The Untempting Temptation

National Review, February 5, 2001

 All those organizations with the word "family" in their names can relax. The Fox network's new Temptation Island is no threat to the American republic, the institution of marriage, or the morals of our young. The first episode was, however, a terrible waste of an hour, 9-10 P.M. on Wednesday evening, quality time that could have been better spent watching World Championship Wrestling, Rivera Live, or—for those in need of cheering up—Surviving, a movie about double teen suicide.

In case you have not seen a newspaper recently, let's start with Temptation Island 's premise. Four "unmarried couples at a crossroads in their relationships" are taken to a tropical island. The lovebirds are then separated, and each of them will be "set up on a variety of dates" with some of the 26 "fantasy" singles who have also been taken there by Fox. The idea, and, allegedly, the drama, is to test the strength of these relationships. "This could rip two people apart," gloats one potential seducer.

Oh, really? Call me old-fashioned, but any couple agreeing to "test" their relationship in this way are not at a crossroads. They are at a dead end. There's no test, no one is going to be "ripped apart." If you want to talk test, talk Gandhi. That iron man of abstinence used to test his commitment (to celibacy, as it happens) by sleeping in the same bed as a naked woman. Nothing, we are told, ever happened. That is what I call a test. Now, I never knew Gandhi, but I did watch the couples of Temptation Island; and Billy, you are no Mahatma. Nor, Taheed, Mandy, Kaya, Valerie, Ytossie, Andy, and Shannon, are any of the rest of you.

If, then, viewers cannot look forward to the vicious destruction of previously strong relationships, can they at least hope for some smut? Once again, the answer is almost certainly no. The first hour featured bikinis, shorts, and a few naughty comments, but on the whole the show was tamer than Baywatch, and the cast, it has to be said, are not as good-looking. To be sure, the initial episode was set up as a teaser, but the same, I suspect, will prove to be true for the rest of a series that is likely to pack about as much erotic excitement as an MTV beach volleyball special.

Of course, subsequent episodes will doubtless feature what the British call a "snog" or two (ask Austin Powers), but much more than that will have to take place behind closed doors. Nudity? Not a chance: This is network TV. We can rely on Fox's killjoy pixels to blur what little voyeuristic fun there is to be had. What will be on display is far more shocking. In a future episode, we can apparently expect to see one of the participants (a grown man!) weeping on the beach. On Wednesday night we already saw some sobs from two of the ladies, Ytossie and, I think. Shannon. If this is what Fox is coming to, I might as well turn to Lifetime. Worse, there is a strong possibility that these early tears were only the overture. It is likely that much of the show will be dedicated to tantrums, wailing, whining, complaining, confessions, hugging, hand holding, insincerity, sincerity, empathetic moments, and men and women telling each other what they really, really feel. In fact, watching Temptation Island will be much like witnessing someone else's marriage-counseling sessions, and about as entertaining. Sartre was wrong; Hell is not other people, it is other people's problems.

What else can we expect after eight years of a president who wants to feel our pain? This is the Age of Oprah. We talk about everything; the notion of a private sphere of behavior is dying. Emotional restraint is considered to be a psychiatric problem rather than a necessary virtue. Publicly baring the body, a respected form of degeneracy since the days of Salome, may be too much for Fox, but baring the soul, it turns out, is quite all right. Of course, the latter is much more of an imposition on the rest of us, as even the most strait-laced should realize. Most strippers (Salome was an exception) ask nothing more from their audience than the dollars in their pockets. Emotional exhibitionists like the gang on Temptation Island are far more demanding, They would like us to share in their drama, and, yes, to feel their pain.

To some critics, this is a degrading spectacle, the show-biz equivalent of tearing the wings off some not very intelligent flies, a callous and potentially destructive exploitation of four supposedly close-knit couples. Unfortunately, the critics would be wrong even if these relationships were as strong as Fox would like us to believe—because, if anyone deserves humiliation, it is Kaya and his friends (yes, Kaya is a he). They will be contaminating my television with their simpering psychobabble and penny ante angst. They should be punished.

Far from being humiliated, however, they will revel in all the attention. They will be praised for their honesty, for "coming to terms" with themselves. If there is any residual embarrassment to the participants, it will be eased by the greatest of all the rewards this country has to offer—not money, but celebrity. If these couples play their cards right on Temptation Island, they could make their way to America's pantheon, right up there with Tonya and Monica, and even (dare to dream) Darva and Rick.

The show's 16 million viewers can either reach for the off switch or remain slumped on the sofa, hypnotized by the sheer tackiness. Those who are fascinated, but mortified, can reassure themselves that none of this is really "real": The island itself is already an alibi, a Robin Leach fantasy of tumbling waterfalls and enchanted beaches, a place where the ordinary rules are suspended. And then there are the players themselves, some with the sort of otherworldly names last heard on the bridge of the USS Enterprise: Kaya, Ytossie, Dano.

As for their jobs, well, let us just say that this is the least representative cross section of America since the Village People. Participants on the show include a singer, a singer/poet, a singer/waitress, an aspiring entertainment reporter, a practicing entertainment reporter, a bartender, the founder of an online dating service, a model/actress, an actor/drummer, the owner of a kayaking company, an artist, a masseur. Miss Georgia 2000, a teen-crisis counselor, and a motocross guy. And then, in a final hint that none of this really matters, there was the network's proviso that none of the parties should be married. It was a curiously old-fashioned gesture: a statement, in effect, that a "relationship," whether at a crossroads or not, is somehow less worth protecting than the real thing, marriage.

