30 Days of West Wing: Favorite Character
I'm noncommittally starting the 30 Days challenge for West Wing and BtVS. Don't know if I have the discipline to finish. But let's just say, I really wanted to tackle the Favorite Character for both memes to talk a little Jed Bartlet and Willow Rosenberg. Because I love my cuter than a box of puppies genuii who can veer between "I'm full of mirth" and "The 52nd Airbourne works for me." I'm covering Jed Bartlet in this post. I'll post my essay on Willow a little later.
CJ and Jed are my two favorite TWW characters. Although, Jed pulls ahead to #1 a little more frequently. Really, it makes sense that those are my two faves. I think TWW did the public/private dichotomy really well and Jed and CJ are the two characters that have to reconcile their public face with their private actions the most.
People hope in elected politics that a leader both really behaves like his persona behind closed doors but is also BETTER than his superficial campaign performance. IMO, the American public gravitated to Jed because he’s Everybody’s Favorite Grandfather. Jed’s campaign vibe is pretty Ronald Reagan- but professorial instead of aged movie star glamour. Jed really embraces the Grandfather mystique.
BARTLET
C.J., that phone message was for real. He's not going to stop till he drops.
C.J.
He might.
BARTLET
C.J., let me tell you something. Don't ever, ever underestimate the will of a grandfather. We're mad men. We don't give a damn. We got here before you and they'll be here after. We'll make enemies, we'll break laws, we'll break bones but you will not mess with the grandchildren.
LEO
There was quite a bit of sugar in the cr'me de caramel.
C.J.
Yeah.
Jed is fascinating and easy to root for at the same time because he's fully complex in how he embodies and transcends his public face. The Grandfather persona is a mixed bag. Your ideal and typical grandfather has wisdom. They are life-experienced enough to be hard when they need to be hard but they aren’t young Turk gunners who need to be aggressive to prove themselves. Successful grandfathers have already proved themselves. Grandparents are the fun ones compared to parents and they ideally have a twinkly je ne se qois. Older men can have a non-threatening cuteness grounded in experience and gravitas that younger men cannot play.
However, even with ideal grandfathers, you need to prepare yourself that they’re probably behind the times with technology and social issues. They need the fourth graders to show them how to use the intercom. The nicest ones are probably all the "benevolent patriarchy". They stand around and admire their female employees for being strong. For some that's comforting, for some it's dreadful. For me, it's serious minuses that aren't debilitating in a leader on their own.
Jed beat Ritchie because the learned professor side of Jed which is a component of the Grandfather Persona. However, I’m sure that Jed beat John Hoynes because Hoynes came off like an aggressive young huckster next to Jed’s warm, affable older man. I love Hoynes and I even take his side over Jed's when they fight a good 70 percent of the time. However, I prefer Jed as a character and as President. Still, the country missed out on Hoynes’s technocrat Al Goreish vision which far outstripped Jed’s on the Internet and the environment (ethanol, his shrewd ability to triangulate his past dealing with Texas oil with scolding oil companies on cleaner fuel.) Take the degradation of environment- one of the greatest national security threats facing the US. Jed connects to the environment through national parks and his own love of nature; Hoynes connects to the environment through the future and his desire for business to lead the way on cleaning up the world.
Behind closed doors, Jed really does frequently act like Everybody’s Favorite Grandfather and it’s a component of his governing style. As with the myth of Reagan, Jed frequently asks for and focuses on the human interest anecdote when he decides on policy. (However unlike movie star Reagan, Jed also asks for the data and statistics.) I think people over-value that personalization in a national leader- but even my cynical, cold heart think it has its place. However, it can be ridiculous on Jed too. Take A Proportional Response when Jed is rude to Charlie because he's having his tantrum and Leo calms him down. Then, the kinder, gentler, better Jed comes out when:
BARTLET
Oh, by the way, who was that kid before? The one who figured out where my glasses are?
LEO
Well, if you want him, that's your new body man.
BARTLET
What's his story?
It just so happened that Charlie had a heck of a tragic backstory and a compelling reality that he had to give up college to provide for his little sister. However, what if Charlie didn't really have a *story* that lent itself to political pitch? What if he was just a qualified applicant who showed great assistant skills by figuring out where Jed's glasses were?
ANYWAY MOVING ON.
