Thoughts in some kind of order
Sep. 24th, 2021 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The West Wing - 3.07 The Indians in the Lobby
Interesting, as the podcast had talked about sassing the President in the previous episode, that the line of tweaking him was so thoroughly crossed here by work daughter CJ, to the point where I gasped at her cheek, although I’d have glazed over at the cooking talk too (something I did when they had their own version on the podcast). It seemed to be yet another thing fro the staff had to bear Bartlet going on about. The whole thing with the helpline with Bartlet doing his folksy know-it-all schtick anonymously and needing Toby and Charlie’s assistance to make it somewhat plausible he came from Fargo made me giggle. (Well done, expert lady on handling your borderline crank caller.)
Of course, CJ was demob happy until Josh dumped the problem of the Two Indians in The Lobby on her. I accept the podcast’s critcism that this plotline was handled glibly and that CJ came off as naïve,though I totally went along with it when watching to the point that I was glad CJ found a way through, when the whole government machine and Leo let her down, for Leo shifted it back to her.
Josh had his own problem. I was boggling at the whole kid shot a teacher, parents flew him off to Italy for immunity scenario, so I too was startled when Leo pointed out the extra potential dimension of the Pope wading in.
Mainly, I was all, ‘Oh, Josh and his airport scenes!‘ This is the third now, although the least personally poignant. A pitstop as he headed somewhere new that he hadn’t got used to for Thanksgiving with his mother – too right Donna left dealing with his mother to him. I wonder what Mrs Lyman makes of Donna, who has been such a part of Josh’s life by now.
I LOVED Bruno putting Bartlet right about the polling and the decision to go to Camp David. I entirely understood his argument (as I have ben making it myself) until he started with the kelp story. He might as well have been talking about American sports. In Jed’s conversation with Abbey - ‘mon petit fromage’ tickled me – I didn’t much agree with the Bartlets’ resolution.
Sam tried his usual ‘charm’ on a woman, without listening to Josh’s warnings, and deserved the stony response. Every time she responded ‘We’ve thought about this’, I cheered. Anyway, hat tip to Bruno for going with the change (clearly the right thing to do) and immediately coming with the attack line.
3.08 Women of Qumar
This episode! My first response to it was a lot of verbiage about the topics it raised, and not the handling of it, which was not that successful. I don’t think The West Wing Weekly was wrong in its criticisms of it as ‘a women’s episode’, especialy coming straight after the Native American episode at Thanksgiving and the othering that’s going on there. This on a show where there’s so much unacknowledged sexism from the main male characters and about the structures on display.
CJ had moments of righteousness, moments of unreasonableness and much in between, and I was both touched by Toby’s gesture, while she mostly played the professional, while remaining irked that Toby was acting on Bartlet’s instruction to apologise even if you don’t know what for (implication being that’s how you handle those little ladies. Urgh.)
And she was letting emotion rule over realpolitik. I was thinking more about where women’s rights (or human rights more broadly) fit into your handling of other countries in the context of Afghanistan recently than seeing Qumar as Saudi Arabia. Of course, when CJ brought the Nazis into it (that internet law!) she crossed a line and lost her argument, though to be honest, in that whole hypothetical, I was too busy thinking ‘the Europrean Union wouldn’t exist if there was still a Nazi Germany that encompassed France and other states and Italy was still fascist.’ And again, the podcast made valid points about how CJ and ‘the women’ were written. Because CJ raising apartheid with Nancy…actually, why was it just these specific women who were allowed to discuss this, why were none of the men queasy about Qumar, why not have a woman with more foreign policy experience than CJ in the episode (Nancy was pretty much the only established character they could have brought in to respond to her), why have CJ play the charming grand-daughter figure to the soliders?
Again, good point from the podcast that it was up to the viewer to link CJ’s reaction to the Qumari deal with Josh’s subplot about the wording of the treaty, and trafficked firls in parts of the US suffering as were ’the women of Qumar’.