What a pity, then, that one of the couples turned out to be parents, the parents of a "real" child. That was against the rules too, and the wicked pair has been thrown off the island. It is on film, of course. We will be able to see it for ourselves in a few weeks. And so, one day, will their child.

A revised version of an article published on National Review Online on January, 14, 2001

Deliver Us from Temptation

Temptation Island

National Review Online, January 14, 2001

All those organizations with the word 'family' in their name can relax. The Fox Network's new Temptation Island is no threat to the American republic, the institution of marriage, or the morals of our fragile young. It was, however, a terrible waste of an hour, 9-10 p.m. last Wednesday evening, quality time that would, in the New York area, at least, have been better spent watching World Championship Wrestling, Rivera Live or, for those in need of cheering up, Survivors, a movie about double teen suicide. Just in case you have not read a newspaper in the past few days let's start with the premise of the show. Four "unmarried couples at a crossroads in their relationship" are taken to a tropical island. Once they arrive, the lovebirds will be separated and each of them will be "set up on a variety of dates" with some of the 26 'fantasy' singles who have also been taken there by Fox. The idea, and, allegedly, the drama, is to test the strength of these relationships. "This could rip two people apart," gloats one potential seducer.

Oh really? Call me old-fashioned, but any couples agreeing to 'test' their relationship in this way are not at a crossroads. They are at a dead end. There's no test, no one is going to be "ripped apart." If you want to talk test, talk Gandhi. That iron man of abstinence used to test his commitment (to celibacy, as it happens) by sleeping in the same bed as a naked woman. Nothing, we are told, ever happened. That is what I call a test. Now, I never knew Gandhi, but I did watch the couples of Temptation Island and Billy, you are no Mahatma. And nor, Taheed, Mandy, Kaya, Valerie, Ytossie, Andy, and Shannon, are any of the rest of you.

So, if viewers cannot look forward to the vicious destruction of previously strong relationships, can they at least hope for some smut? Once again, the answer is almost certainly no. The first hour featured bikinis, shorts, and a few naughty comments, but on the whole the show is tamer than Baywatch and the cast, it has to be said, are not as good looking. To be sure, the initial episode was set up as a teaser, but the same, I suspect, will prove to be true for the rest of a series that is likely to pack about as much erotic excitement as an MTV beach volleyball special.

Of course, subsequent episodes will doubtless feature what the British call a 'snog' or two (ask Austin Powers), but much more than that will have to take place behind closed doors. Nudity? Not a chance, this is American prime-time TV. We can rely on the network's killjoy pixels to blur what little voyeuristic fun there is to be had. What will be on display, however, is far more shocking, In a future episode, we can, apparently expect to see one of the participants (a grown man!) weeping on the beach. On Wednesday night we already saw some sobs from two of the ladies, Ytossie and, I think, Shannon. If this is what Fox is coming to, I might as well turn to Lifetime. Worse, there is a strong possibility that these early tears were only the overture. It is likely that much of the show will be dedicated to tantrums, wailing, whining, complaining, confessions, hugging, hand holding, insincerity, sincerity, empathetic moments, and men and women telling each other what they really, really, feel. In fact, watching Temptation Island will be much like witnessing someone else's marriage-counseling sessions, and it will be about as relaxing as Party of Five. Sartre was wrong. Hell is not other people, it is other people's problems.

What else we can expect after eight years of a president who wants to feel our pain? We are in the age of Rosie and Oprah. We talk about everything, absolutely everything. The notion of a private sphere of behavior is dying. Emotional restraint is considered to be a psychiatric problem rather than a necessary virtue. Publicly baring the body, a respected form of degeneracy since the days of Salome, may be too much for Fox, but baring the soul, it turns out, is quite all right. Of course, the latter is much more of an imposition on the rest of us, as even the most strait-laced should realize. Most strippers (Salome was an exception) ask nothing more from their audience than the dollars in their pockets. Emotional exhibitionists like Kaya, Mandy, Taheed, and the rest of the gang on Temptation Island are far more demanding.

They would like us to share in their drama, and, yes, to feel their pain. To some critics of the show, this is a degrading spectacle, the showbiz equivalent of tearing the wings off some not very intelligent flies, a callous and potentially destructive exploitation of four supposedly close-knit couples. Unfortunately, the critics would be wrong, even if these relationships were as strong as Fox would like us to believe. For, if anyone deserves humiliation it is Kaya and his friends (yes, Kaya is a he). They will be contaminating my television with their simpering psychobabble and penny ante angst. They should be punished. However, far from being humiliated, these folks will revel in the attention that is coming their way. Temptation Island may be an extreme case, but in our therapeutic society there will be no particular shame about a public airing of some of the 'issues' that will surely come to play in the later episodes of the show. Someone will, inevitably, praise these people for their honesty, and for coming to terms with themselves. If there is any residual embarrassment to the participants, it will be eased by the greatest of all the rewards that this country has to offer, not money (they are not being particularly well paid), but celebrity. Play their cards right on Temptation Island and these couples could make their way to American's pantheon, right up there with the greats, Tonya, Monica, Lorena, Joey, and Amy, and, even (dare to dream) Darva and Rick.

