I really enjoyed the conversation between him and his father. Especially since you know it isn't his father but rather the version of his father he created to cope with his own life and build his own moral compass.
And the actor they got to play him did a great job.
Waaaaait a second. That whole thing was imaginary? How did I miss that?
first, edit and spoiler that for others pls.
He is SUPPOSED to be in solitary, guy first shows up when Will was looking at the picture of his dad, both of them knew everything about each other but were just going through the motions... even the yale/harvard thing was intentional, to paint his dad as someone who wouldn't know it and admitting it in his own dad's response.
watch the scenes again. "maybe he was just trying to teach you to fish" and othersuch lines are interesting moments of self-doubt and reflection.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I really enjoyed the conversation between him and his father. Especially since you know it isn't his father but rather the version of his father he created to cope with his own life and build his own moral compass.
And the actor they got to play him did a great job.
Waaaaait a second. That whole thing was imaginary? How did I miss that?
I really enjoyed the conversation between him and his father. Especially since you know it isn't his father but rather the version of his father he created to cope with his own life and build his own moral compass.
And the actor they got to play him did a great job.
Waaaaait a second. That whole thing was imaginary? How did I miss that?
Yeah, when he was about to leave the cell Will grabbed the photo of he and his Dad and the Dad was Devil from Justified(the actor who was his cellmate). They also gave a camera shot to the still rolled up in plastic bedroll sitting on the other bed in the cell to make sure you didn't miss it.
did he purposefully take the fall? Watching it again its not clear to me if he forced head trauma and the heart attack was just a "happy accident" or not.
What was in her contract? That parting gift from Jane Fonda that kept him from being able to fire everyone?
I may be reading a lot into this but its also possible that Charlie, the REAL Don Quioxte of this show, just sacrificed himself to save the news through some kind of dead man's trigger in the contract.
I think you're reading way too much into this:
The parting gift was most likely just something that said the sale of the network included giving Charlie all the decision making power in who works for ACN so Pruitt couldn't fire them. And I'm pretty sure he just collapsed, as sometimes happens to people when having a massive coronary.
+2
Options
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
did he purposefully take the fall? Watching it again its not clear to me if he forced head trauma and the heart attack was just a "happy accident" or not.
What was in her contract? That parting gift from Jane Fonda that kept him from being able to fire everyone?
I may be reading a lot into this but its also possible that Charlie, the REAL Don Quioxte of this show, just sacrificed himself to save the news through some kind of dead man's trigger in the contract.
I think you're reading way too much into this:
The parting gift was most likely just something that said the sale of the network included giving Charlie all the decision making power in who works for ACN so Pruitt couldn't fire them. And I'm pretty sure he just collapsed, as sometimes happens to people when having a massive coronary.
I'm willing to admit its far-flung, and I am not betting the farm on it.
It just looked like an intentional fall. Chalk it up to either me reading it completely wrong or bad editing. Not gonna blame Sam as his performance throughout the show has been on point.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
did he purposefully take the fall? Watching it again its not clear to me if he forced head trauma and the heart attack was just a "happy accident" or not.
What was in her contract? That parting gift from Jane Fonda that kept him from being able to fire everyone?
I may be reading a lot into this but its also possible that Charlie, the REAL Don Quioxte of this show, just sacrificed himself to save the news through some kind of dead man's trigger in the contract.
I think you're reading way too much into this:
The parting gift was most likely just something that said the sale of the network included giving Charlie all the decision making power in who works for ACN so Pruitt couldn't fire them. And I'm pretty sure he just collapsed, as sometimes happens to people when having a massive coronary.
I'm willing to admit its far-flung, and I am not betting the farm on it.
It just looked like an intentional fall. Chalk it up to either me reading it completely wrong or bad editing. Not gonna blame Sam as his performance throughout the show has been on point.
I just watched it again on HBOGo and I'm not seeing that at all.
