When I read this article in the "New York Times" two days
ago, I couldn't believe the TV producers were being so
open about slanting their entertainment shows. - From: LindyBill
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TV Shows Take On Bush, and Pull Few Punches<font size=3>
By JIM RUTENBERG
nytimes.com
Ranting Profs blog does a good "fisking" of them.
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WHERE THERE IS LIBERAL BIAS<font size=3>
By Cori Dauber
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As I note in the post below, I don't like getting into the debate over whether the media has a liberal bias, if by "media" you mean "press." When we're talking about narrative, that is fictional media, I really don't think there's any debate to be had -- of course there's a liberal bias. I mean, if it's so obvious a liberal bias that even the New York Times has figured it out, it's a little hard to protest. Not that that stops several of the executive producers from trying just the same.
I was particularly amused by the defense offered by the makers of the TV show Law and Order. The episode where they managed to crow bar in a discussion of WMD in Iraq was not only so forced, but what passed for a "debate" was so weak, I even mentioned it here at the time, despite the fact that I never mention fictional shows here.
Just the same, they are committed to fighting the obvious.
Some producers said they were simply raising important questions as part of a larger national debate. Dick Wolf, the executive producer of the troika of "Law & Order" series, said that his characters' critiques of Mr. Bush were in his programs' long tradition of equal-opportunity provocation. "Virtually everyone who lives in the lower 48 states at one time or another has been offended by `Law & Order,' " Mr. Wolf said in a statement.
And, of course, the appeal to what regular readers know to be my very favorite argument of all time comes up:
"Why does it have to become unpatriotic to do something that is our inherent right, which is to debate issues?" said Tom Fontana, the creator of shows like "Oz" and "Homicide."
I'm sorry, who exactly made that argument or used that
word to describe these shows? Why is that any criticism is
always answered with "why is what I'm doing unpatriotic?"
Really, since when did the words, unfair, stupid, biased,
unevidenced, etc, etc, etc, all become synonyms
for "unpatriotic"? Really, some of these guys need to buy
a thesaurus. They are, after all, supposed to be writers.
The show I'm looking forward to is this one:
Mr. Fontana said he wrote a film for HBO called "Strip Search" to explore the merits of the USA Patriot Act. The film, which has not been shown yet, tracks the parallel experiences of an American woman being held for questioning by the authorities in China and a Muslim man being held for questioning in the United States, both on suspicions of terrorism.
"The real question is, if it's wrong for a white American woman to be mistreated in a repressive country, is it O.K. for us to mistreat a Muslim male in this country?" he said. "I don't know the answer, but when does the humanity stop and the fear take over?"
Oh yes, I'm sure their experiences are exactly parallel.
The Chinese and American systems (and jails) being
identical and all. Maybe you should consider the
differences such as
1. we face a real threat from Islamist terrorism, while
the Chinese don't face a real threat from us and
2. we have a real judicial system watching over all of
this to make sure that either due process isn't violated
or there's a damn good reason for it. What have the
Chinese got?
Oh, that's right. I don't get HBO.
Damn. |
