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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
Ever wonder about the hidden political propaganda behind "Gilmore Girls," "The Apprentice" and "COPS"? Worry no more!
Nov 1, 2004 | While partisans debate the bias of Fox News anchors and New York Times reporters in insular communities around the Internet, the rest of America gets much of its politics via the pop culture filter that is prime-time television. And it isn't usually hard to pin down the political sympathies of, say, "The West Wing" or "ER," most of whose staff suffer from chronic bleeding hearts; resident everyman, Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle), came out as a Democrat a few weeks back, and Dr. Carrie Weaver (Laura Innes) retained custody of her infant son only after the parents of her late partner saw the error in their homophobic ways.
But those are the obvious ones. We decided to pick one prime-time show from each night of the week and illuminate its underlying, more subtle politics. It's not an exhaustive survey, of course -- apparently, those tightwads over at the Annenberg Foundation won't fork over the money for a research staff without some kind of fancy-shmancy "proposal" -- but it might give you a clue what's percolating just beneath the pop culture surface:
SUNDAY: "Jack and Bobby" (9 p.m. ET, The WB)
Ever wonder what would have happened if your mom had been an overbearing liberal-feminist-atheist history professor addicted to the reefer? If "Jack and Bobby" is to be believed, you would have grown up to be president of the United States -- as well as a reverend and a Republican. The show (which isn't about the Kennedys, wink-wink-nudge-nudge title notwithstanding) is the story of two boys, sweet 13-year-old future POTUS Bobby and his affable, jockish older brother, Jack, who each week channel "Everwood" while chafing against their idealistic, condescending single mother, Grace.
Grace isn't a monster, exactly -- she actually borders on sympathetic at times, and, as played expertly by Christine Lahti, is closer to an actual human being than maybe 95 percent of the characters on prime-time TV. But week in and week out, she's put in situations that expose her as the embodiment of liberalism run amuck. In one episode, she publicly ridicules a Muslim student who refuses to forsake her religion, then refuses to let her increasingly curious son Bobby go to church; for a woman so self-righteous about liberal ideals such as tolerance, the positions reek of hypocrisy. In another episode, she invites an unbalanced homeless man to stay at her house. He promptly scares the kids and steals the television.
It would be unfair to call "Jack and Bobby" a conservative show, and it's unlikely the show's creators intended it to be one. But while the show may not approach "Touched by an Angel" territory, the fact that Grace's liberal instincts are consistently proven wrong gives "Jack and Bobby" an unmistakable center-right undercurrent. One running subplot involves Grace's new teaching assistant, whose application for the job was pushed through because, unbeknownst to Grace, his family had given millions of dollars to the university. Grace had fired her last T.A., whom she'd gotten through affirmative action, for plagiarism, and when she discovered that strings had been pulled for the new T.A., she wanted to dispatch him as well. But the new T.A. was clearly a hard worker, not to mention charming, so she decided to keep him on -- and apparently stop worrying so much about that level playing field thing.
"Jack and Bobby" does allow for shades between black and white. Grace is given some moments in which she seems admirable, and Bobby emerges from his interaction with the homeless man with a newfound sense of compassion. (We're even told that he'll eventually switch from Republican to Independent during his run for president, thanks to attacks from within his party.) But the fact that Grace regularly channels her political beliefs into misguided actions makes "Jack and Bobby," above all else, a cautionary tale in the excesses of liberalism. If I were a conservative who shook his head every time I saw one of those hippie protesters on the evening news, I'd eat it up.
