Sunday, January 21, 2007

West Wing (Again)


I know there is a risk of sounding repetitive, but if you haven't watched West Wing then do so.

Little grabs me the way this does but, more than that, the series challenges so many ways of thinking. I have just watched the first episode of series three. Now series three went out just after 9/11. A time of heightened emotion in what was and is (I am sorry) already an emotional country. The easy thing to do would be to dodge the issue. Instead they wrote a one-off episode (in what was an amazing turn-around time of just 2 weeks), "Isaac and Ishmael", which completely focusses on the issues of terrorism. And it does not pull any punches. It discusses why terrorism exists and it addresses the blinkered approach that we can all take.

When some students are asking why Muslims hate America, Josh tells them that Islamic extremists are to Islam what the KKK are to Christianity". When Sam is asked "...what do you call a society that has to just live every day with the idea that the pizza place you are eating in could just blow up without any warning?" , he answers "Israel". Leo, normally a good guy, is seen to get so blinkered in an interrogation that all he can see in front of him is the colour of a mans skin. Once again Bartlet has the line of the episode, "we need heroes. A hero would die for his country but he would much rather live for it"

This episode attracted a lot of criticism in America, even being said to "wimp out". Actually I see that criticism as being the highest accolade it could get.

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