When he's talking to Pruitt, he kind of trails off "On her worst day, would never.......we need to talk" This is the first sign something's wrong. He's not feeling right. Then after he tells the crew he'll be back he kind of pauses at the desk and puts his hand on it. This is him probably realizing he's about to pass out and taking a minute, but it was already too late, he collapses.
It was jarring the first time we watched it because we didn't see it coming, but if you go back and watch it again I think you'll see it just looks like a guy collapsing.
0
Options
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I didn't catch on to the father bit til he looked at the pic at the end
I thought "great reveal wow!" but synd shows me I just wasn't paying attention haha
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
A lotofpeople have talked about how awful this episode was from a gender perspective, but it was also awful in terms of the season and the show as a whole.
Just about any story runs on conflict, and in Sorkin's shows there are two kinds of conflict. The first is interpersonal, between main characters, who either disagree on ideological grounds or more commonly on romantic ones; the second is societal, when the main characters collectively face outsized external conflicts which define, clarify, and inspire their interpersonal ones. On a scene by scene basis, one character is arguing with another over what to do next; on an episode to episode and season to season basis, some problem must be solved or task accomplished in a situation necessitating the argument over what to do next. The overarching plot is the foundation--the President needs to run for re-election and now we have to figure out how to do that. These are your basic building blocks of drama, at least when you're Sorkin and more interested in telling a didactic story about ideas and social constructs than in telling a character drama. That sounds snarky, but there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it's done properly. When it's not done properly, it's not typically because Sorkin forgot how to write engaging, rhythmic scenes of clever dialogue and romantic intrigue, it's because his larger conflicts are meaningless.
Case in point, the problem with The Newsroom's second season was that its main conflict was utterly, 100% toothless, an outsized external threat that didn't actually affect a damn thing--the person responsible for bringing it down wasn't part of the main cast, it didn't change how they reported the news (not until season 3, anyway), and nobody suffered consequences as a result.
I've been pretty excited each week for The Newsroom's final run, but that excitement, built on the several very good episodes that started the season, has most definitely flagged. I was excited to start with because it seemed like Sorkin had finally fixed his conflict problem by giving our heroes with internal conflicts dealt with fairly (including some honestly exciting debate about journalistic ethics that didn't seem totally didactic) and then surrounding them with an outsized external conflict that had real stakes (people might go to jail!) and didn't come out of nowhere (the situation developing through the way Neal and the others reacted). Moreover, I was simply excited to see how Sorkin would get his characters out of the tangled web of threats that faced them.
Now it's become apparent that he had no idea, either. Rather than triumphing over adversity through virtue, in this episode our heroes wait around until their problems go away on their own. Apparently insurmountable deadlines vanish, antagonists commit suicide off-screen for no apparent reason, and the fearsome specter of government simply... relents, because why not. Even the HR plotline literally ends with its antagonist going j/k lol nvmd. At this point I have no doubt that in the season finale, BJ Novak will trip and fall on a pencil, leaving nothing behind but a will which reads "Hahaha just for kicks McAvoy now owns the network" and then everyone on the cast, including Charlie, will mount literal horses and, in defiance of all logic and taste, ride into the actual motherfucking sunset. BECAUSE WHY NOT.
If there were any justice in this world, the headlines wouldn't be "Aaron Sorkin Prepares to Leave TV Forever," they'd be "Angry Mob Runs Sorkin Out of TV On a Rail."
+3
Options
CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
Wait...why is this episode awful from a gender perspective? I mean, they aren't calling out the stuff between Jim and Maggie are they? Because...like, I've seen that shit play out in my own life and in the lives of others several times. That shit happens and it's kind of a thing that's part of reality and fairly normal.