Due to his old age and MS, Jed isn’t out to make a family brand or push for an important and lucrative post-presidency. He tries to govern like it’s the last job that he’s going to have so he better do it right. In my personal canon, Jed retires to New Hampshire at the end of his presidency. He doesn’t even write a presidential memoir. Instead, he publishes learned economic treatises because it’s about the policy, not him. IRL, I side-eye the Clintons and Obamas for their family brand aspirations (even though I’m individually a Bill and Hillary fan and a Michelle Obama fan; watch who I’m leaving out). Jed doesn't do that.
Jed's MS is somewhat tied into his Grandfather public persona. However, obviously, the public didn't know about his MS until the end of the second season. Yet, this is partly where Jed is actually *better* than the public expected. Yes, the public wasn't informed of a debilitating disease that did negatively Jed's last year of office. However, the public got a leader who lived every day in the office like it could be his last fully able day who treated the first term like it could be his last and his second term like it was his last time with power and not a jumping off point to a memoir or foundation. It's a little like how the public wasn't informed of the full painful, debilitating nature of FDR's polio and they happily elected a fearless, vigorous looking, patrician Golden Boy and actually got a man who was truly challenged every day and understood what it was like to suffer and look into abyss of losing everything. And, IMO, they got a better President than they even expected in 1932.
Jed is a fantastic Healer-in-Chief because he has an ideal grandfather’s bedside manner- warm and cuddly and folksy. However, the United States got an even better deal with him. In The State Dinner, IMO the public elected the warm President who stayed on the phone with the phone with the sailor through the hurricane. However, the public didn't quite sign onto the badass who threatened to draft the trucking industry into the military if management and union didn't cooperate with a dry as the bone "You're gonna love our food". However, lucky American- they got both. Meanwhile, Bush was President in those years in reality.
Jed conducts diplomacy through a carrot of conspiratorial manly fun usually with male ambassadors and leaders (Marbury, “I bet your English is pretty good” to get private talks with the Chinese president, he tries with the Indonesian dictator in The State Dinner). But then, he has authoritative “You should be ashamed of yourself scolding” stick with typically female ambassadors and leaders (Israel’s Shira Gallit, the Russian ambassador in Galileo, the later-seasons Maggie Thatcheresque British prime-minster). Despite the clear gender differential, Jed's carrot and stick approach in foreign policy is realistically successful. Jed can read people very well for a provincial economist. And it both fits the grandfatherly mode but then, Jed is a much bigger bad-ass in private than his public persona suggests.
IMO, Jed is underrated as a thoroughly complex and well-themed character and actually overrated as a Perfect President. He's a romantic version of a US President, but he's not *just* that.
CJ and Jed are my two favorite TWW characters. Although, Jed pulls ahead to #1 a little more frequently. Really, it makes sense that those are my two faves. I think TWW did the public/private dichotomy really well and Jed and CJ are the two characters that have to reconcile their public face with their private actions the most.
People hope in elected politics that a leader both really behaves like his persona behind closed doors but is also BETTER than his superficial campaign performance. IMO, the American public gravitated to Jed because he’s Everybody’s Favorite Grandfather. Jed’s campaign vibe is pretty Ronald Reagan- but professorial instead of aged movie star glamour. Jed really embraces the Grandfather mystique.
BARTLET
C.J., that phone message was for real. He's not going to stop till he drops.
C.J.
He might.
BARTLET
C.J., let me tell you something. Don't ever, ever underestimate the will of a grandfather. We're mad men. We don't give a damn. We got here before you and they'll be here after. We'll make enemies, we'll break laws, we'll break bones but you will not mess with the grandchildren.
LEO
There was quite a bit of sugar in the cr'me de caramel.
C.J.
Yeah.
Jed is fascinating and easy to root for at the same time because he's fully complex in how he embodies and transcends his public face. The Grandfather persona is a mixed bag. Your ideal and typical grandfather has wisdom. They are life-experienced enough to be hard when they need to be hard but they aren’t young Turk gunners who need to be aggressive to prove themselves. Successful grandfathers have already proved themselves. Grandparents are the fun ones compared to parents and they ideally have a twinkly je ne se qois. Older men can have a non-threatening cuteness grounded in experience and gravitas that younger men cannot play.
However, even with ideal grandfathers, you need to prepare yourself that they’re probably behind the times with technology and social issues. They need the fourth graders to show them how to use the intercom. The nicest ones are probably all the "benevolent patriarchy". They stand around and admire their female employees for being strong. For some that's comforting, for some it's dreadful. For me, it's serious minuses that aren't debilitating in a leader on their own.