Viewers (there were 16 million on Wednesday night) can either reach for the off switch, or they can remain slumped on the sofa, hypnotized by the sheer tackiness of the event. Those who are fascinated, but mortified, can tell themselves that they do not to have to worry, none of this is really 'real.' Fox makes this an easy option. The island itself is already an alibi, a Robin Leach fantasy of sparkling seas, tumbling waterfalls, and enchanted beaches, a place where the ordinary rules are suspended. And then there are the players themselves, some of them with the sort of strange otherwordly names last heard on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, Kaya, Ytossie, Dano.

As for their jobs, well, let us just say that this was the least representative cross-section of America since the Village People. Participants on the show include a singer, a singer/poet, a singer/waitress, an aspiring entertainment reporter, a practicing entertainment reporter, a bartender, the founder of an online dating service, a model/actress, an actor/drummer, the owner of a kayaking company, an artist, a masseur, Miss Georgia 2000, a teen-crisis counselor, and a motocross guy. And then, in a final hint that none of this really matters, there was the network's proviso that none of the parties should be married, either to their significant others, or, presumably, to anyone else. It was a curiously old-fashioned gesture. In effect it was a statement that a 'relationship,' whether at a crossroads or not, is somehow less worth protecting than the 'real' thing, marriage.

What a pity, then, that one of the couples should have gone and spoiled it all by turning out to be parents, the parents of a 'real' child. That was against the rules too, and the wicked pair has been thrown off the island. It is on film, of course. We will be able to see it for ourselves in a few weeks.

And so, one day, will their child.

Wing Nuts

The  West  Wing

National Review Online, December 10, 2000

Aaron Sorkin, the creator of NBC's The West Wing, wants it known that, despite voting twice for Bill Clinton, he has no liberal agenda. Sure, he concedes, his hero, President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet is to the Left, but the show itself is not. Swallow that, and you must also be a believer in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and fair hand recounts. The West Wing is classic liberal propaganda: insidious, dishonest, and effective. The New York Times seems to approve, noting, for example, that high-minded President Jed (played by a relentlessly folksy Martin Sheen) has, apparently, much to teach us poor peasants about campaign-finance "reform." Time magazine, meanwhile, adopts its high-minded eat-your-greens, count-every-chad persona, grandly describing the show as a "national civics lesson." Naturally, The West Wing plays like ER in D.C. (over 300,000 viewers every week). Bartlet and his crew are civil-service catnip. They make the busybodies of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seem sexy and, even more implausibly, useful. Liberal? Of course it is. We should not be surprised that the cast were the stars of this year's Democratic convention. Mr. Sorkin, after all, was previously best known as the writer of The American President, a nauseating movie from the mid-1990s in which a Democrat president rediscovers his soul by returning to the Left. In The West Wing, Mr. Sorkin shows his full range. He gives us a Democratic president, who keeps his soul--by never leaving the Left.

As Dee Dee Myers has said, Bartlet is "the Clinton we wish could have been". Yes that's right, Dee Dee Myers, that Dee Dee Myers. She is one of the show's original political consultants. The other two were Pat Caddell, a former strategist for the, um, Democrats, and Lawrence O'Donnell, who used to work in the Senate for, well, I think you know which party. To be fair, after about, oh, 20 episodes or so it was decided to add Republicans to the roster. Marlin Fitzwater and Peggy Noonan are now on board, the William Cohens of the Sorkin administration.

In one sense, however, the premise of the show is unexceptional. If prime-time TV can feature alien abductions and honest lawyers there is no reason why it cannot have a series dedicated to a successful president who is a liberal Democrat from, er, New Hampshire. As Bartlet is a liberal, there is no point in conservative viewers waiting for him to come out with a speech calling for school vouchers, missile defense, and tax cuts. That would be like expecting Gilligan to get off the island. Of course, it is true that Bartlet is portrayed as a blend of JFK, Will Rogers, and Mahatma Gandhi, but this is showbiz convention, not bias. President Jed is the hero of the show, and heroes have a right to expect their script-writers to be supportive.

The problem, and the real political slant, comes from the context within which Bartlet is presented. Being supportive is one thing, but there is not a button that Sorkin will not press to generate some sympathy for his man. The West Wing's emotional bases are so loaded that any rational discussion of the issues raised in the show becomes quite impossible. It is not enough for Bartlet to be a straight-arrow Nobel laureate with a sense of humor but, no, he also has to have multiple sclerosis (although not too badly). And he is not the only martyr in his team. Leo McGarry, the chief of staff, is a recovering alcoholic/prescription-drug abuser whose dedication to the White House has just cost him his marriage. His deputy, Josh Lyman, has just lost a much-loved father, not unlike Bartlet's assistant, Charlie Young, who has just lost a much-loved mother. We do not know the fate of her, presumably doomed, parents, but the president's secretary, Mrs. Landingham, has managed to lose not one, but two much-loved sons. In Vietnam, of course. On the same day, naturally. Christmas Eve, actually.

