« September 2001 | Main | November 2001 »
October 04, 2001
Emmy Award-Winning Drama Tries to Help America Cope
By Ali Asadullah
IslamOnline
Wednesday evening, NBC's Emmy award-winning drama The West Wing, tackled some of the complex issues surrounding the nation's current crisis in a special episode of the series that preempted what was to be the premier of the show's third season. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, NBC's entertainment president Jeff Zucker said of the special: "Obviously it's fictional, and it can never deal with the severity that the current administration is dealing with. But given that it takes place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it's not far fetched to believe 'West Wing' could deal with this issue."
The episode, entitled "Isaac and Ishmael," was written by the show's producer Aaron Sorkin and held in close confidence prior to its airing. As the historical significance of title suggests, contrasting perspectives on America's response to terrorism were explored.
Sorkin chose not to deal directly with the events of September 11, opting instead to leave the actual attacks as a foregone conclusion, thus creating a self-contained storyline that might have been just as applicable outside of the context of current events. However, with foreknowledge of the intent behind this episode, audiences could not help but read into the text of the episode the tension engendered by the September 11 attacks.
"Isaac and Ishmael" opens at the offices of the FBI, where two agents are cross-referencing a Muslim name against some computer records. When a match is found for a particular alias, one of the agents immediately places an emergency phone call to the White House calling for a "Crash", or lockdown, of the building due to the existence of some imminent credible threat to national security.
Meanwhile, at the White House, Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) - Deputy White House Chief of Staff - is trying to head home early, when he is reluctantly dragged into a meeting with a group of high school students. It is while speaking with them that the "Crash" order comes through, and Secret Service agents hustle Lyman and the students into an adjacent cafeteria for their safety while the threat is investigated.
Once on lockdown, with little else to do but talk, Lyman begins to explore the issue of terrorism and perceptions of Islam and Muslims with the students. As the episode progresses, various other members of the White House staff find their way to the cafeteria and end up adding their two cents on the topic. It is this conversation that forms the main plot of the episode.
The subplot centers on the search for the individual identified by the FBI as a potential terrorist; only the name of this individual, Rakeem Ali, matches that of an employee in the White House itself, thus adding an extra element of urgency to things. When the Secret Service does catch up with Ali, a man of distinctive Arab features, he is smoking a cigarette in an empty room of the Old Executive Office Building. With guns drawn, the agents take Ali into custody for interrogation.
From this point onwards, Sorkin uses the two contrasting venues - an office turned into an interrogation room and a cafeteria transformed into a classroom - to illustrate the contrasting types of discourse and debate that currently surround America's new "War on Terrorism".
In the classroom, high-minded principles of freedom and understanding are tempered by more hawkish views of staff members that prefer safety to freedom. Stories from Muslim history are brought into play, with some detail even being given to the birth of the Assassins as an explanation for the origins of terrorism. It is also at this venue that the story of Isaac and Ishmael is brought up by the First Lady to explain both the similarities and differences between Muslim and Western culture.
In the interrogation room, the tone isn't quite so intellectual, as White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) takes turns with Secret Service Agents at grilling Ali. The questions are blunt, and they play largely on stereotypes and sweeping assumptions that can be drawn from some of the most innocuous facts of a person's life. Ali is questioned about his father's contributions to a charity, his own choice of study at MIT, the phone wiring found in his bag and his personal political beliefs with reference to U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world.
In the end, it is found that the person flagged for the FBI alert, is not the Rakeem Ali who works in the White House, but a different Rakeem Ali, who is picked up by law enforcement overseas.
What Sorkin has done with this special episode, is highlight the broad range of discourse taking place in the nation at this very moment. Instead of trying to stand firmly on one side of any debate, Sorkin, uses his characters to show the good, the bad and the ugly, the misinformed, the afraid and even the nonchalant surrounding this crisis. Phrases as absurd as "Kill them all!" come out of characters' mouths; while such sobering statements as "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - courtesy of Ben Franklin - come out of the mouths of others.
