I was warmly moved by episode 14 of The West Wing. Aethetically speaking, I was really taken by the uses of the Hebrew hymn at different places in the episode and what it meant for forgiveness. I enjoyed the rapid-fire dialogue and the tracking shots throughout the office, but I was reminded of some parodies of the show and thus found this technique humourous. In terms of writing, I thought the characters where developed very richly in terms of dialogue, especially by what name or title they chose to address each other. Lastly, I was shocked by the show’s success with delivering gripping monologues and talking about religion without being moralizing or condescending.
Being Catholic, I find this statement to be entirely consistent with my own experience. While I find the hegemonic nature of the Catholic Church to most of the time be a nurturing mother and trustworthy guide in moral and secular waters, quite frankly, they are sometimes just plain wrong and outdated. The scene where Jed is counseled by his priest, but acts independently of him is, I think, a perfect exposition of this. Personally, I think the Catholic Church should help to guide its members, but as Cardinal Newman said, “the first pope is your conscience.” Sometimes, declaration or age-old laws simply cannot grasp the complexity of the human experience day-in and day-out. In those times, a Catholic should act with the help of the Church, but also own their own will in accord with their conscience.
I think that a network could air The West Wing in post-9/11 America because the media gained the power to comment on and lead the zeitgeist. Americans grew increasingly bipolar in their attitudes toward the president and the government’s ability to lead a nation in the time of despair and to respond to a natural catastrophe. Basically, it finally became cool to criticize the government. I honestly cannot think of a modern TV programme that comments on Obama in the way that The West Wing comments on Bush. The only series I think comes close is the portrait of post-Katrina New Orleans as seen in David Simon’s Treme. New Orleans in Treme often conveys a hopeful portrait of some post-racial America.