We are taught to sympathize with these people, and thus to like them (they are all interesting and quirky in that LA Law, Ally McBeal way) and, from that, to agree with their views. The team are hard-working, patriotic, and the work they do, is, apparently, essential. These folks do not have mere jobs, they are in public service. Their boss is a president who (to stirring music) removes the phrase "the era of big government is over" from his State of the Union speech. This, we are clearly meant to think, is a good thing. D.C. is OK, and poor helpless Americans could not survive without it. In one episode a staffer looks set to outperform the Landingham boys and survive December 24. His plans to go home early, however, are thwarted by an indignant Leo. "What," asks the chief of staff, "the country isn't open on Christmas Eve?" Clinton's real world White House may combine Post Office efficiency with the ethics of Caligula, but you would not know that from Sorkin's version. The corridors of his 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are filled with the busy, the purposeful, and the good, always walking, it seems, at a tremendous pace as they try to take care of us.

Only dolts and scoundrels would oppose fine people like this. Step forward the G.O.P! One of the boasts of the The West Wing is that all points of view are given a fair shake (Except on the Second Amendment: John Wells, one of the executive producers and clearly something of a constitutional scholar, has explained, that "the only issue we don't do that on is gun control. Frankly no-one involved in the program feels there is a logical reason for streets to be flooded with Saturday night specials and automatic weapons."). We do hear from the Right, but they never quite seem to get the best of the argument. Their debating points are suspiciously muted and their representatives are sadly flawed. So the gay Republican congressman is a hypocrite, the military man wears a medal to which he is not entitled, and as for the Christian activists, well, they are linked with the anti-abortion zealots who mail the president's granddaughter a mutilated Raggedy Ann. The last word is invariably reserved for a member of the Bartlet team, frequently with the help of a sappy soundtrack that kicks in with some sentimental strains to remind us just who is on the side of the angels. Clue: It is not the party of George W. Bush.

Which brings us to Ainsley Hayes, the show's "good Republican." You knowthat role. It is a bit like being the "Good German" in a war movie. We first meet Miss Hayes, a leggy blonde Republican commentator with a striking resemblance to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on one of those cable channel talkfests. She out-debates White House staffer Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe as a thinking man's George Stephanopoulos). As a reward the oh so broad-minded President Jed asks Ainsley to join his team. Naturally, she agrees. This is a Republican that West Wing can relate to. She is, to use NPR's favorite word, "bipartisan," prepared to give up her principles in favor of the supposedly greater interests of the country. I seem to recall that the Vichy French used a similar excuse in 1940.

It's all nonsense, of course, but it was enough to bring West Wing nine Emmys earlier this year, the highest number ever won by a series in a single year. There was a problem, however. Viewers were, apparently, "upscale" (that's Network for "too few"). Really bringing in the masses took a familiar, if desperate, device--a cliff-hanging season finale with the lead characters brought down in a hail of bullets. Who shot J.B.? It worked. Ratings nearly doubled. Bartlet, you guessed it, survived. The motive for the attack turned out to be racist outrage at the romance between Bartlet's daughter Zoey and Charlie Young, the president's assistant, who is African-American. Two would-be assassins are quickly gunned down, but we do manage to see that their surviving accomplice is straight out of central casting, an Aryan Nation branch. He's a white male skinhead with a swastika tattoo. Worse than that he is a smoker (we see him stubbing out a cigarette into a fried egg) and a lover of southern cuisine (the wretch is finally apprehended in the Dixie Pig Bar-B-Q).

He is also an extremely useful myth, rare in real life, but ever-present in contemporary liberal demonology (Arlington Road, American History X, and so on), a useful tool that Democrats are increasingly using to browbeat their opposition. Guilt by association is a cheap trick, but it works. Sorkin's decision to add murderous skinheads to the ranks of Bartlet's antagonists is an attempt to make any viewer feel bad about disagreeing with Saint Jed. Worse, such an approach is used to discredit the intellectual legitimacy of any such disagreement. Argue for tax cuts one day, goes the not-so subliminal message, and you are in the same camp as gun-toting skinheads.

Sadly, such propaganda is not confined to the make-believe world of The West Wing. It goes hand-in-hand with the more general Democrat onslaught on the good faith of those who dare to oppose them. It helps create a political climate in which Clinton flack Paul Begala can, in a recent post-election tantrum, attempt to link GOP voting with a number of "hate" crimes that had taken place in Republican-leaning states. As has already been discussed in NRO, such a line of argument only serves to reinforce that liberal sense of moral superiority over the rest of us, a sense of moral superiority that led inevitably to Broward County, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade.

Oh dear, we had better hope that President Bartlet loses his reelection bid by a really big majority. Especially in Florida.

Greed is . . . Sorta OK

Bull

National Review Online, September 10, 2000

It could be time to sell. In 1987, Hollywood gave us Wall Street. The market promptly cratered. 1929 saw the release of not one, but two films with Wall Street in the title. They were followed by the Great Crash and the even greater Depression. Well, I don't want to panic anyone but this year we've already had one stockbroker movie, Boiler Room. Now TV is following suit with two Wall Street-themed shows, Fox's The Street (set for November) and TNT's new weekly drama, Bull. There's another reason for the market to be nervous. Wall Street is a place that Hollywood just loves to bash. Just think back to Gordon Gekko or Danny DeVito in Other People's Money. Boiler Room too was hardly flattering. At first glance, Bull seemed certain to follow the same course. Within minutes we have met Corey Granville, a bond salesman at investment bank Merriweather Marx. He is doing well, but behind his back, the firm's WASPily distinguished patriarch wonders aloud whether Granville understands that there's a "glass ceiling in [his] future". Corey, of course, is African-American.