By taking this approach, Sorkin subtly shows how, in the aftermath of the attacks, some responses have been blatantly excessive, while others have merited spirited debate. For example, the ordeal of Rakeem Ali is not something Americans see acted out in the news each day. These sorts of things take place behind closed doors. And to seen Ali falsely accused and then vindicated brings into focus the issue of just how we deal with profiling and detention and broader concerns over civil rights and civil liberties in the aftermath of September 11.
However, with reference to the question of why terrorism exists and why America has been targeted, Sorkin left things more up in the air. For instance he allows his characters to display the misunderstandings of Islam that exists presently and he allows hawkish views to creep into the conversation.
There may be Muslims who viewed The West Wing Wednesday night and felt a little uncomfortable. Indeed, some of the facts put forth were misrepresented or slightly inaccurate and some of sentiments expressed were disturbing. But at the same time, many of the more general conclusions implied by the plotline pointed towards the need to be more tolerant, educated and understanding.
Could the episode have been better? Possibly. Had "Isaac and Ishmael" been written from a wholly Muslim perspective, many aspects of the story would have fundamentally changed. However, given that it was written from an entirely American take on the crisis, it was a decent attempt to use a dramatic venue to help explore the turmoil of thought and feeling much of America faces, Muslims included.
Posted by Ryo at 09:57 AM
October 03, 2001
'West Wing' takes bold step with attack-related episode
By Lynn Elber
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES -- The third season of The West Wing will begin tonight with an unusual scene for unusual times: Martin Sheen and fellow cast members directly addressing viewers.
Sheen, who plays President Bartlet in NBC's White House drama, and his co-stars have the job of preparing the TV audience for an episode inspired by the terrorist attacks.
While other entertainment series rushed to eliminate anything -- shots or dialogue or stories -- that might somehow evoke the tragedy, The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin just as quickly embraced the challenge.
The show's excellence has earned it the right to boldness. The West Wing is very likely to win its second consecutive Emmy for best drama at Sunday's ceremony on CBS.
The episode also is a brave step for a series whose fictional president is at risk of being out of step with these neo-war times.
NBC did not blindly agree to such a sensitive undertaking. "A couple of days after the events of Sept. 11, Aaron said he had something that he wanted to say, and he thought it would be important in the history of The West Wing to be able to say it," says NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker.
"We did not want to make any decisions in the emotion of the moment, in the heat of the first week," Zucker says. "We wanted to see what Aaron had to say. He understood that."
Within a week, Sorkin had a script ready that Zucker calls "moving and engaging. It will leave people talking and thinking about all the issues that face us now."
Plot details were not released, but Zucker says the story titled "Isaac and Ishmael" isn't specifically about the attacks that destroyed New York's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
The episode was rushed into production, displacing the planned debut hour (now set to air Oct. 10) in which an embattled Bartlet decides to seek a second term. (That plot thread will not be addressed in the special show.)
A three-director team, including executive producer Thomas Schlamme, pushed to finish the episode in two weeks.
There is debate about what viewers want now from popular culture -- mere distraction or enlightenment -- but Zucker expressed confidence that Sorkin's series is on the right path.
"I think in a way that people will gravitate toward The West Wing because more than ever they're interested in what's really going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and what's really going on in the White House."
For instance, the audience will see how a National Security Council meeting is run, serving "an educational purpose as much as an entertainment purpose," Zucker says.
The special is extraordinary but within character for The West Wing. Although not a ripped-from-the-headlines show like Dick Wolf's Law & Order dramas, the political drama has frequently taken on current events -- including foreign conflicts that once seemed falsely distant.
In an early first season episode, an American jet was shot down over the Middle East and Bartlet weighed options that included a "proportional" military strike or a larger action that could lead to vastly more civilian deaths.
A flare-up in the India-Pakistan border war raised the threat of nuclear war in a January 2000 episode.
Such stories could prove even more compelling to viewers who suddenly know the name of Osama bin Laden's organization, al-Qaida, and how to pronounce it.
