Delivering Dialogue Quickly Doesn’t Make You Smart
The cult of Aaron Sorkin is really divided into two types of people: the first is the kind of person who likes dialogue delivered at a rapid pace that sounds smart.
The second is the kind of person who likes characters that reflect their liberal political “values” back to them in a warm and fuzzy way.
Aaron Sorkin, writer, producer and director of such critically acclaimed darlings as Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom, and the films A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs, is nostalgic for the types of voters he writes about.
Aaron Sorkin Struggles to Understand You
Recently, at the 20th-anniversary screening at PaleyFest New York of “Two Cathedrals,” the closing episode of The West Wing’s second season, Sorkin waxed poetically and nostalgically for an American voter that has never existed:
Challenged during the audience Q&A portion about his indictment of the voters, rather than political leaders and candidates, he said:
“Better voters get us better candidates. I think in a democracy, how can it not ultimately be the responsibility of the voters? Look, we’re right to point to all the people we’re pointing to in Washington and say, ‘Oh my God, this is so un-American!’ But when are voters going to bear some responsibility?”
You voted for the Orange Bad Man. You’re the problem. Not the elites. Not the people who voted for the Woman Who Couldn’t Delete an Email If You Asked Her Too.
Nope. You’re the problem.
“We need to make better voters. Otherwise, it’s bound to descend into the tribalism that we have.”
And you need to be controlled socially and politically, and if entertainment can serve that end, then fine with them.
The Bad Orange Man Lives In Sorkin’s Head Rent Free
Sorkin lives in a world of his own making inside his own head and has been able to parlay the mechanics of that internal world into a career writing screenplays, such as the one for The Social Network that get him Oscars, acclaim, access to people in power, and money beyond his wildest dreams.
But there’s a deeper analysis needed here:
First of all, you and I both know that the reality we live in will never be featured on the screen, large or small, in a way that honors us and our struggles.
Such as it has been for a while now.
Second, guys like Sorkin, who graduated from Syracuse University—which is in Upstate New York—never really liked their upbringing, the people they were raised with, and the friends they had as children and teenagers, and have made a career out of slamming those people relentlessly through the use of their creativity without naming names.
Such as it has been in Hollywood since time out of mind.
Finally, you know something Sorkin apparently doesn’t: The West Wing was just a show. Which means that it’s a fantasy. Not the real world of stupid people, manipulative social policies, power-hungry individuals, and inept, corrupt, and deceitful folks.
Such is the world outside of Sorkin’s head. The world we all live in. And the one he insists voters need to “take responsibility” for. But, of course, only in ways that he and his ilk approve of.
Well. The voters did, Sorkin, in 2016 and they’ll do so again in 2020.
But, sound off below. What do you think?