I can't fathom anything else in that episode being terrible from a gender perspective because Sloan rocked that shit and the college scene while hard to hear...was an insanely beautiful strength position from the college female.
her grassroots website, built so that victims of both sexual assault and institutional neglect can trade information and construct a safer world for each other, was really no different from pornography fueled entirely by jealous exes seeking revenge
The impression I got from that analogy wasn't that he was talking about the website in general. He was talking about using it for revenge purposes. It provides a platform that could be used for false accusations. He focuses on that, the potential of false accusations.
he has to believe him in the face of Mary’s accusations. He has to believe him.
So, what I took away from that conversation was that Don doesn't believe the guy. The guy raped the girl, came up with a thin half-assed story to protect himself, and Don knows this. Don must act as if the guy is innocent, though, because of journalistic ethics.
Aaron Sorkin doesn’t understand who the victim is. He doesn’t understand how empathy works.
It's not about who the victim is in this or any specific case. It's about media accusations in general. Sorkin makes it clear that this girl was telling the truth. But at what point should Don stop giving the victim the benefit of the doubt? If he wasn't "sketchy", should Don automatically side with the rape victim? What if the accused had had a realistic alibi, with witnesses? What if he had proof of that alibi? At what exact point should journalists give the benefit of the doubt to the accused?
How does that play with the rest of the show, which for three seasons has been giving us the idea that journalists have a responsibility to vet information and report Truth-with-a-capital-T?
It's not about empathy, either. It's about journalistic integrity. The whole conversation made it clear that Don the Person and Don the Journalist had different feelings. Don wanted to show empathy. That's why they had the bit of dialogue where he admitted he didn't have any real point of disagreement with her. Even though Don the Person knows she's being honest, and even though he wants to show empathy, the rigorous ethics of Don the Journalist stops him.
through rudimentary journalistic stalking
Important to note that Don desperately did not want to engage in "rudimentary journalistic stalking."
By undermining her decision, the storyline devolves into just another example of The Newsroom having a man determine the moral absolute at the cost of a woman’s agency.
In the couple of paragraphs discussing this, the author seems to assume that she has the right to just show up on a news channel. That's a bullshit idea that crops up whenever someone doesn't get to say exactly what they want on TV. She doesn't have a right to be on News Night any more than any other rape victim has a right to be on News Night, or anyone else who wants to air any kind of grievances (however just).
But that's beside the point because, again, Don's decision had nothing about her. That whole subplot was explicitly the result of the main cast style of journalism and the Pruitt style of journalism. When the story was initially being brought up, Don was fine with it. It was only when he was told both the accuser and the accused would be on that he disagreed with it. Pruitt wants the feeding frenzy where everyone picks a side and gets to make pithy tweets. Don wanted to present an actual, factual story. He wanted people to be informed, not entertained. He didn't make his decision because he wanted to protect the victim, he made his decision because of his journalistic ethics.
From the indifferent acknowledgement that Will McAvoy really does look down his nose at those of a lower class than him, to Sloan’s off-hand realization that she hasn’t given the new tech guy a chance in the wake of Neal’s absence which she promptly uses as as a setup to embarrass him publicly to the shallowly opportunistic Russian newlyweds who demand the clothes from a man’s back because money and travel weren’t enough. Aaron Sorkin doesn’t believe that basic humanity is a given.
The author is really confused about the idea that the way individual characters act doesn't necessarily mean they themselves act the same way. Will is supposed to be a pompous elitist. Even though his overall "mission to civilize" is presented as a good thing, Will is not meant to be interpreted as a flawless ideal. I really don't think Sorkin was trying to literally say that you aren't a human if you don't know the difference between Harvard and Yale.
Sloan wasn't making a sudden realization. She and Don disliked the tech guys because they've had an ongoing argument about their stalker app. Nothing to do with Neal. That was just an excuse so she could get him on the show. Everything was Sloan making a perfectly human response to their actions. That's not dehumanizing at all!
And the Russian bit was just a fucking sight gag so the viewers could get a bit of a laugh at Jim's clothes.
The informant blew her brains out on the steps of the Justice Department but whatever about her, we’re really just happy that this means Will can come home! Yay Will!