But there is context to consider. The Bartlet administration may face challenges akin to those of the real-life White House, but there's a sharp difference: Bartlet is a Democrat, a liberal one, and President Bush is Republican.
Even more problematic is the story line carried forward from last season, the repercussions of Bartlet's decision to hide his progressive disease, multiple sclerosis, from the public.
The parallel to President Clinton's own brand of misbehavior and the firestorm that followed promised compelling drama. Now, abruptly, U.S. security and peace have taken center stage; a president's struggle for political survival seems both hoary and hollow.
To see Bartlet rise to a great national challenge could be magnificent. To see him sink back immediately into a political quagmire of his own making could be disheartening.
How the gifted Sorkin will attempt the balancing act, and how viewers will respond, is a drama to watch.
Posted by MorganG at 03:03 PM
The New Reality TV
By ERIC DEGGANS
St. Petersburg Times
Two fictional series buck the Hollywood trend and take on the terrorist attacks: tonight's special episode of The West Wing and a three-episode arc of Third Watch that begins Oct. 15.
For most of Hollywood's dream factory, the response to tragedy is immediate and predictable: lie low until the controversy passes, then return to business as usual.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that meant snipping out shots of the World Trade Center, delaying the premieres of violent films and reconsidering whether characters could say Osama bin Laden's name.
The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin had a different response: Let's talk about it.
Tonight, viewers will see the result in what may be one of Hollywood's gutsiest responses to the nation's tragedies. "Isaac and Ishmael," which Sorkin wrote in days, reportedly focuses on tolerance and opposing anti-Arab prejudice (Isaac and Ishmael are the sons of Abraham whose descendants became the world's Muslims and Jews, according to the Bible).
West Wing is not alone in this unprecedented effort. Third Watch, an NBC drama about police, firefighters and paramedics in Manhattan that is executive-produced by West Wing/ER mastermind John Wells, begins airing on Oct. 15 a three-episode arc focusing on the World Trade Center attacks.
In the Oct. 15 episode, cast members talk with real emergency personnel, who will tell their stories in an unscripted hour.
"We have the great privilege of telling a few of the fictionalized stories of these wonderful men and women every week," Wells said in a statement. "We thought the best way to proceed . . . would be to allow them to tell their own stories in their own words."
On Oct. 22, the show's characters are shown in an episode set on the day before the attacks. On Oct. 29, viewers will see the characters' lives one week after the trade center's collapse, which killed hundreds of police, fire and rescue workers.
Few people at NBC and the shows are willing to talk, fearful of looking like they're trying to capitalize on a tragedy. NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker told the Associated Press that executives held back on approving tonight's West Wing episode until they saw Sorkin's script, which he called "moving and engaging."
"A couple of days after the events of Sept. 11, Aaron said he had something that he wanted to say, and he thought it would be important in the history of The West Wing to be able to say it," Zucker said.
Three directors worked to complete the episode (normally, it takes weeks to progress from Sorkin writing a script to a filmed episode). Reports say the episode will feature the White House locked down under heightened security, though not specifically because of a terrorist attack.
At the start of tonight's show, which occurs outside the series' continuing story lines, the cast will address the audience out of character, talking about the show's inspiration. The West Wing's previously planned season premiere airs next Wednesday: Martin Sheen's President Josiah Bartlet prepares to run for re-election.
Over the next two episodes, Bartlet spars with a high-powered political consultant (Reversal of Fortune's Ron Silver) who wants him to apologize publicly for not disclosing his multiple sclerosis. Oliver Platt returns as an attorney who tells the president's personal aide, Charlie (Dule Hill), he may need a very expensive attorney to deal with a special prosecutor investigating Bartlet's lack of disclosure.
Will audiences appreciate a return to Lewinsky-tinged presidential scandal? As with so many things related to the terrorist attacks, the answer may come only over time.
- Times wires were used in this report.
Posted by Ryo at 09:52 AM