Josh’s interaction with the three women he discussed the plotline with said a lot about the power structures in which the interpersonal interactions operated. There were some ugly moments, like y Josh asking Donna to suppose she was a prostitute (he certainly didn’t ask one of his male colleagues, ‘So, what do you think goes on in the mind of a man who pays to have sex with a whatever year old girl who probably can’t speak much English?’) Again, Donna was able to make the empathetic leap, while Josh was all me, me, me, epitomised by his response to the pictures at Amy’s office. As if they were there to intimidate him and not to inspire the women who might see them.
Anyway, hello Amy Gardner – Mary Louise Parker is another actor who just slots right in. It was interesting to me that she was using a nickname for Josh (as Sam tried to in the previous episode.) I didn’t mind it as much as the podcasters did, as it spoke of Amy and Josh having known each other and clashed for a while. I also noted how it reinforced the sense of everyone in Washington knowing who you’re dating, because she knew to enquire after Josh/Donna and Josh/Joey, so close after to Donna/Cliff.
Regardless of my shipping goggles, introducing flirtation between characters while they’re arguing over definitions around prostitution is icky. Even if the the balloon smash thing was delightful.
But I was heartened that in the midst of all that, which carried the weight of all the other episodes where CJ has had to toe the line that all the (senior) men have defined (because I was reminded at least once in this ep that Toby, Leo and the President are her bosses),
she was able to make and win the argument over not keeping the potential BSE case secret. At the start, when all the guys were all ‘keep is quiet’, the idea of silencing her came into it, at a time when she was thinking about an oppressive regime that silences women. Nice. Granted, she made her argument poorly at first. When he came into it, Josh, interestingly, was more agnostic, but CJ got to make her argument again and win it, and it wasn’t just about ‘you with-held on the MS’, it was stuff that spoke to the experiences of the past 18 months and public health messaging. So there was that victory in the latest tough press conference.
Charlie and Bartlet’s thing about what people actually need and what Bartlet kind of gets lost in worked for me. (I hadn’t seen Charlie’s worry about forgetfulness as an MS symptom, for I was thinking more about how events during Bartlet’s lifetime were modern history that Charlie was studying, but I can accept that interpretation.) I was amused at Toby going, ‘I’ll see what I can do’ when asked for a favour with a wheelchair and that entailing ASKING THE PRESIDENT! (As if he couldn’t have called some people himself. But yeah getting the President to ask for it should have got it done.)
Interesting, as the podcast had talked about sassing the President in the previous episode, that the line of tweaking him was so thoroughly crossed here by work daughter CJ, to the point where I gasped at her cheek, although I’d have glazed over at the cooking talk too (something I did when they had their own version on the podcast). It seemed to be yet another thing fro the staff had to bear Bartlet going on about. The whole thing with the helpline with Bartlet doing his folksy know-it-all schtick anonymously and needing Toby and Charlie’s assistance to make it somewhat plausible he came from Fargo made me giggle. (Well done, expert lady on handling your borderline crank caller.)
Of course, CJ was demob happy until Josh dumped the problem of the Two Indians in The Lobby on her. I accept the podcast’s critcism that this plotline was handled glibly and that CJ came off as naïve,though I totally went along with it when watching to the point that I was glad CJ found a way through, when the whole government machine and Leo let her down, for Leo shifted it back to her.
Josh had his own problem. I was boggling at the whole kid shot a teacher, parents flew him off to Italy for immunity scenario, so I too was startled when Leo pointed out the extra potential dimension of the Pope wading in.
Mainly, I was all, ‘Oh, Josh and his airport scenes!‘ This is the third now, although the least personally poignant. A pitstop as he headed somewhere new that he hadn’t got used to for Thanksgiving with his mother – too right Donna left dealing with his mother to him. I wonder what Mrs Lyman makes of Donna, who has been such a part of Josh’s life by now.