The patriarch, Robert "the Kaiser" Roberts, is quickly set up as a monster, a Skull and Bones savage straight from central casting. We see him compounding his racism with hypocrisy (he loans Corey "his" table at Lutece) and casual sexism, offhandedly delegating this task to his "girl." The term, outraged viewers will know, is "administrative assistant." For extra flavor, there's an echo of Gekko. The Kaiser arranges an insider trade, organizing the transaction in such a way that, if it is discovered, Marissa Rufo, an innocent associate, will take the blame. The innocent associate is, naturally, ethnic, female and from a working class family. To put icing on the bottom of the cake, we discover later that Ms. Rufo's mother has Alzheimer's.

In another episode predatory financiers launch a greenmailing attack on the regular folks in a "real business." This "real business" is a familiar cast member in movies about finance, and is generally used as a proxy for the concerns of Main Street. In the 1987 Wall Street the sacrificial lamb was an aviation firm, while in "Other People's Money," the designated victim was an old New England wire and cable manufacturer. At some point a noble employee of the menaced company always makes a speech about how the investment bankers should "stop going for the easy buck and start producing something."

In Bull the threat was to Ashton Paper, the principal employer in an, of course, idyllic, Bedford Falls, Mayberry sort of town (red, white and blue bunting, Patsy Cline playing in the local diner). The moving speech is made, one of the investment bankers has the obligatory crisis of conscience, but then, and here's the rub, the greenmail succeeds. If that's not surprising enough, the greenmailer, "Lasky the Liquidator" (marvelously played by Stanley Tucci), works for the show's good guys, HSD Capital, a rival firm set up by defectors from Merriweather Marx and led by the patriarch's grandson.

Successful greenmail? Investment bankers as good guys? That's what I call popular capitalism. Bull is a drama for our 401(k) age, a CNBC lite for the new investor class (at times, confusingly so — there's a break in the show for a "Bull Report" containing real financial news). For at least as long as the current prosperity endures, the Oliver Stone, hostile approach to Wall Street is likely to be a hard sell. Bull's producer has been quoted as saying that "sixty percent of Americans own stock. Wall Street is not for the Gordon Gekkos of the world any more. Wall Street is us." Coming from Hollywood, that's pretty encouraging.

On the details, sadly, Bull is not very accurate. Viewers hoping to learn something about the capital markets might as well take up medicine on the basis of watching ER. Vaguely impressive sounding technical terms are thrown into the dialog, and, in one case, a seduction, but, like Star Trek's dilithium crystals, they wouldn't get you anywhere in the real world. The type of business that the firms do is also unclear, as is how they do it. Merriweather Marx is, apparently, a world leader, despite having a trading floor of only about 25 people (some of whom use cellular phones on that trading floor, a no-no in today's era of compulsorily taped calls).

The defectors, meanwhile, are able to open up for business overnight (impossible, given the time-consuming regulatory procedures imposed on new securities businesses). Their firm appears to be an M&A boutique with a sideline in commodities trading, an impressive achievement for a company with a payroll in the single figures. Then there's the wardrobe. Investment bankers these days tend to dress down, each expressing their individuality in chinos, blazers and polo shirts. The men in Bull, by contrast, seem to take their lead from an issue of GQ, circa 1985. Demonstrating the height of Milken-era chic, they wear power suspenders, and in one shocking incident, a yellow tie.

But this is to nitpick. The important thing is that a TV show is being made in which it is not, automatically, a sin to win on Wall Street. Indeed, when the grandson tells his team to go out and "grab some green," the audience is meant to cheer, not jeer. This is real progress. Seen in this light, the portrayal of Patriarch Roberts is a familiar plot device: villains have to be villainous. Of course, the fact that he is a WASP archetype is no coincidence in our PC times, and nor is the decision to make him both racist and sexist. In contemporary Hollywood, there are no greater offenses.

So, which will prevail, Bull's underlying positive message or the annoying political correctness in which it is clothed? Will it remain as entertaining as LA Law or will it descend into the soupy moralizing that wrecked the later M.A.S.H? After only three episodes, it's too early to say, but watching the development of a number of the key characters will give a good idea.

The most important of these is Lasky the Liquidator. Hunter Lasky, brought into the upstart firm as a rainmaker, looks like being the show's equivalent of LA Law's Douglas Brackman, a thinning-on-top older guy with an eye to the bottom line. His cynical observations are a way for Bull's writers to signal that they still have their doubts about Wall Street. If Lasky turns really nasty, that will be a bad sign. As it will be if his mistress, Alison Jeffers, the show's obligatory ambitious blonde, keeps failing to sleep with important clients. Alison dear, that's what ambitious blondes do. Corey Granville, meanwhile, needs to concentrate on his career. We've already had warning of a cliched "what does it mean to be an African-American on Wall Street" sub-plot.

