Gay West Wing
One of the significant plots of last night’s West Wing dealt with
rumors
of C.J. possibly being gay. She spends the whole day portrayed in
the episode dealing with shame, being second-guessed, watching people
speculate about her most interior and essential life in public, and
making excuses where none needed to be made. And then she gets to
tell the press that her sexuality is none of their business.
A nice thought, but like another set of details last night, untrue. The
people who are most vociferous in their protestations that sexuality
should be a private matter also clamor the loudest for such knowledge
“when it’s relevant.” The information should stay private when it
does not have any use, but it should become public when it has a use to
someone, seems to be the line of argument that’s really at work
here. It’s disingenuous to say the least. And for those of
us who actually don’t think that a person’s sexual orientation (at
least in the situation presented here) has bearing, there’s still
prurient curiosity (and all sorts of covering justifications) to
overcome our principles.
Part of me wants to believe that if more people could have the
experience like C.J. had, to face the potential for being
second-guessed, questioned, ostracism, and spoken about in false
secrecy, perhaps there’d be more potential understanding of gay people
and other sorts of people who suffer at the hands of power.
But I am not optimistic, for I see how other sorts of minorities, who
face similar bigotry, treat sexual minorities — in exactly the way
they wish not to be treated themselves.
C.J. may have learned, but I am not so sure the other members of the West Wing universe have. And I am pretty sure the people of our non-imaginary world have not.
On another note from the episode, the cowardice that the president
showed in the face of a fundamentalist senator with a literalist
interpretation of the Bible was stunning. The president got in a
couple of lines about trying to be Christlike on love; and that perhaps
the literalism was not the only way to read the Bible, that the Bible
may be literally true but that we can’t know enough to know that we
have it correct. And he tries to convince the senator that an
anti-gay rider amendment to the budget bill has nothing to do with his
oath. “When I raised my right hand, I swore an oath to uphold the
Constitution, not to put everything I might believe into it.”
“But, Mr. President, when you did that, where was your left
hand?” And then the scene ends, as if to say that no more can be
said, that the senator’s simplistic understanding of the marvelous
complexity of the world proved the true view, after all.
Ecto blogging software
7 January 2005 at 8:28 am.
In defence of Pres Barlett, there is a later reference to the amendment having been withdrawn so clearly some conversation followed the end of the scene. But certainly that conversation demonstrated what the West Wing has lost in the past couple of years. If that episode had been in the first three or four seasons, I think we’d probably have seen a much more interesting level of dialogue, and a President who actually engages with his faith rather than trying to divorce his public office from his faith.
It was probably one of the better episodes of this season, but it was still not the West Wing that first drew me in.
7 January 2005 at 10:16 am.
Indeed. Post-Sorkin West Wing is often a bummer.
Since they seem to be lining up YANYPDBR (Yet Another NYPD Blue Retread), Jimmy Smits, to succeed Martin Sheen, my husband and I discussed what kind of casting choice for the next president would be really exciting. We both agreed:
Pam Grier!
I was kind of glad they let Sheen cave; too often, the Bartlet character does the moral or noble thing, and it’s just totally unbelievable. They’ve got a kind of Roosevelt at Yalta thing going on — a President who’s too tired to fight. I just wish they would have showed him caving *and* telegraphed that he was caving and that it was a really big bummer.
7 January 2005 at 4:49 pm.
Well, he didn’t cave, as the denouement showed. Something else happened.
IMO, the point of the creepy Bible-banger was, well, to creep us out. If Sheen had won an argument on-screen, it wouldn’t have had the same visceral effect at all. It was meant to show that “religious values have no place in our government,” and this guy is why.
Anyway, that whole episode was so false. It was liberal fantasy camp; liberals got to do what they’d do in an imaginary universe, and any real discussion of the issue was avoided.
Also, I found the whole CJ thing completely trite and patronizing.
7 January 2005 at 6:33 pm.
Thanks for the post Nate, I skipped the WW to watch the Alias premiere. Interesting that Bartlett was weak on scriptural interpretation, the Sorkin scripts featured a strongly biblically literate prez. I am in the mood for only watching the show when it does not conflict with ABC’s fantastic Wednesday line-up. Lost rocks and Alias was fun.
24 January 2005 at 2:29 pm.
Man, am I glad I quit watching THE WEST WING after Sorkin’s departure. I found the first couple post-Sorkin episodes to be flaccid attempts at imitation, and reading a post like yours demonstrates that, if anything, it’s gotten worse since then. Bleah.