« 'The West Wing' to honor Spencer | Main | TV dramas track shifting U.S. moods »
February 16, 2006
Politics as usual
By CARL KOZLOWSKI
Pasadena Weekly
Emmy-winning actor Bradley Whitford has been living a truly charmed life.
Not only is he a major player in the ensemble cast of NBC's "The West Wing," which in seven seasons has won more Emmys than any show in TV history, but he's also the husband of Jane Kaczmarek, who has also spent the past seven seasons on TV racking up Emmy nominations playing the mom on Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle."
All good things, however, must come to an end, and, as such, both series are facing their final episodes in May. As "The West Wing" passes into memory, it leaves behind a legacy of an idealized fictional presidency that often contrasted sharply with the real-world scandals of the Clinton and Bush administrations.
The series offered a vision of the political world in which real issues were battled over with intelligence and dignity - two traits that seem to be becoming ever more rare in the real-life Washington, DC.
As he contemplated the end of the show and its impact on the culture, Whitford, a resident of Pasadena, spoke with the Weekly about some of the differences between his real and fictional existences.
PW: What do you feel has been the greatest impact of "The West Wing"?
Whitford: This show has exceeded my wildest expectations because it's been about something that is important and has been increasingly urgent as people, since 9/11, wherever they are on the political spectrum, feel that government matters. The show has gone through an interesting shift, since we began during the Clinton presidency and we were considered sort of the moderate, ethically pure fantasy of the Clinton administration.
I actually don't think the country has swung as far to the right as people say, but it became sort of the alternate, pathetically inadequate fantasy government for people of a different political persuasion than Karl Rove. More than anything, it's a miracle to make a living at this little extracurricular activity. It's even more of a miracle to do it in a manner that's not completely humiliating, and even more of a miracle that it becomes something people actually respond to.
Everybody feels in the wake of [co-star John Spencer's recent death] there's no question that this is the time, because this is not a show you want to drag out creatively. There's a sense with the real fans of the show that you're leaving them wanting a little more, which is good.
When the show's creator, Aaron Sorkin, left a couple of seasons ago, there was some speculation about whether the show's quality would go down or its political orientation would shift. How did the transition play out in your mind?
It's just not true that things have shifted. I've been in those writer rooms and there's never been a decision made to pander to a political point of view. One thing Aaron understood was that [the show's fictional president, Josiah Bartlet], especially early on, in terms of foreign policy, was extremely hawkish. He was not a weak liberal. If anything you had to hold him back because he would over-respond.
Aaron knows the trick with this show is that you cannot dramatically have an easy, pat answer if you're setting up obstacles and problems to play with in a story. I don't think there was a shift like that. When the show was first pitched, the network was afraid if you make the president a Democrat, Republicans won't watch, which is not true. A public defender can go home and watch the prosecutors on "Law and Order" as entertainment.
You have to present it in a credible way, and you would be weak if you said Bartlet was independent. This year as the show focused on the race to be the next president we thought about what Democrats fear in an opposing candidate. This idea was born when Schwarzenegger was on his way up: They'd fear a socially liberal, fiscally conservative California Republican who could take California out of the electoral tally.
What do you think about the plot parallels that have occurred over the years between the series and real-life events? Were writers aiming for that level of reality?
I think that one of the eternal questions is if God is a really wonderful writer, or is He the worst writer? [laughs] If we did an election episode where what happened in 2000 happened and one of the candidate's brothers happened to be governor of the state that won it for him - it would be just unbelievable.
On our show, Aaron would say he'd tear things not from the headlines, but from Page 28. Except for the 9/11 episode [in which the series did a special episode discussing the impact of the terrorist events with a group of fictional schoolchildren], Aaron really shied away from feeling that the show was a response to what was happening. He wanted more latitude than that.
Not to elevate the significance of the show, but public discourse in this country basically doesn't exist anymore. [The political parties] present publicity and go through talking points. There's really no genuine discussion in public; it's dueling publicity. The show, because it's fiction, actually had the opportunity to show characters who aren't sure how they're going to deal with something.
That's a very rare thing to see because we live in a propaganda culture, and that goes for both Democrats and Republicans. The thing about the show I'm so surprised no one ever writes about is that, basically, it's a backstage comedy. The percentage of time that politicians have to spend in how to present themselves and the theory and formulation of it in a way that the public will stand behind them is almost show business, which is sad.
Surely, you must have some people who've asked you or other cast members to run for office yourselves.
We get asked to run for office, and [series co-star Martin Sheen] has been asked a lot. In every election, the one question the press asks after a debate is: Does this candidate seem presidential? As if having character is some sort of pandering these poor guys have to go through.
I've been working on this show seven years, and Martin apparently seems presidential. He would say, "I hope that the relationship between seeming and being presidential is extremely casual."
There's one unforgivable thing in politics. You can have a tawdry affair in the sacred Oval Office, a totally inappropriate affair, or you can send people to war with flawed intelligence, and all of those things will be forgiven. But the one thing that's unforgivable is being bad on television. Al Gore, Howard Dean - it's the death penalty. It goes for Republicans, too. It's very sad to watch people's reaction to someone bad on television, but there's no reaction to bad policy. Being bad on television is what I should be worried about.
You and Jane are residents of Pasadena and are members of All Saints Church. How did you decide to settle on this end of town, rather than in the stereotypical climes of Malibu or the West Side?
We very consciously did not want to move away from here. We were living in Hollywood years ago when we started going to All Saints Church, and through that discovered some of the schools out here. I grew up in Madison, Wis., which is ironically the size of Pasadena. It felt more Midwestern, and it was more about raising kids out here rather than the creepy Hollywood scene you get on the West Side. There's much more of a "there" here. Pasadena has its own identity and is a great place to raise a family.
All Saints Church has weathered a national controversy lately, as the IRS is threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status due to a pre-election speech by Rector Emeritus George Regas that was deemed too overtly political. As a member of that church, how did you feel about that?
I'm very familiar with the sermon that Regas gave and it's absurd that they should be investigated. We live in this time where the definition of being religious means you adhere to dogma. It has nothing to do with executing values anymore, and my feeling about All Saints is that it is all about executing values, values that I believe in. They are much less concerned with dogma than executing the great universal values of love and forgiveness.
It's very upsetting to me, as someone who's a political junkie, that it's a great virtue to name yourself a Christian and use it as a tremendous political advantage that gives you a moral standing, but then we don't hold these people to actual standards. Maybe you believe the best response to 9/11 was to invade Iraq, maybe you still think that tens of thousands of [Iraqi] lives later, it's still fine, but don't tell me it's Christian.
Maybe you think executing prisoners through the death penalty as a way to reduce crime is fine, but it's not Christian. Maybe you think giving a schmuck like me on TV a quarter million [dollars] in tax relief over the last five years when I didn't need it, while we have record deficits and soldiers without armor - it's not Christian.
Jesus wasn't a supply-side guy. This is a really polarizing, horribly polarizing time, and it's really obscene to me that people take all the politicians and use faith as a label and then don't execute the values that it's all about. If you are going to make these choices, don't tell me it's Christian; it's not.
02-16-06
Posted by Jo at February 16, 2006 07:25 PM