Finally, and worst, potentially, of all, some of the HSD team is shown attending a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton. If these people are Democrats, Bull is a sell. Fortunately, there could be another explanation. The staff at HSD trade commodities, but not, judging by one episode, very well. Perhaps they were just going to our cattle futures-trading First Lady for advice.

Given her record in that field, that would be just fine, and so, for now, is Bull.

Dressed To Kill

National Review, September 13, 1999

Tough chicks are in. Check out a poster for Nickleodeon on New York City telephone kiosks, which portrays the cable channel's ideal viewer: A young girl with straight hair and big glasses, she "rides a unicycle . . . [and] picked out the family computer." The clincher? She "can belch on command." A Little Woman no longer, this girl has arrived in Boys' Town, where she will, so the new stereotype goes, beat the guys at their own games: sports, computers, coarseness, and, it would seem from a clutch of TV shows, killing. Of course, dramas about lethal ladies are nothing new. Just ask Hamlet's father. But those earlier murderous models were mere freelancers. The new bunch are organized, trained, and are probably, in some not so subliminal way, advertisements for women in the military. Sigourney Weaver, battling monsters in the four Alien movies, was a prototype. Since then, her character, Ripley, has been joined by an entire regiment. There's Captain Kathryn Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager, ably assisted by Amazons such as the USA Network's La Femme Nikita (secret agent, kills people) and WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (high-school senior, kills dead people). Interestingly, the violence on offer is often very hands-on. These women are not afraid of good brawl. There is plenty of fist fighting, kick boxing, and, in Buffy's case, staking through the heart.

But if they took on Xena, the Warrior Princess, they would be crushed. Of all the rough girls, Xena is the roughest. Madeleine Albright claims to have adopted her as a role model—clearly without much success. Xena would have chopped up Saddam and Slobodan years ago. At times the show has been television's highest-rated first-run syndicated drama (which means it would have been watched in about 5 million households). Now beginning its fifth season, it has spawned a Xenaverse of websites, fan fiction, conventions, and Xenarabilia.

Played by Lucy Lawless, a former Miss New Zealand, Xena began life as a character in an episode of another syndicated series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. In the space of one hour, she killed six people, was referred to as a "murdering harlot," seduced Hercules' friend Iolaus, and ended up being awarded her own TV show. Xena itself is set in some vaguely classical past, with appearances by Greek gods, centaurs, and Prometheus, but with a time line so wobbly that it would embarrass Johnnie Cochran. As befits a TV heroine in an age with only the vaguest grasp of history, Xena, a person with a presumably normal life span, is at the siege of Troy, finds Moses' tablets of stone, helps David kill Goliath, has sex with Julius Caesar, and runs into the Knights of the Round Table. Widely traveled for a woman from the time of the trireme, Xena even manages to reach China, and, disastrously, India. (A Hindu group complained that, among other offenses, a "snide" warrior princess treated Krishna "in an extremely condescending manner": The episode was later pulled from rebroadcast.)

Through it all --clad, as the statuesque and nearly 6-foot tall Miss Lawless once put it, in a "corset and a whip"—Xena manages to rout all comers. She will use weapons, notably a sharp-edged discus called a chakram. Her favorite approach, however, is a punch-up, generally heralded by somersaults and a war cry of "yi yi yi."

The weaker sex, men, are either feeble, needing Xena's help, or wicked, en route to a drubbing from her. The only man in Xena's regular entourage is a ludicrous, Jar Jar Binks-like figure, Joxer the Mighty. His main function is to wear a stupid hat and to be periodically humiliated. Even Hercules seems a little effete when compared with a heroine who, in one memorable episode, kills a rat with her teeth and then (while still bound in chains) uses the dead rodent as a sort of missile.

In matters of the heart, the male sex likewise comes off as second best. For, it is implied, Xena has given her love to her trusty traveling companion Gabrielle—a petite blonde, girly, certainly, but still someone you'd want to avoid tangling with in hand-to-hand combat. The romance between the two is never explicit. It is, fans like to say, a "subtext." Sub? Episodes of Xena feature enough smoldering looks, "sisterly" kisses, and bathtub scenes to bring a smile even to the grim features of the late Mrs. Roosevelt.

She may have become a lesbian idol, but at least Xena is wittier than Ellen and (much) more attractive than Alice B. Toklas. With episode titles like "A Comedy of Eros" and a supporting cast that could pass muster on Baywatch, Xena doesn't seem to be a program that takes itself too seriously. Yes, yes, there's a message, but we can get over that. The show is fun, with plenty of pretty girls to bring in those vilified, but necessary, male viewers. Even as the Decade of Irony draws to a close, irony is, at least on the surface, the name of Xena’s game. The characters speak in a sub-Melrose patois, interspersed with wisecracks and snatches of dialogue that could be pasted whole into one of those old movies about the Argonauts, Samson, or Richard the Lionhearted.

But sadly, for ail the ironic overay, the Nineties have really been a rather earnest and didactic little era. Women, we are told, need role models to help them overcome the everyday oppression of a brutish patriarchal society. Turning, as always, to the distinguished journal called HUES ("Hear Us Emerging Sisters"), we learn that women "should take the lead from [their] silver screen and TV sisters, and learn to physically defend [themselves], to become women of action rather than passive victims." And what better example than Xena? We should not be surprised that those who propagate one fantasy, that of male oppression, have turned to another for inspiration

Well, in Hollywood, when it comes to the pieties of the age, a certain hushed and opportunistic respect is in the end always the rule. Irony has its limits. So Studios USA, Xena's distributor, claims that the show has become "the preeminent symbol of female empowerment." Meanwhile, in an interview. Miss Lawless solemnly intones that she gets a "lot of letters from women who tell [her] that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship."