Jed beat Ritchie because the learned professor side of Jed which is a component of the Grandfather Persona. However, I’m sure that Jed beat John Hoynes because Hoynes came off like an aggressive young huckster next to Jed’s warm, affable older man. I love Hoynes and I even take his side over Jed's when they fight a good 70 percent of the time. However, I prefer Jed as a character and as President. Still, the country missed out on Hoynes’s technocrat Al Goreish vision which far outstripped Jed’s on the Internet and the environment (ethanol, his shrewd ability to triangulate his past dealing with Texas oil with scolding oil companies on cleaner fuel.) Take the degradation of environment- one of the greatest national security threats facing the US. Jed connects to the environment through national parks and his own love of nature; Hoynes connects to the environment through the future and his desire for business to lead the way on cleaning up the world.
Behind closed doors, Jed really does frequently act like Everybody’s Favorite Grandfather and it’s a component of his governing style. As with the myth of Reagan, Jed frequently asks for and focuses on the human interest anecdote when he decides on policy. (However unlike movie star Reagan, Jed also asks for the data and statistics.) I think people over-value that personalization in a national leader- but even my cynical, cold heart think it has its place. However, it can be ridiculous on Jed too. Take A Proportional Response when Jed is rude to Charlie because he's having his tantrum and Leo calms him down. Then, the kinder, gentler, better Jed comes out when:
BARTLET
Oh, by the way, who was that kid before? The one who figured out where my glasses are?
LEO
Well, if you want him, that's your new body man.
BARTLET
What's his story?
It just so happened that Charlie had a heck of a tragic backstory and a compelling reality that he had to give up college to provide for his little sister. However, what if Charlie didn't really have a *story* that lent itself to political pitch? What if he was just a qualified applicant who showed great assistant skills by figuring out where Jed's glasses were?
ANYWAY MOVING ON.
Due to his old age and MS, Jed isn’t out to make a family brand or push for an important and lucrative post-presidency. He tries to govern like it’s the last job that he’s going to have so he better do it right. In my personal canon, Jed retires to New Hampshire at the end of his presidency. He doesn’t even write a presidential memoir. Instead, he publishes learned economic treatises because it’s about the policy, not him. IRL, I side-eye the Clintons and Obamas for their family brand aspirations (even though I’m individually a Bill and Hillary fan and a Michelle Obama fan; watch who I’m leaving out). Jed doesn't do that.
Jed's MS is somewhat tied into his Grandfather public persona. However, obviously, the public didn't know about his MS until the end of the second season. Yet, this is partly where Jed is actually *better* than the public expected. Yes, the public wasn't informed of a debilitating disease that did negatively Jed's last year of office. However, the public got a leader who lived every day in the office like it could be his last fully able day who treated the first term like it could be his last and his second term like it was his last time with power and not a jumping off point to a memoir or foundation. It's a little like how the public wasn't informed of the full painful, debilitating nature of FDR's polio and they happily elected a fearless, vigorous looking, patrician Golden Boy and actually got a man who was truly challenged every day and understood what it was like to suffer and look into abyss of losing everything. And, IMO, they got a better President than they even expected in 1932.
Jed is a fantastic Healer-in-Chief because he has an ideal grandfather’s bedside manner- warm and cuddly and folksy. However, the United States got an even better deal with him. In The State Dinner, IMO the public elected the warm President who stayed on the phone with the phone with the sailor through the hurricane. However, the public didn't quite sign onto the badass who threatened to draft the trucking industry into the military if management and union didn't cooperate with a dry as the bone "You're gonna love our food". However, lucky American- they got both. Meanwhile, Bush was President in those years in reality.
Jed conducts diplomacy through a carrot of conspiratorial manly fun usually with male ambassadors and leaders (Marbury, “I bet your English is pretty good” to get private talks with the Chinese president, he tries with the Indonesian dictator in The State Dinner). But then, he has authoritative “You should be ashamed of yourself scolding” stick with typically female ambassadors and leaders (Israel’s Shira Gallit, the Russian ambassador in Galileo, the later-seasons Maggie Thatcheresque British prime-minster). Despite the clear gender differential, Jed's carrot and stick approach in foreign policy is realistically successful. Jed can read people very well for a provincial economist. And it both fits the grandfatherly mode but then, Jed is a much bigger bad-ass in private than his public persona suggests.
IMO, Jed is underrated as a thoroughly complex and well-themed character and actually overrated as a Perfect President. He's a romantic version of a US President, but he's not *just* that.