Hollywood Presidents for a Partisan Nation (Part 4): Romance, Grandeur & Smugness on The West Wing
November 2nd 2021
Our Purple Principle series on Hollywood Presidents would not be complete without a stroll back in time through that show of all Potus shows, The West Wing, featuring Martin Sheen as President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet. We speak with award-winning West Wing writer, Paul Redford, a former Shakespearean actor turned screenscribe, who recalls: “West Wing came along and...filled a need that nobody knew was there… a need to believe again.”
Canadian writer and cultural critic, Luke Savage, thinks the show gave American Democrats a little too much of what they wanted to believe. One of his prominent critiques is entitled, “How Liberals Fell in Love with The West Wing” describing it as “a series of glittering illusions to be abandoned.”
In our TPP interview, Savage points to the smugness of the show, as well as naivete regarding possibilities for bipartisanship, as two of the more obvious weaknesses.
Redford concurs that The West Wing was created at a less partisan political time. In fact following that show, he went on to write for two TV series deploying fictional independent Presidents to reach a wider audience -- Madam Secretary starring Téa Leoni and Designated Survivor starring Kiefer Sutherland. And regarding Designated Survivor, Redford agrees with the show creator David Guggenheim (TPP Season 2, Episode 12) that this was an effort to make an anti-West Wing, with not a lofty Bartlet but an everyman figure as President.
Our third guest, the Greece-based media scholar Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou, sees not so much distinction as similarity among The West Wing, Madam Secretary, Designated Survivor and Commander in Chief (starring Geena Davis as independent President Mackenzie Allen), whose creator, Rod Lurie, was featured in TPP Season 2, Episode 11, the kick-off to this series.
“It doesn't matter whether they are Independents, Republicans or Democrats,” observes Dr. Kaklamanidou, co-editor of Politics and Politicians in Contemporary US Television. “They are idealists. They want to do the right thing, irrespective of political games.”
Is the lofty idealism of West Wing a relic of the past or part of a cycle coming back into play? Dr. Kaklamanidou feels political idealism will always find new forms and variations. But looking back over two decades of polarizing tumult, Paul Redford is not sure a West Wing reboot could sustain a large audience today. Still, he argues that it’s not for political leanings but dramatic tension that West Wing has resonated so widely for so long. And he credits the show’s creator and principal writer, Aaron Sorkin, for this enduring appeal.
“Honestly, I think it ultimately came from Aaron and his vision for the show, because his constant demand from the other writers was, I need an argument,“ Redford recalls of Sorkin. “[G]ive me a good argument, I can write a scene.“
Tune in for a good argument among three uniquely informed guests on the iconic TV series The West Wing, and other TV Potuses, in: Hollywood Presidents for a Partisan Nation (Part 4): Romance, Grandeur & Smugness on The West Wing.
Show Notes
Our Guests
Betty Kaklamanidou: Twitter, book, LinkedIn
Additional Resources
Season 2 Episode 11: Hollywood Presidents Part 1
Season 2 Episode 12: Hollywood Presidents Part 2
Season 2 Episode 12: Hollywood Presidents Part 3
How Liberals Fell in Love With The West Wing-Current Affairs
Henry Brooks Adams 1838–1918 American historian
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-IMDb
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Transcript
Paul Redford
And it was a brilliant script, but NBC sort of came back with what everyone was saying back then is, “Political shows never work. You can't do politics on television.”
[Interplay]
Robert Pease (co-host)
That’s one of our three special guests today: Paul Redford, the award winning television writer and producer, referencing what you have to call “the founding father of all White House TV shows,” The West Wing, starring Martin Sheen.
Paul Redford
Everybody hates politics and there's nothing at stake. You need people running around with guns, or you need doctors saving lives, or you need lawyers saving lives.
Robert Pease (co-host)
No lives saved on this episode (and none threatened). But we will discuss the many lives of the Hollywood POTUS in this series wrap-up with Paul Redford and two other special guests. I’m Robert Pease and this is The Purple Principle, a podcast about political and cultural polarization.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And I’m co-host and Civic Genius Executive Director, Jillian Youngblood, very keen to speak with Paul Redford, who also wrote for and produced two TV series featuring independent presidents— Designated Survivor, starring Kiefer Sutherland, and Madam Secretary, starring Téa Leoni.
