I've been watching a bit of West Wing lately. I'm not as reverent of the show as I was in middle and high school, especially now that I understand the Orientalist undertones. But it's packaged very well, and damn I love a good soundtrack.
There is something timeless about the show. The writing has a way of blindsiding you, and that's what makes it one of my favorites.
It's just that....they disdain right-wingers, and they're liberals on everything....but the Middle East.
Maybe it's just Season 3. Post-9/11 and the height of the Second Intifada. In one episode a Palestinian splinter faction in the West Bank claimed responsibility for a shooting on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, and I thought, what are the chances they're from the refugee camp in Jenin that's being flattened?
Anyway, pop culture is fascinating. I wonder what the climate will be like in 30 years...if we'll look back on that aspect of the West Wing and think "ughhhhh. our best screenwriters really had to coddle us like that?"
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
