I'm going to start this blog with a quote I can completely relate to. "My wife is smarter than I am in every way imaginable and it never makes me mad. I don't feel a crippling inferiority complex turn into rage and bad decisions when I think about her being smart" - Will McAvoy
When The West Wing hit in the late 90's, people were showering it with praise and rightly so. Writer and creator Aaron Sorkin was the main man on the show for four seasons. He had less success with Sports Night which came out at the same time. It ran for two seasons and shares a lot of what made The West Wing so great. It had energy, it was funny and it had many of those "fuzzy" moments that only Sorkin can do and get away with. These shows passed and he came back with a show that, on reflection, never really stood a chance. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was the show that started the Sorkin backlash. It was a behind the scenes look at the weekly creation on an SNL-esque show which gave Sorkin the platform he needed to get an awful lot off his chest and he wasn't pulling his punches. He was going after the Christian right and he didn't seem to care that it would kill any chance the show had at longevity. He even predicted it in the second episode. One of his characters, Jack Rudolf (Steven Weber) chairman of the "National Broadcast Systems" (we know who he's talking about) is explaining to Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) the president of NBS why you shouldn't always take on the right: "They never lose Jordan, they always win".
It was about five episodes in when the God squad started their, ahem, crusade. They were being picked on and someone had to pay. So they went after the show and then they went after its creator. Among the many insults they flung at Sorkin (and the cast) and one that I'm still baffled about was that he is sexist. They decided he hated women and all he could do was write damsels in distress. This, coming from people who would take away a woman's right to choose... Sorkin probably didn't help himself by admitting he has a love of 50's screwball comedies but again what they focused on here was the 50's not the fact that in most of those screwball comedies the women are much smarter than their male counterparts. The voice of right wing reason in Studio 60 is the character Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) who believes the world was built in six days and that God has a plan for everyone. She is a pillar of strength in the show because she respects non believers but more importantly she plays down her belief system while at the same time leaving you in no doubt that she is a follower of Christ and you will not deter her. It's a fine line but it's written to perfection by Sorkin (something the right wing army seem to have missed) and Paulson is top drawer in the role. Below is the beginning of a scene where her charm and disarm offensive is dismantled by the equally charming and way too enjoyable, Martha O'Dell (Christine Lahti):
So what exactly were they talking about? Probably not a lot but some "experts" not just on the right but overly sensitive leftists (usually college going types who are so sensitive that comedians refuse to play their campuses) also bought into this theory. Suddenly CJ Cregg's (Allison Janney) clumsiness was an issue. Ainsley Hayes's (Emily Procter) sexiness was being exploited. From Sports Night, Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman) was just a mess of a human being and therefore weak. It wouldn't be truthful of me to say there was no substance to these claims. CJ was a klutz, Dana's private life was a mess and Ainsley was enormously sexy. However, these women were so much more than these traits. How many times did we see Ainsley Hayes turn Sam Seabourne around on a huge issue? How many times did CJ Cregg own the fucking room no matter who she was dealing with? Dana Whitaker never got a handle on her private life but then a great many people don't. Professionally though, she was a giant! It also seemed to go completely over the heads of the detractors that the men Sorkin was writing were absolutely riddled with imperfections. It's what makes them human. Take Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He's a recovering cocaine addict. Does this disgusting facet of his personality mean that Aaron Sorkin hates men? How about the philandering Vice President Hoynes (Time Matheson) Why does he get a pass? See, I don't think Aaron Sorkin is sexist, I just think people who don't like him got so annoyed at his success that they flung as much garbage at him as possible.
There is a very popular belief among his most ardent critics that Harriet Hayes (above) was one hundred per cent based on his ex, Kristin Chenoweth and he should be ashamed of how he wrote her... Well, did anyone ask Chenoweth how she felt about it? Turns out many people have. Time magazine: I'd love to know about the role he created for you for his show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Were you accurately portrayed? "I think a lot of people thought, "Oh, that's Kristin." But it wasn't — it was very loosely based on me. It was difficult for me seeing the character doing things like not believing in gay rights when I so do. It's weird to see fights played out on TV that we had, but it was also an honor. He asked me first. He said "I think you're one of the most wonderfully complicated fantastic women, and I think there's a character here. Can I loosely" — and that's the key word, loosely — "base a character on you?" And I said sure." If it's good enough for Kristin, maybe you should entertain the possibility that it's good enough for you.
In his last television show, The Newsroom, he again went after the right and again they responded with their vitriol. What they didn't count on was HBO just not caring and the show saw three wonderful seasons. They said Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) was a horrid character who represented the worst personality traits of women and she needed to be rescued by a man. Now, I don't know what the fuck they were watching but Sloan Sabbith was nobody's victim and as I saw it, she did the rescuing... Olivia Munn: "I had Aaron Sorkin's support to not take the "girly" route. The director and I were not on the same page but I had Aaron on my side and having him back me meant everything".
There's just something very off about right wingers throwing rocks at a liberal legend like Aaron Sorkin and tainting him with the very traits that makes them so vile. If we look at the movie that made Sorkin famous, A Few Good Men, we again get an amazing female character, Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore). She has the unenviable task of trying to get Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) to take an unwinnable case and turn it into a win even if it means making an enemy of Col. Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson). She does this by calling him out on his bullshit:
Aaron Sorkin has a quite magnificent body of work. He won an Oscar for The Social Network. He was nominated for Moneyball. Steve Jobs hasn't made a bean* but Sorkin has been nominated for a Golden Globe for his screenplay. The American President is a wonderful movie which opened the door to The West Wing's liberal fantasy world. Charlie Wilson's War isn't my favourite of his movies but I have watched and enjoyed it several times. Granted, these are male orientated movies but that does not make him sexist. All of these movies are quality. Moneyball aside, they all feature men who are better for having strong women around them. This isn't a bad thing. If you are offended by the smart woman making a slightly less intelligent man great dynamic, maybe you're just someone who likes to get offended. Because if he wrote a movie about a smart man making a slightly less intelligent woman great you'd probably be angry that he was smarter than her and that she needed a man at all. If you're the kind of person that gets offended by Sam Seaborne saying to Ainsley Hayes that her outfit is "enough to make a good dog break his leash" then you will always consider Sorkin a sexist. If you're this kind of person you probably also get offended when CJ compliments Sam Seaborne for his ability to wear a suit. It's impossible to please you! Ainsley Hayes: "The point is that sexual revolution tends to get in the way of actual revolution. Nonsense issues distract attention away from real ones like pay equity, childcare, honest to God sexual harassment..."
I think we have to give the last word to Allison Janney: "I love her (CJ Cregg). I wish that I carried more of her with me than I actually do. She is kind of my hero. What a great woman to get to play! I wish that she could have lived on and done other things. She's just such a truly great role model for women and that's one of my characters and one of those instances where you felt like you got to give back. I feel like I really got to inspire young girls. I get so many letters and see people on the street who come up to me and say, "Oh my God. You changed my life. I was majoring in this and I changed it to this and now I'm going to work in Washington." Aaron Sorkin really inspired a lot of people with that show. Getting to play C.J., that was an important female role on television and I am still really, really proud of it in a different way than I am of my other characters. Like in Mr. Sunshine, I loved my character, but she was the exact opposite. C.J. will always be the role that I'm maybe most proud of in terms of what it said to the world. " Cheers,
G.
*Steve Jobs has finally made it's money back and earned about $1.5m.
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