Robert Pease (co-host)
West Wing was viewed in truly reverential terms by a large audience and critics alike.
[Archival Audio-The West Wing]
Robert Pease (co-host)
Though— not surprisingly— many on the political right were not huge fans of a show featuring a Nobel prize-winning, Democratic president. Hence, the moniker “The Left Wing.”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And not everyone on the left is a fan of The West Wing either. Such as our guest today, Luke Savage, a Canadian cultural critic who’s written extensively on the show’s excesses.
Luke Savage
There is, you know, the smugness of The West Wing is something that I come back to again and again. I think it's one of the most— or it's one of the least attractive— features of that show and its universe.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Our third special guest today is Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou, a media scholar based near Athens, Greece, finds common themes running through the many Hollywood depictions of U.S. presidents. One of these is “American exceptionalism.” The other is an element sorely lacking in our real world politics…
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
It doesn't matter whether they are independents, Republicans, or Democrats: they are idealists. They want to do the right thing— irrespective of political games.
Robert Pease (co-host)
A lot of White House lawn to cover in this episode, Jillian.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And let’s watch out for thorns in the Rose Garden, as Paul Redford reflects on the originality of Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing pilot in 1999. And the long odds against its success over seven seasons— a lifetime in television and especially in politics.
[Into Interview]
Paul Redford
We quickly figured out, you know, why White House shows— and any shows in the executive branch where there's no one running around with a gun— are very hard to write because the ultimate goal of everyone on The West Wing or any other political show is to get a signature. You need to get the president to sign something; that is the object of almost every story in The West Wing.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
It's all very administrative.
Paul Redford
It's not saving a life. It's not, but the stakes couldn't have been higher because it's always saving the world or saving the country by getting him to sign something or not sign something. And every episode has to end really with the president making a decision, which was a surprise to Aaron Sorkin when he created the show, because he just assumed— he thought he couldn't do a show about the president, that's kind of overwhelming. Do a show about the senior staff in the White House. And the president, we were just originally meant to see just the back of his head, like Larry, David plays George Steinbrenner in Seinfeld. He's in the screen, but he's really off screen. And he wouldn't be in every episode. And mostly it would be the drama of everything going around the president. But, collectively, we kind of discovered that no, the president— and that really became clear from the pilot onward is Martin Sheen needs to be in every episode and the center of every episode or people just are not going to watch. So we were very lucky to get him and that defined the show. And then, of course, that extraordinary cast… I didn't know how good we had it, really. None of us did. We were writing the show in a bit of a vacuum. We didn't know if we were going to go into a Year Two. We didn’t know if there was any viability because again the rule is “it’s not supposed to work.”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
So when you started bringing in people from both sides of the aisle, did you feel like you were doing that to broaden the audience? Or was it really part of the vision of the writers? Were you responding to criticism that the show read kind of “too lefty”? Where was that coming from?
Paul Redford
Honestly, I think it ultimately came from Aaron and his vision for the show because his constant demand from the other writers was, “I need an argument. You give me a good argument, I can write a scene.” And therefore his— Aaron’s, constant demand was, “Don't just tell me gun control's a good idea. Tell me why it isn't. Tell me who can convincingly argue against gun control. Tell me someone who can convincingly argue, for the death penalty.” Or, you know, all the issues around the death penalty. I'm still very proud of that episode we did the first year— about Bartlett, basically, carrying out, ordering the first federal death penalty be carried out in like 20 years. And the crisis of conscience for a believing Catholic like Bartlett.
[Archival Audio-The West Wing]
Paul Redford
Aaron was right. There's no real drama in preaching to the converted. The real drama is hearing all sides and having a convincing opponent.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
So I loved the show.
Paul Redford
Oh, thank you.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
The pilot made me want to, yeah— I started, I remember watching it in high school, in college and it made— like the pilot itself made me want to go into politics. And I eventually worked on Capitol Hill probably in no small part because of that. But I've started to notice people kind of my age voicing some criticism about it. We talked for example, to a fellow Canadian, Luke Savage, who's a journalist. He writes for Jacobin, The Atlantic, a couple other publications. And he was kind of arguing that The West Wing ruined Democrats and that it gave us this false— gave us a sense that like, if you could just get everybody in the room, we're all very reasonable people and we can work this out and he was saying that’s just demonstrably not true.
