By Brett Yates
posted
Jul 3, 2012
HBO's newest drama, "The Newsroom," premiered on June 24. It's
the fourth TV show created by Aaron Sorkin, who for some reason -
maybe it's his quick, witty, Mamet-Lite dialogue that's just smart
enough to make us feel smart for following along - is the most
famous television writer ever, except for maybe Paddy Chayefsky.
(Paddy Chayefsky is the guy critics always mention whenever they
want to talk about TV's "Golden Age," even though the only works of
his that anybody can remember are his movie scripts).
In spite of his status as television's Chosen One, Sorkin has
totally had it up to here with TV - or at least with the declining
standards of TV news shows, which in his eyes reflect the decline
of the United States generally and maybe are even partly
responsible for it. Chayefsky had some anger toward television,
too, when he wrote "Network," and indeed the first scene of "The
Newsroom" features a sad-eyed anchor who publicly, unexpectedly
bursts into a Howard Beale-esque rage, indicting modern American
society for its stupidity and incompetence.
The anchor is Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), who, until
the moment of his implosion, was apparently the "Jay Leno" of
broadcast journalism: friendly, inoffensive, and irrelevant. His
big, angry speech takes place not on air but at a university debate
(where Will's presence, given that he has heretofore refused ever
to take a political stance or express a controversial opinion, is a
total mystery); however, the breakdown brings to light a new side
of Will. In the following weeks, the network president (an
insistently twinkle-eyed Sam Waterston) hires Will's old flame
Mackenzie MacHale (Emily Mortimer) - who you know by her old-timey
alliterative girl-reporter name is going to be awfully earnest
about her job - to executive-produce a new, more serious, more
integrity-y version of the nightly news.
As critics have widely pointed out, "The Newsroom" may be the
most self-righteous TV show ever created; the whole thing is a
transparent excuse for Sorkin to ascend the pop-culture pulpit and
explain what a trivial, uninformed person the average American is,
and how badly he needs an old-fashioned Kronkite-type to give him
the facts. Rarely does a scene pass without an overwritten,
sanctimonious monologue bubbling up amid its overwritten
back-and-forth patter.
Subtlety is nonexistent: the nobility of those journalists to
whom the news represents an opportunity to inform society (not just
to entertain or inflame it) is underlined by a ridiculous swelling
soundtrack whenever they do right, and Sorkin's moral universe is
so black-and-white and predictable as to obliterate all potential
dramatic tension. Good is good, and bad is bad, and there are no
ambiguous in-between spaces for the characters to move around in;
all they can do is stand around and talk at one another. Sorkin
loves the sound of his own voice.
The worst thing about "The Newsroom" is that it's so terribly
sincere without being at all real. Its blindly nostalgic premise
hinges on the notion that America is still reliant upon a tiny pack
of TV news anchors to get its information - as though our choices
were so limited that, by conducting himself with seriousness and
intelligence, one newscaster alone would substantially change our
"national conversation."
The show makes dismissive references to blogs and Twitter, but
it doesn't admit that, thanks largely to the Internet, there are
enough voices out there - some trivial, some demagogic, and some
surely a lot smarter and more incisive than Walter Cronkite ever
was - to allow every American to surround himself with the world he
wants to live in, real or not. Plenty of quality options exist;
it's up to each individual to select what he wants to consume.
Portraying a TV news program as a messianic force, just because its
producer loves "truth" (as do a lot of people) and its anchor is
old enough to know who Edward R. Murrow was, is just really
dumb.
What I can't totally figure out is whether Aaron Sorkin is
really as absurdly out-of-touch and simple-minded as his new show
suggests, or whether he's cynically peddling a deliberately naïve
work of art to a public that may, after all, still crave classy but
uncomplicated dramas like Hollywood used to make, before crude
sitcoms and special-effects extravaganzas became our preferred
modes of mindlessness.
The latter scenario (the cynicism) is, I guess, the less
offensive one, just because to think that Sorkin, like Will McAvoy
himself, actually believes his own show, with its gravity and
rectitude, is a moral and intellectual cut above the rest of the
junk on TV - well, that's just infuriating. But the truth probably
is that a mixture of calculation and straight-up lameness is to
blame for "The Newsroom." Both this and his prior work reveal that
Sorkin's brain has been distorted permanently by some Gregory
Peck-era image of white male dignity, and that may be the biggest
problem.
It seems bizarre that this is the same writer responsible for
"The Social Network," which had some of those antiquated Sorkin
virtues like wit and literacy but also had techno-literacy and
hipness and complexity. Sorkin has actually had only one successful
TV show; his big-screen efforts, like last year's "Moneyball," have
tended recently to be better because - and this storyline I think
directly contradicts the common one of TV writers who find greater
success in movies, like Charlie Kaufman - he has less freedom in
the movie business than in TV: he's adapting someone else's book,
polishing someone else's script, or working within a director's
larger vision, not his own.
"The Newsroom" currently has people talking (that's what HBO
shows are for, I gather: to give people who can't be bothered to
leave their televisions something culturally significant-seeming to
talk about - and this show can't stop declaring its own
significance), but my guess is that it'll be cancelled after a
season or two, because it's terrible. Meanwhile, "The Social
Network" is available on DVD.
Tagged:
"The Newsroom", HBO
