have that around here" which is a valid complaint per se (ignoring the complete inconsistency in what constitutes professional behavior).
Hell, it at least serves the purpose of emphasizing that even though these people can be a little strange themselves, they do pay attention to appearances and image, and do try to present themselves as well as possible. They don't always succeed, but they try, and they've done other things over the years to draw attention to that fact. So while I didn't like that this one was aimed at folks like me, I would probably have let it slide the same way I did Lemonlymon.com.
It's the fact that Sorkin went back to it, that he felt the need to make sure it all happened again, but this time with Josh telling her that while he liked Star Trek, she was a fetishistic obsessive because she [gasp] wore a pin relating to it. It was entirely unnecessary, serving no purpose inside the plot other than to say, "Look! Trekkies! Weirdo media fans! Freaks!!" -- with the added bonus of the freaky weirdo fetishist ST fan smiling happily as Josh walked away with the patronizing little Star Trek holiday comment, because clearly Josh (and Aaron) Knows Best.
When Sorkin works his slams at fans into his plots, makes them integral, I can deal. I pretty much have to, since I'm happy to live with his slams at people I don't like. When they're gratuitous, though, there for no better reason than that he has a bully pulpit and decides to use it, it's a lot harder to take.
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*applauds*
Well said.