Paul Redford
I just think there was just a different standard. And I think we were coming in just as a real shift was happening. And you can point to Gingrich. You can point to the ending of The Fairness Doctrine and the rise of right-wing radio and Fox. But there really became a point at which we were unable to dramatize in West Wing and really weren't that interested in dramatizing it because it was inherently undramatic in this idea of politics as war. That everything is justified because your enemy— because your opponent is not just your opponent— your opponent is an enemy and your opponent is an existentially bad person. You know, that makes for entertaining, 24-7 cable news because outrage is always far more interesting than discussion. I think it was Henry Adams who originally said, “Politics is the systematic organization of hatreds.” And that was the discovery in the nineties and in the early two-thousands is like, “Oh, yes, you can organize hatreds. And that is the way to ascend to power rather than organizing interests.”
[Out to Interplay]
Robert Pease (co-host)
“Organized hatreds,” Jillian. And most of that organizing recently seems to be into two polarized camps.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
Yeahhhh, but also with a bunch of not-so-venomous Americans in the middle, or on the sidelines, kinda wondering what happened to, like, common ground, common interests...
Robert Pease (co-host)
A lot has changed since West Wing first aired twenty-two years ago. And that may explain some of the criticisms of the show, certainly from the right.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
But not so much from the left. And that’s what’s interesting about our next guest, Luke Savage, a Canadian cultural critic who often writes for left-leaning publications.
Robert Pease (co-host)
His article for Current Affairs a few years ago really caught our attention. It’s entitled “How Liberals Fell in Love With The West Wing” and memorably describes the show as “an elaborate fantasia.”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And quoting Luke again, “a smugness born of the view that politics is… the perpetual pitting of the clever against the ignorant.”
Robert Pease (co-host)
And, therefore, quote, “... a series of glittering illusions to be abandoned.”
[Into Interview]
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And I remember watching The West Wing in high school and finding it so inspiring. And then I tried watching it a couple of years ago and I was like, “Oh, this is a bit silly.” And it seemed like the gender dynamics seemed very anachronistic. And I saw that you had written about how I think maybe you called it “toxic.” And I was curious: what led you to criticize The West Wing?
Luke Savage
Well, my own arc with the show I think is very similar to yours in that I think I discovered it towards the end of high school— and kind of maybe early in university— I watched a lot of it and I really did enjoy it. But the show really is ubiquitous in the culture. And all kinds of shows have fandoms after they go off the air, but I think The West Wing's is really something different. I mean it's seen as almost a documentary by a lot of the people who watch it. And I think some of its greatest fans are people who work in the media, perhaps work in influential perches in the political world. I think, you know, many of its characters are people with Ivy League backgrounds. In fact, that's something that the show loves to remind us of; it reminds us over and over again. The Rob Lowe character—I think there's just a scene where he just lists his credentials.
[Archival Audio-The West Wing]
Robert Pease (co-host)
A valid point there about the snob factor. But we’re also curious about Canadian TV and whether there’s been shows with political content that have transcended the political divide.
Luke Savage
Well, Canadian TV is a very specific thing, so it's kind of the wrong country to ask it about. Our TV is mostly about sort of intercultural exchange on the prairies at the end of the 19th century and things like that. We don't have as many political dramas up here. Part of the reason for that, actually, is because American politics is totally ubiquitous up here as well. Everybody kind of hates the spectacle of American politics, but no one's really able to look away. If you go to a— if you're in any public place in a major city in Canada— where there are kind of like public TV screens, like a gym or a dentist office or something like that— you’re probably going to see CNN and they're going to be talking about the reconciliation bill.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Yeah. We also saw a report— I think it was on CNN in fact— that Canadians were concerned about maybe US polarization and partisanship creeping north in the most recent election. And the examples that were cited in that article seemed very tame by our standards. But was there a feeling that things got a little too personal in this last election?
