好影集裡的壞編劇─偏頗的政治走向壞了觀眾胃口

這是我看到的一篇文章，說中了我的心聲。
文章來源：IMAO: How Much Left-Wing Nonsense Is Too Much?

November 03, 2005
How Much Left-Wing Nonsense Is Too Much?
Posted by Frank J. at 09:34 AM

When a show has great characters and some great writing, how much liberal idiocy are you willing to put up with? Boston Legal really seems to be posing that question better than any political point it ineptly tries to make. It has some of the most entertaining characters of any show (especially the characters played by James Spader, William Shatner, and Candice Bergen) and is extremely enjoyable at its best, but how much irritation am I willing to put up with to have that enjoyment? It's like watching a good movie but having to put up with some idiot next to you who ever once in a while accidentally elbows you in the head.

I watched their latest episode last night (it originally aired Tuesday; yay, HD-Tivo), and I knew from the promos that this one might be a deal breaker. One of the cases (there are usually multiple ones per episode which one would call subplots) dealt with a woman suing the government over her brother being killed in Iraq. It had a few things inserted very clumsily for balance: one lawyer at the firm was angry about the whole case as he was a veteran of the first Gulf War and found it insulting, the parents were against the case though never appeared in the show, and Denny Crane, the rightwing buffoon - though a sympathetic rightwing buffoon that the audience is supposed to like despite his rightwing buffoonery - says a few incoherent rightwing things as usual. It still basically accepted the Michael Moore version of things as fact and the main conclusion was that not enough bad things about the war are being presented by the media.

Yes, that was really the main conclusion.

It then had the audacity to end pretending it had a neutral discussion of the issue which just furthers either its dishonesty or ignorance.

Now let me go on a complete tangent and compare The Simpsons and South Park. I haven't watched South Park in a while - it's often too vile for me - but it takes on many hot topics and often comes to the conservative conclusion. This can be very cathartic for those used to be inundated with the liberal viewpoint with whatever were watching, but it looks clumsy when compared to The Simpsons (or at least, older Simpsons episodes) which would take on an issue and not reach any conclusion. It’s much more skillful; it involves primarily making jokes at the expense of the stereotypes of both sides and then ending ambivalent – no alienating anyone.

With drama, being neutral is much harder. While being a political moderate take the least amount of thought, presenting an issue in a show without beating your audience over the head with your own viewpoint is quite difficult as it means you have to take both sides seriously and present each side realistically. Most TV shows wisely tend to avoid politics entirely (with perhaps a little jibe in dialog here and there), but taking on issues without alienating larges groups of thinking people is entirely possible as proven by perhaps my favorite drama right now, House. It has taken on some very controversial issues that most shows would avoid entirely (i.e., abortion) while leaving the viewer free to make his or her own conclusion. In its episode from this Tuesday, there was a character who spent his life treating TB in Africa and is frustrated by how millions are dying because they can't get meds that drug companies have sitting in warehouses. He then gets TB himself, and refuses his meds to bring publicity to the issue. For most shows, the obvious way to treat this character would be saint-like, but in House he was made to look equal parts hero and buffoon (thanks, in part, to the ultimate curmudgeon, Dr. House), and the end let you make up your own mind about him.

How is a show written like that? I assume you need writers of both viewpoints and restrain from making contrived events in the episode that support one side or the other. The problem with shows like Boston Legal is they have talented liberal writers who probably assume they know conservatives well enough to write them when, in reality, they to conservatives are like those monkeys to the black obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it's disappointing because of the talent involved, but there's a limit to how much my intelligence can be insulted and I still enjoy a show.

Just had to get that off my chest. Our next serious discussion will be why 5 is the coolest number ever.

UPDATE: I tried to see if Boston Legal has an address I could write a letter to suggesting they hire a conservative writer to explain conservative viewpoints to the other writers and that they watch House for how to handle hot button issues. Instead, I found this bboard. I wonder if they pay any attention to that.

From the bboard, here is a soldier's opinion on the episode.

UPDATE2: I think this is the address:

American Broadcasting Co.
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-4622
Maybe I'll still write them and see if I get a response. I wouldn't care so much if I didn't like the show when it isn't spouting infantile politics.