How Much Left-Wing Nonsense Is Too Much?
Posted by Frank J.
IMAO
When a show has great characters and some great writing, how much liberal idiocy are you willing to put up with?
Boston Legal really seems to be posing that question better than any political point it ineptly tries to make. It has some of the most entertaining characters of any show (especially the characters played by James Spader, William Shatner, and Candice Bergen) and is extremely enjoyable at its best, but how much irritation am I willing to put up with to have that enjoyment? It's like watching a good movie but having to put up with some idiot next to you who every once in a while accidentally elbows you in the head.
I watched their latest episode last night (it originally aired Tuesday; yay, HD-Tivo), and I knew from the promos that this one might be a deal breaker.
One of the cases (there are usually multiple ones per episode which one would call subplots) dealt with a woman suing the government over her brother being killed in Iraq. It had a few things inserted very clumsily for balance: one lawyer at the firm was angry about the whole case as he was a veteran of the first Gulf War and found it insulting, the parents were against the case though never appeared in the show, and Denny Crane, the rightwing buffoon - though a sympathetic rightwing buffoon that the audience is supposed to like despite his rightwing buffoonery - says a few incoherent rightwing things as usual. The writers at Boston Legal still basically accepted the Michael Moore version of things as fact and the main conclusion was that not enough bad things about the war are being presented by the media.
Yes, that was really the main conclusion.
It then had the audacity to end pretending it had a neutral discussion of the issue which just furthers either its dishonesty or ignorance.
Now let me go on a complete tangent and compare The Simpsons and South Park. I haven't watched South Park in a while - it's often too vile for me - but it takes on many hot topics and often comes to the conservative conclusion. This can be very cathartic for those used to be inundated with the liberal viewpoint with whatever were watching, but it looks clumsy when compared to The Simpsons (or at least, older Simpsons episodes) which would take on an issue and not reach any conclusion. It’s much more skillful; it involves primarily making jokes at the expense of the stereotypes of both sides and then ending ambivalent – no alienating anyone.
With drama, being neutral is much harder. While being a political moderate takes the least amount of thought, presenting an issue in a show without beating your audience over the head with your own viewpoint is quite difficult. It means you have to take both sides seriously and present each side realistically. Most TV shows wisely tend to avoid politics entirely (with perhaps a little jibe in dialog here and there), but taking on issues without alienating larges groups of thinking people is entirely possible as proven by perhaps my favorite drama right now, House. It has taken on some very controversial issues that most shows would avoid entirely (i.e., abortion) while leaving the viewer free to make his or her own conclusion. In its episode from this Tuesday, there was a character who spent his life treating TB in Africa and is frustrated by how millions are dying because they can't get meds that drug companies have sitting in warehouses. He then gets TB himself, and refuses his meds to bring publicity to the issue. For most shows, the obvious way to treat this character would be saint-like, but in House he was made to look equal parts hero and buffoon (thanks, in part, to the ultimate curmudgeon, Dr. House), and the end let you make up your own mind about him.
How is a show written like that? I assume you need writers of both viewpoints and restrain from making contrived events in the episode that support one side or the other. The problem with shows like Boston Legal is they have talented liberal writers who probably assume they know conservatives well enough to write them when, in reality, they think conservatives are like those monkeys to the black obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it's disappointing because of the talent involved, but there's a limit to how much my intelligence can be insulted and I still enjoy a show.
Just had to get that off my chest. Our next serious discussion will be why 5 is the coolest number ever.
UPDATE: I tried to see if Boston Legal has an address I could write a letter to suggesting they hire a conservative writer to explain conservative viewpoints to the other writers and that they watch House for how to handle hot button issues. Instead, I found this bboard.
forums.go.com
I wonder if they pay any attention to that.
From the bboard, here is a soldier's opinion on the episode.
<<<
Posted by: colourblind10960
I am a soldier in the US Army and a member of the JAG Corps. My brothers are enlisted Marines. All three of us are Canadian citizens and have chosen to stand for a country that is not our own. My brothers have just returned from Iraq and I am to be sent shortly.
Last night I felt unappreciated and disrespected. These feelings are not a result of dissenting opinions or political views. I am dismayed as to the complete misrepresntation of basic facts.
1) My brothers and I have NEVER been deployed without body armor. In fact our respective units invested in brand new equipment for our use.
2) We volunteered and are aware that we may lose our lives.
3) No soldier or Marine would attempt or be ordered to defuse a IED without being qualified to do so. Also, standard operating procedure is simply to detonate the device safetly and NOT to defuse it.
4) EVERY soldier and EVERY Marine are trained to fight and are qualified to guard a truck.
5) No contract is extended 26 years. In fact, I am aware of many soldiers and Marines who were NOT sent because their contracts would expire during deployment. If others are sent, they are given the CHOICE of resigning and are compensated generously. However, if they choose otherwise they will be required to satisfy their units deployment before release.
6) The client's brother could not have been 18. Despite the possibility that the soldier may have completed initial training by the time he was 18, he is not able to be deployed before his 18th birthday. Army deployment times are 1 year boots on ground time. In the fact pattern given in the show, he was held there beyond his deployment time, therefore he could not have been 18.
It is basic, fraudulent facts that give me the impression that ABC is simply attempting to attack the military and subsequently its service men and women.
I have decided to no longer watch this program.
forums.go.com
>>>
UPDATE2: I think this is the address:
American Broadcasting Co.
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-4622
Maybe I'll still write them and see if I get a response. I wouldn't care so much if I didn't like the show when it isn't spouting infantile politics.
imao.us |