Luke Savage
Well, yeah. I mean in many ways it was a kind of ugly election because it was kind of called early. It was considered a kind of unnecessary election (in many ways it was). But then it was also overshadowed by, you know, there's obviously a very vocal minority that is opposed to things like vaccine mandates. So, yeah, that's certainly added a tincture of ugliness to the campaign.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Yeah. Though even the phrase that you use “tincture of ugliness” I would say we have tankers of ugliness down here. Which leads to our next excerpt. This is from a fellow Canadian, if I can say that. Jay Van Bavel is a neuroscientist at NYU. He’s a real expert on the sort of psychological— if not neurological— foundations of polarization.
[Archival Audio-Jay Van Bavel]
Yeah. The interesting thing about that multi-party system is if you decide that you don't like the Liberal Party, you could vote for the New Democratic Party and yet you still don't have to vote for a party you dislike. Whereas in the United States, it's very much, if you don't like your party, it feels like the other party is going to win because it's a zero-sum game with two teams. And I've written about this in publications that I suspect that's part of why two party systems are more susceptible to partisanship and polarization.
Luke Savage
Yeah. And I should say I am sympathetic to much of that. Quite sympathetic. I mean having a multi-party system does make a big difference. Canada's democratic institutions— electoral system in particular— are also not without their fair share of problems. You know, we have this first-past-the-post voting system— have very much different weights given to your vote depending on where you live. But with all of that said, I agree with a lot of what was just said in that clip. And having a system is a big reason— as the speaker identified— for why perhaps the political conversation in Canada is less fraught and less kind of riven with these culturally-tribal divisions. Canada's universal health insurance is a really good example of that. I mean, the political consensus around it is completely impregnable. Even a conservative politician would probably be too afraid to criticize it because it's so broadly popular. And there are lots of people who vote conservative that support socialized medicine. I think that's a much greater social binding agent at a much better— it's a much more effective way of dialing down culture war and social division. You know, going the President Bartlett route, where you give speeches that are kind of meant to heal the nation and bring everyone together, but then the business of politics kind of carries on as usual.
[Back to Interplay]
Robert Pease (co-host)
That was Luke Savage, Canadian cultural critic on what he feels is the toxic naivete of West Wing. And Jillian, as we record this episode amidst a huge amount of legislative gridlock on issues widely supported by most Americans, you have to say Luke has a point there about a reality disconnect.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
He does. But when did fictional TV shows claim to be about reality? I mean even reality shows aren’t really about reality. And our next guest, Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou, speaks to that point. She’s an associate professor in film and TV theory, and history at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and co-editor of the book Politics and Politicians in Contemporary U.S. Television.
Robert Pease (co-host)
We kick off the interview with an obvious question that has an interestingly obvious answer: how does a Greek scholar become interested in U.S. television and film?
[Into Interview]
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
This all started in my childhood because there were only two national, operating channels in Greece. So they showed all American films every day. So I grew up watching basically the history of the Hollywood studio era— from silent films to the first genres, film noir, westerns and everything. So by the time I was 18, I was fully educated on American culture.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Well, let's talk a little bit about The West Wing. It is kind of the show of shows or the archetype that many shows have either consciously tried to emulate or avoid. We did talk to a cultural critic in Canada who felt that— looking back on The West Wing— it's just very smug. It's just very superior and condescending. And it may have even in an inadvertent way—and these are my own thoughts here—contributed to polarization...
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
I think that from a perspective of a foreigner— because I am a Greek citizen— so I see and I comment on what's going on in American television from afar. I don't live there (so that's very important also to take into consideration). I find that there is one thing that is constant in all political shows; the constant is American exceptionalism. That no matter what—no matter what happens, no matter which party is in power— the idea that America is the only country that can save the world is palpable for me as a foreigner.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Well, you point that out in your book. And I think that's an interesting contradiction that these creators are spending so much time showing the corruption and the dysfunction and the egomania and all of these things that make American politics so ineffective. And at the same time, you're saying, “But on the other hand we’re the best hope for the world.”
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
When you have like in House of Cards, in season four, we have the new villain who is the president of Russia, Petrov. And you see that Petrov is even worse than Underwood, then you say, “Okay, the lesser of two evils. And also America is going to spread democracy. Whereas the other guy will not. It will trample upon basic human rights and civil liberties. So I'll go with the one that at least uphold basic human rights and civil liberty. So I'll go with the American.”