Oh, yi yi yi.

Cable Gal

National Review, May 4, 1998

I'm watching Lifetime." These are words that no man wants to hear, especially from his girlfriend. The evening ahead has just been poisoned. He will be transformed from Top Gun into Tailhook. He will be shunned as a suitor who just does not "get it." He will be accused, indicted, and condemned, found guilty by association with his shabby fellow males and their vile crimes—the crimes that Lifetime, cable's "Must-She TV," loves to detail. As part, no doubt, of its mission. Lifetime is now available in 69.5 million households. The channel's purpose is, it claims, to provide "contemporary, innovative entertainment and information programming of particular interest to women." And so you find cooking shows, reruns of The Golden Girls, and programs about babies. But, above all, you find movies about bad guys. Lots of them. There are men who murder, chaps who cheat, and husbands who hit. Taken individually, these movies (most of which are not actually made by Lifetime) are unexceptional, but show them day after day and they become something else. In effect Lifetime uses its movie selections to create one endless loop of The Perils of Pauline, with a script by Anita Hill and special effects by Lorena Bobbitt.

Within a few recent Lifetime days, viewers could see men batter (The Burning Bed), fool around (When Husbands Cheat, helpfully shown on Valentine's Day), and kill (The Babysitter's Seduction). The villainous spouse in the last of those films almost pulled off a trifecta. He killed his wife, slept with the baby-sitter, and then nearly (you cannot have everything) managed to have the baby-sitter blamed for the murder.

Well, he wore a suit, and that was the giveaway. The Lifetime criminal tends to be urbane and easy on the eye. In his youth he was probably a frat boy, like Billy, perhaps, in Full Circle. Billy, a Banana Republic ad gone bad, with his floppy blond hair and red polo shirt, rapes the daughter of the woman who is being strung along by his father. The assault is covered up, and Billy will doubtless go on to commit further outrages in his middle age, by which time he will probably be played by Robert (Spenser for Hire) Urich, a man frequently present at Lifetime's death scenes.

In Deadly Relations Urich cheats on his wife, lingers perhaps a little too long on that goodnight kiss with his daughter, kills not one but two sons-in-law, and then shoots his own hand off in a botched attempt at insurance fraud. Outwardly, of course, he is eminently respectable, a war veteran, exactly the sort of male authority figure that Lifetime loves to show as the most dangerous threat of all.

Men like this operate under cover of the position given to them by, so the argument runs, our violently patriarchal society. They are camouflaged by their good jobs, smart cars, and conservative suits. Away from the office there will be lots of plaid, Eddie Bauer perhaps. The Lifetime villain will be clean-shaven; his eyes will not stare. His only distinguishing characteristic is deceitfulness. He is no Freddy Krueger, no Leatherface, no Jason. A Lifetime killer would not be seen dead in a hockey mask. He could be you or me.

Which is just the point. It may be MacKinnon Lite (a channel that features Celebrity Weddings in Style cannot be all bad), but don't be under any illusion. Lifetime is Rodham country. The not-so-subtle message of its dim movie-of-the-week feminism is that women must circle their wagons against the enemy with a penis.

After all, those predatory white males aren't isolated cases. They are all over the place. Traditional villains understood that dark deeds had to be confined to the graveyard, the dungeon, or the haunted house. Not this lot. They will do their worst anywhere: in the mall, the executive suite, and, surprisingly often, the kitchen. No one can be trusted, not even Michael Gross, the genially ineffectual father from Family Ties, who reappears in With a Vengeance as a dentist and serial killer.

But not an efficient one. One of his victims, played by a Melissa Gilbert who has strayed a long way from that little house on the prairie, survives. Carelessly, though, she forgets the whole incident, and it is only when her amnesia fades that his problems begin.

In this case the recovery occurs quite quickly. However, in another film on Lifetime, Shattered Trust: The Shari Kamey Story it takes the forgetful Miss Gilbert about a quarter of a century to remember years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. He, of course, is an educated man, a journalist. And just in case we don't get the message, our heroine warns against disbelieving allegations in regard to another suspected child molester just "because be looks good in a suit."

But why stop at child abuse? Much as it enjoys that subject, Lifetime also offers some gymnast abuse (Little Girls in Pretty Boxes) and even a bit of biathlete abuse (by Montana mountain men in The Abduction of Kari Swenson).

To be fair, not all men are bad, even on this channel. Harry in Full Circle is kind. sensitive, and a wonderful father. A good man. Significantly, perhaps, he ends up in a wheelchair and dies. But if the good man is an exception in a Lifetime movie, the good woman is not. She may be a little weepy, but she can generally survive life's challenges, be they a murderous husband, a bard day's shopping, or a bout with cancer.