It was glossed over because there wasn't anything anyone could realistically do about it. There were only two characters who actually knew who she was. One is in hiding in Venezuela and wasn't in the episode. And Mac couldn't exactly go around talking about it. What was Sorking supposed to do? Have Mackenzie hold a press conference with the whole crew to announce that Lily was the source and they should all send flowers to her funeral? I wouldn't exactly be surprised if they talk more about it in the final episode, either.
Solomaxwell6 on
+1
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
her grassroots website, built so that victims of both sexual assault and institutional neglect can trade information and construct a safer world for each other, was really no different from pornography fueled entirely by jealous exes seeking revenge
The impression I got from that analogy wasn't that he was talking about the website in general. He was talking about using it for revenge purposes. It provides a platform that could be used for false accusations. He focuses on that, the potential of false accusations.
I agree that the AV Club misinterpreted that one, but I still think Sorkin is being insensitive by showing Don as more concerned about false accusations ruining a boy's life than rape ruining a girl's--and especially by putting that "This time I'll win" in there at the end.
he has to believe him in the face of Mary’s accusations. He has to believe him.
So, what I took away from that conversation was that Don doesn't believe the guy. The guy raped the girl, came up with a thin half-assed story to protect himself, and Don knows this. Don must act as if the guy is innocent, though, because of journalistic ethics.
It's definitely one of the running themes of The Newsroom that Sorkin thinks the news should basically act like a courtroom. I disagree with him. The news should be held to a certain standard but that standard is not and should not be as strenuous as that of a courtroom--for one thing, the stakes are lower. (Yes, the media can be damaging; but not as damaging as the power to imprison or execute.) Courtroom evidence is presented by a prosecutor (McAvoy, to Sorkin) and evaluated by a jury (the media audience), but the rules of what evidence to include or not include are different in journalism (in a courtroom, evidence is presented as long as it was obtained in good faith and isn't overly prejudicial or irrelevant; in a newsroom, "evidence" is presented as long as two independent sources are willing to confirm it and the presenters believe it has "value", whether informationally or as entertainment) and on News Night McAvoy is also the judge (along with his producers). Nor does a newsroom include such safeguards as appeals processes, jury instructions, impartial observers, equal time for both sides, or even a defense counsel.
Basically, Sorkin can't have it both ways. Either journalism should be held to courtroom standards, in which case it makes far more sense for the news to put on both sides of the story and let the jury/audience decide whether the accused rapist or the self-proclaimed victim are more credible; or journalism includes an element of subjectivity and personal bias, something which The Newsroom itself argued strenuously for in its first season. Courtroom "objectivity" is how you end up with "Democrats, Republicans Disagree on Shape of Earth", right? I was much more in favor of journalists openly taking a principled stand and speaking truth to power than I am of journalists deciding that as long as they can't prove an accused rapist committed the crime it's okay to put him on the show.
(Note that it's entirely possible that the outcome of Don saying, "I couldn't get the accuser for this rapist/rape victim segment" is that only the rapist goes on the air.)
Aaron Sorkin doesn’t understand who the victim is. He doesn’t understand how empathy works.
It's not about who the victim is in this or any specific case. It's about media accusations in general. Sorkin makes it clear that this girl was telling the truth. But at what point should Don stop giving the victim the benefit of the doubt? If he wasn't "sketchy", should Don automatically side with the rape victim? What if the accused had had a realistic alibi, with witnesses? What if he had proof of that alibi? At what exact point should journalists give the benefit of the doubt to the accused?
How does that play with the rest of the show, which for three seasons has been giving us the idea that journalists have a responsibility to vet information and report Truth-with-a-capital-T?
Honestly? Other than the awkward business of asking an alleged criminal and his accuser to share the same room, having two people on at the same time to talk about each other is far more ethical than giving either one of them a solo mouthpiece. If you can't prove anything, and you can't because it hasn't gone to trial (and won't), you can at least "teach the controversy." The truth here is not knowable for these journalists, but the situation is still newsworthy and ignoring it isn't necessarily the right way to go, either.