Robert Pease (co-host)
Well, we might've had a bit of a vacation there from some of those values. But I do want to play a clip from the writer, Paul Redford, who interestingly wrote for not only The West Wing, but also for Designated Survivor and Madam Secretary.
[Archival Audio-Paul Redford]
Honestly—in the day-to-day just storytelling— I was never sure how to do it. The independents wind up being some version of moderate. It was like, “Well, you have good points and you have good points.” And I'm all for moderation. And I know that's what politics is all about, but that makes it intrinsically undramatic.
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
I understand that. And I feel that the only show that accomplished that in a way to a certain extent is the Danish political series, Borgen.
[Archival Audio-Borgen]
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
And I think that that show, in the beginning of the new millennium, that show is the best political show ever made. But at the same time— even in that show— where we have a coalition government and we play with different political voices— not just two— there are still the two major parties, even in Greece. And if you watch national governments around Europe, this polarization exists. It’s not only happening in America, it's happening in Greece as well.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Well that’s unfortunate. But we also want to discuss one of the shows we highlighted in this series that did do well with foreign audiences: that’s Designated Survivor, created by David Guggenheim. I’m sure you recall the premise is a horrific attack during the State of the Union address and a low-level cabinet member— who's an independent, Tom Kirkman, played by Kiefer Sutherland, becomes president.
[Archival Audio-David Guggenheim]
I think everyone was really excited at the network side about having an independent lead specifically for a lot of reasons. One: you hadn't seen that. Usually it’s a Bartlett and our whole thing going into the show and my point of view about it was “Let's be like the anti-West Wing whenever possible.” You know, Bartlett was a governor; he was a politician. He was a brilliant politician, but the idea is this is supposed to be an “everyperson.” This is supposed to be, you know, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
But at the same time, I will have to reiterate that, for the foreign audiences, Kiefer Sutherland as president is more attuned to Bartlett in The West Wing because he's this idealist. He's the person who wants to do the right thing; who abides by an ethos and ethics of Kantian proportions. And, you know, Kantian philosophy and ethics is the hardest ethics to follow.
Robert Pease (co-host)
So you see a little bit of a commonality between the way these presidents are depicted despite the different labels?
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
...as well. Exactly. And I would add to this equation: Madame Secretary’s female character—who becomes also president in the end— but I would add to this group of idealist politicians.
[Archival Audio-Madam Secretary]
Robert Pease (co-host)
So, Betty, we also talked to each of the creators in this series about, “What show would you do now— seemingly post-Trump (if not yet post Covid?)” And it was very difficult for them to say. So, for example, the Veep showrunner, David Mandel, said things got so dark they had to stop Veep because they couldn't do satire anymore, so it was time for something more aspirational.
[Archival Audio-David Mandel]
And I do believe the time is right now for a West Wing, basically. Like I think The West Wing reboot right now would be the show I want to see because again, we got as dark as you could get and we got off the air while we could. And I think the time is now to sort of show the good of what government could do or the possibility of government that you just have to run counter to it.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Do you think it’s really possible to go back to a show that was already a bit smug and idealistic two decades ago?
Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou
Actually I think it's the whole idea of repetition and variation that Umberto Eco already wrote in the eighties. Everything we are watching, everything we are consuming, every kind of content actually has been created in the past. So basically I think that we can have both in the political narrative arena. Let's say in television, we can have another West Wing: a different West Wing, like Madam Secretary. And we can also have a new House of Cards, but with a new perspective. I've read a lot of articles commenting on how the figure of Trump actually destroyed artistic creation because it was this paradigm of how reality surpasses fiction at some point. But I'm very confident that political narratives will reemerge— not now, not today, not in two years’ time— but will reemerge. For instance, last year, Succession, the HBO drama about a billionaire's family won a number of awards. This show, that depicts a single family and the problems they have, is actually a miniature of a government, with the dad as the president and all the kids and the nephews and whatnot as his government. So we will use other generic formats to comment on the political realities of the American political landscape, I think.