She is not perfect, of course, but when she slips Lifetime understands. And shows something of the double standard that we see further revealed in the titles of two recent "Lifetime Originals" (movies specially commissioned by the channel). So far as Lifetime is concerned, When Husbands Cheat they are to be cut no slack, but when the missus plays around, her misbehavior is merely The Indiscretion of an American Wife.

The indiscretion enjoyed by the American wife in question (Anne Archer, avenging the wronged spouse she played in Fatal Attraction) is romantic and forgivable. Her husband, Russell, a WASPy diplomat whose insensitivity is revealed by his lack of interest in modern dance, is dumped in favor of a handsome Italian, Matteo. And who can blame Miss Archer? Matteo owns a vineyard and a villa.

Lifetime's unfaithful husbands, however, generally have to make do with a motel room. Their infidelity is usually portrayed as a tawdry, rather selfish affair. Big hair and little dresses will be on display, and it will all end badly. The man is left begging for forgiveness, humiliated or worse. In House of Secrets the betrayed wife—played by, yes, Melissa Gilbert—dies, but no matter. With the help of some voodoo she comes back from the dead and frames her husband for his girlfriend's murder.

How unusual. One Lifetime is enough to see off most men.

Politically Incorrect - Not

National Review, March 10, 1997

The Inauguration has come and gone, and with it the hopes Washington, D.C., entertained of a tourist bonanza. Receipts were lower than expected, far down from last time. Much like the election, in fact, in which voter turnout fell to 49 per cent, the lowest since 1924. In a way it is a welcome development, a rejection of activism, an indication that people are ready to get on with their own lives rather than those of their neighbors.

To members of the political class, especially on the Left, it is a rejection that hurts. Self-important beyond belief, they need to be taken seriously, not to be ignored. People should "participate" in the "process," whether they want to or not. The media, it is argued, must play their part in what would doubtless be termed our national town meeting. To some, this entails free air time for their speeches ("the broadcasting spectrum is public property'") and patronizingly sanitized "civic journalism" of the type seen in the North Carolina Senate race. To others, this is old politics, too League-of-Women-Voters to be relevant, Post-modernly hip, and leftward naturally, they fuse politics with entertainment, Rock the Vote, and are thrilled when ABC buys the rights to Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher from a cable channel dedicated to comedy.

Believe U.S. News & World Report and Bill Maher is a Will Rogers in the making, a man whose show, according to George, "may change the way America watches politics," ABC hopes so. The network has targeted Politically Incorrect at the Koppel and Sominex crowd, scheduling it just after Nightline.

The format is simple. Think of the Monty Python sketch where Marx and Lenin appear on a game show, to be asked questions on soccer and pop music. Bill Maher reverses the premise. The topics for discussion are often political, and serious(ish), the guests frequently less so. To be sure, you might see an Ed Rollins, Dee Dee Myers, or John O'Sullivan, but they will generally be outnumbered by entertainers: an actor or two, a rock star, or an unclassifiable like Kato Kaelin.

The show is certainly not politically incorrect, in the authentic, which is to say right-wing, sense of the term. Instead, we are told. Politically Incorrect is about "honesty," Is it? Well, in theory Mr. Maher's guests are speaking openly, being encouraged to state their true beliefs, (That this is considered daring, politically incorrect, says a lot about America.) But many do not, of course: they have their agents, their focus groups to think of. Oh sure, the performing seals will bark on cue, Sandra Bernhard is good for a brawl, and G. Gordon Liddy is just good. But that's their schtick; it's what's expected. For the rest, it is all very bland, with even the mildest controversy being greeted by the hoots and whoops of an audience priding itself on its own sophistication.

If the show has a slant, it is that disgruntled populism so easily manipulated by Common Cause, in which "good government" shades imperceptibly into big government. Bill Maher himself prefers to affect a wry "plague on both your houses" bi-partisanship, but it doesn't quite convince.

Whatever its claims. Politically Incorrect still plays by the Left's rules. Conservative positions may be taken, but they must be carefully qualified as exceptions, not the rule, Mr, Maher favors the death penalty, but is also pro-choice and pro-gun control. He will tell risque jokes, call female guests "baby," and talk sensibly about today's poisonous gender politics; but at the same time, says a website for Maher fans, he admires "smart women." A favorite cause, animal rights, is impeccably PC.

So if the show is not politically incorrect, is it even "political," something to be taken seriously? Judging from the recent show devoted to an absurdly gentle interview with Larry Flynt, the answer must be no. One is tempted to dismiss Politically Incorrect as a talk show with pretensions, to grumble, as some guests have done, that the mix of guests and sub-McLaughlin format inhibits proper discussion. It would be easy, perhaps too easy. One hears the sound of a mandarin whine being uncorked, "Comedy Boy," as Maher has described himself, is entitled to his say, and so are the folks on his show. Politics should not be the exclusive preserve of wonks. The idea that it operates (or should operate) independently of the world of entertainment, or the general cultural mix, is nonsense.

But Politically Incorrect won't "change the way America watches politics." It won't change anything. If the discussion can seem trivial and intellectually dishonest, that merely reflects the society from which the show has emerged. Bill Maher once commented that in Bill Clinton the U.S. had chosen an appropriate President, "because he is full of s—" and so are we. Mr. Maher is quite right. And that is why this stand-up comedian, this Carson who wants to be Cronkite, is, as much as anyone else, the pundit we deserve.