By undermining her decision, the storyline devolves into just another example of The Newsroom having a man determine the moral absolute at the cost of a woman’s agency.
In the couple of paragraphs discussing this, the author seems to assume that she has the right to just show up on a news channel. That's a bullshit idea that crops up whenever someone doesn't get to say exactly what they want on TV. She doesn't have a right to be on News Night any more than any other rape victim has a right to be on News Night, or anyone else who wants to air any kind of grievances (however just).
But that's beside the point because, again, Don's decision had nothing about her. That whole subplot was explicitly the result of the main cast style of journalism and the Pruitt style of journalism. When the story was initially being brought up, Don was fine with it. It was only when he was told both the accuser and the accused would be on that he disagreed with it. Pruitt wants the feeding frenzy where everyone picks a side and gets to make pithy tweets. Don wanted to present an actual, factual story. He wanted people to be informed, not entertained. He didn't make his decision because he wanted to protect the victim, he made his decision because of his journalistic ethics.
The problem here is that the show, and Don, present this as the victim's choice. "Hey, I'm going to tell you what you're in for and I'm hoping you'll decide not to do this. Because my bosses are the ones calling the shots here, you are the only person with the power to change or ensure this scenario." Then when she makes her decision, he realizes he has a way to invalidate it. It's an unfortunate set-up that plays into everything else Sorkin has done poorly when it comes to writing women with agency.
The informant blew her brains out on the steps of the Justice Department but whatever about her, we’re really just happy that this means Will can come home! Yay Will!
It was glossed over because there wasn't anything anyone could realistically do about it. There were only two characters who actually knew who she was. One is in hiding in Venezuela and wasn't in the episode. And Mac couldn't exactly go around talking about it. What was Sorking supposed to do? Have Mackenzie hold a press conference with the whole crew to announce that Lily was the source and they should all send flowers to her funeral? I wouldn't exactly be surprised if they talk more about it in the final episode, either.
By the time the episode ended there were five characters who knew who the source was--Will, Mac, Neal, Will's lawyer, and the government agent. Will and Mac could have had a scene discussing the suicide, or it could have been part of the scene where Will once again refuses to give up the source. We could have seen the source commit suicide, even, in a scene that might have helped us understand why it happened and, even more importantly, feel something for a character.
But the issue is less that the suicide is glossed over and more that it's first and foremost an out of nowhere way for Sorkin to drop a plotline he couldn't figure out how to resolve meaningfully. The last time we saw the source, she's threatening to go public; then Mac goes public first, giving the story to the AP. We don't hear anything about the story itself (because it's a MacGuffin that apparently nobody gives a shit about when it's not their scoop) or how this affected the source. Maybe she was depressed because the story got reported and nobody was immediately arrested. Maybe Mac feels guilty for inadvertently causing a suicide. Who knows? I don't, because apparently none of it mattered. What matters is that somewhere, somehow, people are tweeting and it has to be stopped.
Astaereth on
0
Options
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
regarding the source
Not to do the job of the writers for them... but if my actions got a person in prison for months and sent another one out of the country, I would feel really shitty about myself. Couple that with the needle not moving on that important story and I might be downright suicidal.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It's definitely one of the running themes of The Newsroom that Sorkin thinks the news should basically act like a courtroom. I disagree with him.
That's fine, but that's a separate point of disagreement and has nothing to do with gender issues.
(Note that it's entirely possible that the outcome of Don saying, "I couldn't get the accuser for this rapist/rape victim segment" is that only the rapist goes on the air.)
I disagree with that. You talk quite a bit about the possibility that Don's action means the rapist now gets to present his side of the story without any kind of opposition. There's no way that could possibly happen. Nobody wanted that. Don obviously didn't. And Pruitt wanted both sides to be on, so that people could go in and pick sides and create controversy. Without the victim going on, Pruitt wouldn't have been able to get his way and there's no reason to get the rapist on in the first place. No one would've gotten a "solo mouthpiece".
