#and tbh i care more about storylines that are about infrastructure and equal rights gimme some more of that overarching

[variousqueerthings]

I finished the west wing s3, and I feel like it’s in a place that’s quite hard for me to engage with on a fictional level now, moreso than before

pre-s3 (pre-real life 9/11) the show seemed to mostly be engaged with internal politics, and my biggest issue with it was related to something that I was also understanding was at its base structure, that is, because it’s set within the government, it doesn’t often actually... portray people whom their policies affect 

and I think this was something I could live with better to begin with, but as we meet more ostensible activists and people who are working directly with people I notice they’re often portrayed as... a little out of touch, a little naïve about the big churning wheels, or sometimes just plain wrong (josh lyman arguing in defence of sex workers rights vs apparent feminist mary-louise parker being like “no criminalising makes perfect sense” is a strong example)

and then in s3 it got very terrorists and those countries over there doing that, and that worsened that structural issue waaaay more, because now it’s not that the show simply doesn’t depict people affected by things as much (which, again, can live with, even though I think it oughta have slowly done so more -- one gay main wouldn’t have killedya), so much as it is a bunch of people in the white house waxing on and on about american values needed in the middle east (or that british lord talking about not wanting to be in the same room as a sinn féin terrorist, and that’s not even really a plot point, it’s just there, I really dislike that character a lot, begone!)   

I knew this would probably happen going in, so I’m just watching it with my own awareness, but it is harder to engage with the characters doing character things, when I’m also remembering that one or another rant this or that character went on about terrorism and you’re sitting there in 2023 knowing that in real life america just lied and invaded iraq (not during the filming of this or the next season though... would it align with s6?) and that the so-called “american leader of the free world” values that get touted more than once are uh... exaggerated, to be very polite

I kind of wish that since it’s a fantasy-world, they’d let it be one, but I can see how at the time it wanted to respond to the politics du jour. I just think that part of it mostly ages very poorly

I wonder what s4-onwards has to say about george bush by proxy (is he the fantasy republican candidate who’s an asshole who goes off about academic elitists? I’ll just imagine he is)

#im watching the west wing #i know im not saying anything new here it's just going into it as a viewer with no prior knowledge of the show #i preferred it when the *bad guys* so to speak were far right white nationalists because Guess What #and tbh i care more about storylines that are about infrastructure and equal rights gimme some more of that overarching