[Back to interplay]
Robert Pease (co-host)
That was Dr. Betty Kaklamanidou, media professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. She’s written extensively on U.S. political films and tv series, and— unlike some Hollywood creators we’ve spoken with recently still shell-shocked from the past few years of political realities— Betty’s confident there will be new variations on old themes in US political shows.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
Including the theme of idealism in White House TV dramas that some critics do find naïve and smug but— if done well, as with West Wing— many viewers just can’t resist— reality notwithstanding.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Does that mean some more West Wings-in-the-making at this cynical time in U.S. politics, where so little gets done and there’s polarization not just between the two major parties, but within each party as well?
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
We put the question of a possible reboot to writer and producer, Paul Redford, a major creator behind that, yes, very idealistic and, yes, some would say sanctimonious, but still so powerful political drama, The West Wing. And we get his thoughts on shows he’s worked on more recently, such as Designated Survivor and Madam Secretary.
[Back to Interview]
Paul Redford
West Wing came along and kind of filled a need that nobody knew was there, but it was a need to kind of believe again. And I'm as cynical as the rest. I come from this strange— I think helpful— perspective that I grew up in Canada. And I'm still much more a fan of Canadian politics or parliamentary politics, British politics, as a spectator sport. I think it's a lot more fun. You have a lot more options. You have multiple parties, which is— so many people since West Wing would come to me and say, “Well, you have to adapt Borgen, this great Danish show about this third-party candidate who becomes prime minister of Denmark and her family.” I said, “Yeah”. And I said, “It's a great show and is exactly what you can't do in the American system.” We will never have an effective third-party thing where you can have these heroic idealists who are in it— which you do get in, in multi-party systems.
Robert Pease (co-host)
So then we’re wondering, where you worked on West Wing then moved over to Designated Survivor, do you think that show successfully moved away from The West Wing archetype or shadow and created the heroic independent we lack in real world politics?
Paul Redford
Yes, very much so. I mean, David's a good friend. I loved his pilot. I was thrilled when he asked me over and it was to bring my West Wing experience. But I think one of the most sort of useful things I could say in the room is “Guys, nobody's looking for West Wing here. This is not West Wing.” For one thing, I think we had the benefit that it was— I don't want to say a fantasy, but it was certainly out there— it was a speculative premise. The show wasn't promising you're going to see some realistic look at a White House. It was “What would happen if government blew up? What would happen if the worst happened?” And I think we quickly figured out— David and the rest of us— that this is actually a drama where certainly Kiefer wants to be an independent and certainly that's what Kiefer's playing. And David, very, I think, brilliantly—if you look at the premise of that pilot, he was an outsider even in the cabinet. He did; he came from another world.
Robert Pease (co-host)
How about Téa Leoni in that respect? Was she into the indie-ness of this character and what kind of preparation did she do for that role?
Paul Redford
I think she was very into it. And honestly, I don't know what Téa’s politics are other than she plays an extraordinarily intelligent, self-possessed woman better than anybody because she is that in real life. I mean her level of education, her level of smarts, as well as just her emotional conviction as an actress. I mean, obviously Madam Secretary was the fantasy of Hillary as president. And I think Madam Secretary was a post-Iraq War drama because I think we did want to see some idealism in our foreign policy and some kind of independence and honesty in how we deal with the rest of the world.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
You've described this kind of us-versus-them dynamic. That's obviously gotten more and more intense in recent years. We've talked to some political scientists who would call it “affective polarization.” And a lot of people pointed to that as one of the root components of polarization today. Do you think that with that dynamic becoming so intensified, could you write The West Wing today? Like, could you write an aspirational political TV show today?
Paul Redford
Well, Aaron keeps talking about going back and casting someone as the first Black president and doing it again. But I don't think his heart is really in it. I don't know how you'd do The West Wing now. I really don't because, whatever party you make them— and that's the problem— you will have at least 40% of your intended audience calling bullshit: saying, “No, yeah, there you're not bringing out how truly depraved these lefties are,” or “You're not bringing out how truly amoral and power hungry these Republicans are.” Here's the thing: in West Wing I think we were showing something that you couldn't get on cable news that you couldn't get in the pages of The Atlantic. You know, we were showing you characters. You know, you were invested emotionally as well as intellectually (as well as tribally and politically). It was also a bit of a romance in West Wing. There was a romantic aspect about it, which— I think that the first thing that Aaron and I connected over was our love of Shakespeare and the history plays. I've done most of them as an actor. And the elevation at the same time— there's this sort of clarity about the power and emotion— there's a grandeur and a beauty to those plays, which you want to aspire to in political dramas and very rarely achieve. But I think to Aaron's credit, he was always reaching for it. And people generally do choke up at The West Wing— on both sides— I think in a way that they don't on any other show.
