The Inside Dope. - Review - television program reviews

Commonweal, Dec 3, 1999 by Celia Wren

NBC's 'The West Wing'

Nothing thrills like falling in with the in-crowd, and you can't get much further in-politically, at least-than NBC's new White House drama, "The West Wing." Set at the heart of a fictional Democratic administration, the show appeals to the same human instinct that packs the parking lot at Graceland, or that made a best seller of the Starr Report-the urge to peer behind the scenes of an exclusive world.

The world, in this case, belongs to President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his harried but wisecracking staff, including Rob Lowe as a brash young speechwriter and Allison Janney as a gimlet-eyed press secretary. Though stray ends of the characters' personal life do straggle into the picture-the vice-president runs a top-secret AA group disguised as a card game, for example-the show devotes itself principally to surfing political crises both great (the Syrians shoot down a plane) and small (Bartlet rides his bike into a tree). Always the aim is not to tell what happens, but to reveal how it happens-how threats and subtle blackmail win reluctant congressmen to support a gun-restriction bill, for example.

In delivering the how, not surprisingly, "West Wing's" creators count on a certain amount of viewer cynicism. Bartlet's minions obsess about spin and dole out political favors. "Every group has plenty of demons," a Moral Majority kingmaker complains during a stroll on the Washington Mall, when senior staffer Leo (John Spencer) tries to strong-arm him into quelling a right-wing protest. "You don't need to tell me that, Reverend," the world- weary White House official barks, "I'm a member of the Democratic party." Quips like this flatter us by implying that we are in the know-that we are sophisticated skeptics, well-versed in Beltway shenanigans.

At other moments, though, the series lobs an astonishing amount of misty- eyed idealism at us, starting with its unashamedly patriotic credit sequence, which features poignantly faded U.S. flags and a stirring drum beat. Bartlet, we are constantly reminded, is just a regular guy-he loses his eyeglasses and, when in a good mood, cooks chili (badly) for his staff. But many episodes conclude with the president's breaking into an inspiring speech that turns him into a wise father figure, protector of his employees and of the nation. These optimistic finales act as a kind of benediction, releasing us from the burdens of knowingness, from lingering anxieties that might make us think about the real world-and might disincline us to switch on the TV next time around.

After all, although "West Wing" may occasionally grant viewers the exhilaration of knowingness, its real lure is of a different kind- Washington shop talk, White House trade secrets (plausible, if fictional), glimpses backstage. Instead of a presidential speech, the program delivers the quips of the speechwriters as they eat Chinese take-out; instead of sound bites from the president's press conference, we get the rehearsal for the press conference, temper tantrums included.

Even the camera work conspires in the simulacrum of privileged access-a typical sweeping, seamless shot will reel down a corridor, following a heated conversation, until the characters enter a busy office complex, whereupon the camera will whirl around to show us secretaries answering phones, staffers pacing with clipboards, people shouting from doorways, and so on, until we feel that the space really surrounds us. Anyone who ever longed to be part of a high-school clique, or belonged to one, knows how enticing exclusivity can be: "West Wing" gives us the illusion of fraternizing with the elect on their own turf.

Conjuring up this kind of exclusive world is one of popular culture's best-tested ploys. The blockbuster mysteries of Patricia Cornwell, for example, rely largely on the mystique of an inner sanctum-the morgue. As her hard-edged heroine Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner, investigates suspicious shootings, garrotings, mutilations, plague deaths, and other carnage, the novels glory in autopsy jargon and how-to. Take, for example, a passage from the recent Point of Origin, in which Scarpetta studies a badly burned corpse:

This we transferred onto a table beneath the C-arm of a Mobile Digital Imaging system, which was an X-ray machine and fluoroscope in one computer-controlled unit....Other than sinus configurations, which are as distinct as fingerprints in every human being, and a single porcelain crown on the right maxillary incisor, we discovered nothing else....

This kind of expert testimony does not advance the plot, and as for evoking the setting, it is a little too specific-it has a defamiliarizing effect, rather than an atmospheric one. Its purpose is to trumpet its own presence, to convince readers that they have penetrated a restricted milieu, where the currency is field-specific knowledge.

Inside-the-mob movies, women's magazine scoops on celebrity beauty tips, Web sites that allow us to witness real-time surgical operations, reality- based TV shows like Fox's "Cops," which plant us inside the patrol car-all these entertainment offerings operate on a similar principle. Even the much ballyhooed Broadway musical Rent, whose characters may compliment the brightness of the moon only to be told it's Spike Lee filming down the street, exploits New York-hipster references in order to present a bohemia for Uptown voyeurs. (Puccini's La Boheme, on which Rent is based, probably did something similar back in 1896.)