I LOVED Bruno putting Bartlet right about the polling and the decision to go to Camp David. I entirely understood his argument (as I have ben making it myself) until he started with the kelp story. He might as well have been talking about American sports. In Jed’s conversation with Abbey - ‘mon petit fromage’ tickled me – I didn’t much agree with the Bartlets’ resolution.
Sam tried his usual ‘charm’ on a woman, without listening to Josh’s warnings, and deserved the stony response. Every time she responded ‘We’ve thought about this’, I cheered. Anyway, hat tip to Bruno for going with the change (clearly the right thing to do) and immediately coming with the attack line.
3.08 Women of Qumar
This episode! My first response to it was a lot of verbiage about the topics it raised, and not the handling of it, which was not that successful. I don’t think The West Wing Weekly was wrong in its criticisms of it as ‘a women’s episode’, especialy coming straight after the Native American episode at Thanksgiving and the othering that’s going on there. This on a show where there’s so much unacknowledged sexism from the main male characters and about the structures on display.
CJ had moments of righteousness, moments of unreasonableness and much in between, and I was both touched by Toby’s gesture, while she mostly played the professional, while remaining irked that Toby was acting on Bartlet’s instruction to apologise even if you don’t know what for (implication being that’s how you handle those little ladies. Urgh.)
And she was letting emotion rule over realpolitik. I was thinking more about where women’s rights (or human rights more broadly) fit into your handling of other countries in the context of Afghanistan recently than seeing Qumar as Saudi Arabia. Of course, when CJ brought the Nazis into it (that internet law!) she crossed a line and lost her argument, though to be honest, in that whole hypothetical, I was too busy thinking ‘the Europrean Union wouldn’t exist if there was still a Nazi Germany that encompassed France and other states and Italy was still fascist.’ And again, the podcast made valid points about how CJ and ‘the women’ were written. Because CJ raising apartheid with Nancy…actually, why was it just these specific women who were allowed to discuss this, why were none of the men queasy about Qumar, why not have a woman with more foreign policy experience than CJ in the episode (Nancy was pretty much the only established character they could have brought in to respond to her), why have CJ play the charming grand-daughter figure to the soliders?
Again, good point from the podcast that it was up to the viewer to link CJ’s reaction to the Qumari deal with Josh’s subplot about the wording of the treaty, and trafficked firls in parts of the US suffering as were ’the women of Qumar’.
Josh’s interaction with the three women he discussed the plotline with said a lot about the power structures in which the interpersonal interactions operated. There were some ugly moments, like y Josh asking Donna to suppose she was a prostitute (he certainly didn’t ask one of his male colleagues, ‘So, what do you think goes on in the mind of a man who pays to have sex with a whatever year old girl who probably can’t speak much English?’) Again, Donna was able to make the empathetic leap, while Josh was all me, me, me, epitomised by his response to the pictures at Amy’s office. As if they were there to intimidate him and not to inspire the women who might see them.
Anyway, hello Amy Gardner – Mary Louise Parker is another actor who just slots right in. It was interesting to me that she was using a nickname for Josh (as Sam tried to in the previous episode.) I didn’t mind it as much as the podcasters did, as it spoke of Amy and Josh having known each other and clashed for a while. I also noted how it reinforced the sense of everyone in Washington knowing who you’re dating, because she knew to enquire after Josh/Donna and Josh/Joey, so close after to Donna/Cliff.
Regardless of my shipping goggles, introducing flirtation between characters while they’re arguing over definitions around prostitution is icky. Even if the the balloon smash thing was delightful.
But I was heartened that in the midst of all that, which carried the weight of all the other episodes where CJ has had to toe the line that all the (senior) men have defined (because I was reminded at least once in this ep that Toby, Leo and the President are her bosses),
she was able to make and win the argument over not keeping the potential BSE case secret. At the start, when all the guys were all ‘keep is quiet’, the idea of silencing her came into it, at a time when she was thinking about an oppressive regime that silences women. Nice. Granted, she made her argument poorly at first. When he came into it, Josh, interestingly, was more agnostic, but CJ got to make her argument again and win it, and it wasn’t just about ‘you with-held on the MS’, it was stuff that spoke to the experiences of the past 18 months and public health messaging. So there was that victory in the latest tough press conference.