[Back to Interplay]
Robert Pease (co-host)
That was our featured guest today, Paul Redford, looking back on the success of that— shall we say George Washington of White House TV shows— The West Wing. But Paul is also hedging a bit by saying George would have a hard time running for office today.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
I think I could sell tri-corner hats on Etsy. No one would buy the cherry tree story...
Robert Pease (co-host)
Or the river crossing.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
Oh and there is the matter of, you know, slavery. And the Native American wars...
Robert Pease (co-host)
It’s a different age. Markedly different today than two decades ago, when West Wing was a fixture in American living rooms— let alone two-plus centuries ago. But there’s still a lot of creativity in Hollywood and other production companies around the country and the world. Several interesting references today to the Danish show, Borgen. We’ll have to check that out...
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And Dr. Kaklamanidou references the HBO show Succession as a political parable, or a new variation on an old theme.
Robert Pease (co-host)
We hope you’ll check out these shows, maybe going back to West Wing for a refresher course and onto some of the post-West Wing efforts to reach a broad audience with political content. We started off our Purple Principle series with Rod Lurie, TV creator and film director. He was the first to cast an independent American POTUS, Geena Davis in Commander in Chief.
[Archival Audio-Rod Lurie]
...it was female-centric and the fact that we were diverse, and the fact that we were dealing with an independent. And something else that’s really important to understand as an independent doesn't necessarily mean that you're middle of the road on everything. And, and so that is the approach that we took and maybe should have taken even more zealously.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
Then, in episode 12, we spoke with David Guggenheim about his show Designated Survivor, starring Kiefer Sutherland as indie President Tom Kirkman.
[Archival Audio-David Guggenheim]
So it was really important. And I think Kiefer was very adamant, too, that we keep it an independent because that way we can do both sides of an issue. And the idea is that this character’s going to come in and heal a country that was in chaos. And what better healer than someone who's coming in as an independent, as opposed to adhering to one party over the other.
Robert Pease (co-host)
And we had the distinct pleasure, in Episode 17, of speaking with showrunner David Mandel about the iconic satire Veep, which skewered the malignant narcissism of American politics:
[Archival Audio-David Mandel]
Selena was a horrible person and she was offensive. And yet she was also a politician and you had to let her be offensive to show how horrible she was…
Robert Pease (co-host)
We hope you enjoyed this series on Hollywood presidents. If you have other guest or topic suggestions on the cultural aspects of our unfortunate polarization, please let us know. But next time on The Purple Principle we’re turning away from television screens and toward the filter bubbles that help shape our polarization.
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
And with potentially heated holiday discussions on the horizon, we’ll be learning how to converse across the political divide.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Our special guest will be Dr. Tania Israel, professor at UC-Santa Barbara and author of the book Beyond Your Bubble. She’ll be working with Jillian here, a longtime Jets fan, on getting beyond her anti-Tom Brady partisanship.
[Archival Audio-Tania Israel]
I'm so glad you brought up something that's so central to our democracy. If I'm in a different perspective than Jillian, guess I would start by saying, “You know, Jillian I’d really be curious to hear more from you about your feelings about Tom Brady.”
Jillian Youngblood (co-host)
That’s just not gonna happen.
Robert Pease (co-host)
Some political football next time on The Purple Purple as the holidays approach. We hope you’ll join us then, support us on Patreon as we plan Season 3, connect via social media and review us on Apple Podcasts. Your interest and support keep us going.
This has been Robert Pease and Jillian Youngblood for The Purple Principle team.
Alison Byrne, Production & Audience Engagement; Kevin A. Kline, Senior Audio Engineer; Dom Scarlett & Grant Sharratt, Research Associates; Emma Trujillo, Audio Associate. Original music composed and created by Ryan Adair Rooney.
The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.