I had a major breakthrough today with a friend of mine when it comes to discussing politics. For the record, my friend is a liberal, black, gay Christian. I'm a white, straight Christian and my political position remains rather unquantifiable. I keep saying independent but that's beginning to take on some connotations of its own. I like Dan Carlin's label “Martian” quite a bit. I'm just going to refer to my friend as Dan here. Maybe I can give the impression that I know Dan Carlin better than I do.
My friend and I have been arguing about politics, including racial politics, for a long time. It doesn't usually go anywhere, but today we had some real understanding get through, and it's because we finally found a good allegory we could both relate to. That was so valuable, I thought I would summarize the discussion here. Maybe you can also make use of it.
Dan's pretty heavily invested in identity politics. Most of our disagreements over the years have had to do with us having differing opinions which Dan has been quick to dismiss. “You just think that way because you're white/straight/etc” was his go-to excuse for not having to listen to whatever my opinion is. Whenever I've had an opinion that he disagreed with, it got thrown out under that excuse, and whenever I've had an opinion that he agreed with, it usually got a patronizing “I'm surprised a {label} like you can see that.” That all may have changed today, because I think I finally got across that it isn't the labels I'm arguing about.
Now, what Dan finally got across to me today is that he sees criticism of Obama, our original topic of discussion, as a criticism of all of Obama's labels, not of him personally. This is an issue because of course Dan shares several labels with Obama, so every time I've pointed out a flaw in Obama, Dan sees it as pointing out a flaw in Dan. I'm going to do a better job in the future of emphasizing the difference between comments on a person and comments on other people who share that person's labels.
The defense of Obama began by comparing the government to a movie and elections to casting. (By the way, when I say “actor” here I mean it in its now mostly gender-neutral sense. These terms could apply equally to men or women.)
Dan says, and I'm paraphrasing, imagine that there are a number of actors up for the lead role. The lead role is a white male in the source material that's being adapted here, and in previous productions a white male has always been cast in the lead. This time, though, the casting director finds a black actor who's better at the part than any of the white actors who are up for it. So the black actor gets cast, and everyone slams his performance because the part went to a black actor, even though his acting was at least as competent as all the white actors who've played the part before. I didn't say this at the time, because it was kind of understood between us, but Dan's exactly right that this is where a lot of Obama's criticism comes from. But it isn't – and never has been – my problem with him.
I want to modify the metaphor a little bit. Instead of talking about one movie, let's say it's a very long-running TV show, now in its 45th season. All the actors have some creative control – in fact way back in the beginning most of the lead roles were filled by the writers and even the show's creators. Nowadays the writing and acting are largely separate, but it still works. The writers make a big deal about listening to the viewers and casting of the leads is still pretty much by viewer approval, even if the other actors and the writers limit the pool of actors to cast a lot more than they used to. We get a new lead actor every season and the other actors and writers come and go with some regularity. The show ran pretty smoothly for a while, and we all watched the show and liked it. Even though the characters may have had some pretty reprehensible views and done some horrible things, especially in the early seasons, they largely represented the values and morals of the viewers, and a lot of the stuff we didn't like early on has evolved out of the show.
Then in the 28th season the lead actor (Woodrow Wilson in real life) had an unusual amount of creative control and changed the main character a little bit. Every lead actor since has maintained and increased that level of control, and changed the character more and more. He takes up more and more of the show every season now. The writers have to listen to the main actor a lot more than they used to, and they don't listen to the viewers at much. The other characters don't get as much screen time as they used to, and they're more and more relegated to supporting and background characters now in a show that's increasingly just the story of the lead character, and by extension the actor playing that character. These other actors - and the writers - don't care, either, since they still get paid the same as they always did and don't have to work as hard as they used to.
While viewers have been getting more
and more dissatisfied with the show over time, none of that
dissatisfaction has much effect on production. People who are
“hate-watching” the show look the same in the ratings as everyone
else. The show keeps going further and further down the track that
28th actor moved it onto. New leads are cast now by promising to change the character and make the show work
more like the way it used to, minus all the horrible stuff of
course.
Everything came to a head with the 44th season when the first black actor was cast in the lead role. He was cast more than anyone else before on the promise of reforming the show so that most of the viewers would enjoy it, instead of just a few. Once cast, just as Dan said, he did the job just the same way all the recent lead actors have done it. Except for the fact that he looks a little different, he's the same sort of actor playing the part the same way. And people did, and still do, complain that he did a bad job of it because he's black, or because of a dozen other reasons, ignoring the fact that he was pretty much the same as everyone that came before him. Now, in the 45th season, we have another lead actor. This one came in from being an advertising executive, too. He knows the business inside and out but he has no previous acting experience, so when he also promised he was going to reform the show, and had the professional resume to back up the idea that he could, he got cast. Lo and behold, he's now running the show just the same way the actors before him did.
So when I criticize the job Obama did,
I'm not complaining that he was the wrong guy for the part because
he's black. When I criticize Trump, it's not because he's not black.
I don't think anything in Obama's background up to that point
precluded the idea that he could have been a good president. The
problem is that I don't like the character anymore (What, so now you hate
Dr Who? Joked Dan). I haven't liked what the character was turning
into for 17 seasons now. If I have any particular animosity towards
Obama, it's because I voted for him, and I voted for him specifically
because of his promise to correct the overreaches of the previous
administrations, and then he doubled down on them!
So what am I going to do? Dan suggested change the channel or start my own.
I can't change the channel – move to another country – for four reasons. Most of the other channels are broadcast in a language I don't speak. Those channels, and even the other ones in English, don't have shows that particularly reflect my values any more than my own show does. And they certainly don't want viewers from my show drifting into their audience and then trying to change THEIR characters. Finally, although this is more personal than philosophical, I'm married now and my wife doesn't want to.
I can't start up my own channel for a whole host of reasons. Once upon a time that was doable, but now all the channels are full – I'd have to take over part of someone else's show and steal their resources, advertisers, and viewers. I can't justify that just to see my show get made, even if I had the resources to do it.
I can't just not watch, because then I won't be able to relate to the rest of society. And when stuff from the show happens that affects my life, I won't know how to respond. I won't even be able to justify complaining to the writers how they don't listen to me anymore. And just continuing to hate-watch the show just ensures that we keep getting more of the same. So what's left?
Turn off the TV? Oh right. Outside the metaphor, that's suicide.
No comments:
Post a Comment