Charlie and Bartlet’s thing about what people actually need and what Bartlet kind of gets lost in worked for me. (I hadn’t seen Charlie’s worry about forgetfulness as an MS symptom, for I was thinking more about how events during Bartlet’s lifetime were modern history that Charlie was studying, but I can accept that interpretation.) I was amused at Toby going, ‘I’ll see what I can do’ when asked for a favour with a wheelchair and that entailing ASKING THE PRESIDENT! (As if he couldn’t have called some people himself. But yeah getting the President to ask for it should have got it done.)
no subject
Date: 2021-09-25 03:41 am (UTC)The whole thing with the helpline with Bartlet doing his folksy know-it-all schtick anonymously and needing Toby and Charlie’s assistance to make it somewhat plausible he came from Fargo made me giggle.
COMEDY GOLD. I think I laughed until I cried the first time I saw that. "That's with an h, and one t in there." Just absolute nonsense coming from such an articulate man.
In Jed’s conversation with Abbey - ‘mon petit fromage’ tickled me
More comedy gold. I love Jed's certainty as he says it, and Abbey's eyerolling 'oh please' reaction. You can tell this is not the first time she's had terrible accusatory French tossed at her.
I wonder what Mrs Lyman makes of Donna, who has been such a part of Josh’s life by now.
Gosh, me too. For all the West Wing relatives we did get to see, she's the one who we didn't that I'd most like to know more about. I like to think she'd have just been happy that her son had found someone who could tolerate him for an extended period of time.
I entirely understood his argument (as I have ben making it myself) until he started with the kelp story. He might as well have been talking about American sports.
Yeah, the kelp analogy makes no sense whatsoever. Sometimes I think I get it - just go with the flow, don't cause a fuss - and sometimes I think it's not meant to make any sense and Bruno is just a weirdo who got too deep in the weeds of his own experience and didn't realize it wasn't relatable. Sometimes I think Sorkin probably once crewed a racing sailboat for a summer and did the same thing.
I do not like The Women of Qumar for the reasons you so nicely laid out (and I also do not like Amy Gardner, probably because I don't like MLP), so the less said about it the better. It's just so, so tone deaf and condescending - much like the men of the WW, indeed.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-26 01:23 pm (UTC)You can tell this is not the first time she's had terrible accusatory French tossed at her.
Ha, yes! You'd think he'd be better at French given the Latin.
For all the West Wing relatives we did get to see, she's the one who we didn't that I'd most like to know more about.
Yes, having been widowed compatatively recently and making the move to Florida had the potential to be explored, but I suppose the obvious time to introduce her would have been when Josh was recovering from the shooting and they raced through that period.
I like to think she'd have just been happy that her son had found someone who could tolerate him for an extended period of time.
:)
Thank goodness I'm not alone in my confusion over Bruno's kelp story.
I remember 'The Women of Qumar' getting criticised originally, so although I think we've got harder on sexual harassment at the workplace two decades on, I believe this episode was always problematic. I quite like MLP, although possibly because of this show, in what I've seen her in subsequently. There's a certain amount of wondering why Amy would bother with Josh, really, but I'm aware that some of that is motivated by Josh/Donnashipper biases.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-27 05:24 am (UTC)My thoughts on that one is that they're two people who were into each other back in their college days, but couldn't do anything about it since she was dating his roommate at the time, so they never got it out of their systems. Hence the reason why they act like idiotic 20 year olds around each other! Otherwise I got nothing - Josh is cute and charming, so I get why Amy would be into hitting that, but not why she'd want a relationship, given his...Joshness.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-02 01:32 pm (UTC)