The problem here is that the show, and Don, present this as the victim's choice.
He was presenting it as the victim's choice because he was forced to. He was clearly divided on the subject, and having her say no was the only way he could get out of the segment while keeping his job. Later, he decided that it would be worth risking his job. The conflict is, once again, between Don the Person and Don the Journalist rather than between Don and the victim. Everything was a result of Don's inner conflict and the conflict between the News Night staff with Pruitt. It advanced the theme and the plot of the show. Yes, it means that here decision was ultimately ignored. Tough shit. People's decisions get ignored all the time, and it's not sexist for Sorkin to portray that.
But the issue is less that the suicide is glossed over and more that it's first and foremost an out of nowhere way for Sorkin to drop a plotline he couldn't figure out how to resolve meaningfully.
Again, the show's not over yet. As synd said, I think it's certainly reasonable that she would kill herself. I dislike how the whole Lily character has mostly been purely as a plot mover. She shows up every now and then, says a few lines to force the plot to move along, and then disappears again. If nothing happens in the last episode about her, I'll be unhappy. But, hey, I haven't seen the last episode yet and it's not fair to make that kind of assumption.
The episode ended right as Will got out of jail. I'm not sure how they would've included it in the scene between Will and the prosecutor. Will was almost certainly lying about knowing who the source was. Whether he did actually know or not, it's not like he was going to chat about it. Will's lawyer certainly wouldn't have casually started talking about the suicide in the middle of an interrogation. Why would she have? She's just there to facilitate the conversation, not to take part beyond her duties as Will's lawyer. The DoJ lawyer talked about it a bit professionally, and got rebuffed. There's no reason for him to talk personally about it with Will. They're not buddies.
I really doubt that Will and Mac would've talked about it when Will was in jail. And then he only got out at the end of the episode. What was Sorkin supposed to do? Have Mackenzie in tears, hugging Will, and then say "Charlie had a heart attack and died... but let's talk about Lily's suicide." I'm gonna guess that it wasn't exactly a major concern at the moment.
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
It's definitely one of the running themes of The Newsroom that Sorkin thinks the news should basically act like a courtroom. I disagree with him.
That's fine, but that's a separate point of disagreement and has nothing to do with gender issues.
(Note that it's entirely possible that the outcome of Don saying, "I couldn't get the accuser for this rapist/rape victim segment" is that only the rapist goes on the air.)
I disagree with that. You talk quite a bit about the possibility that Don's action means the rapist now gets to present his side of the story without any kind of opposition. There's no way that could possibly happen. Nobody wanted that. Don obviously didn't. And Pruitt wanted both sides to be on, so that people could go in and pick sides and create controversy. Without the victim going on, Pruitt wouldn't have been able to get his way and there's no reason to get the rapist on in the first place. No one would've gotten a "solo mouthpiece".
The problem here is that the show, and Don, present this as the victim's choice.
He was presenting it as the victim's choice because he was forced to. He was clearly divided on the subject, and having her say no was the only way he could get out of the segment while keeping his job. Later, he decided that it would be worth risking his job. The conflict is, once again, between Don the Person and Don the Journalist rather than between Don and the victim. Everything was a result of Don's inner conflict and the conflict between the News Night staff with Pruitt. It advanced the theme and the plot of the show. Yes, it means that here decision was ultimately ignored. Tough shit. People's decisions get ignored all the time, and it's not sexist for Sorkin to portray that.
But the issue is less that the suicide is glossed over and more that it's first and foremost an out of nowhere way for Sorkin to drop a plotline he couldn't figure out how to resolve meaningfully.
Again, the show's not over yet. As synd said, I think it's certainly reasonable that she would kill herself. I dislike how the whole Lily character has mostly been purely as a plot mover. She shows up every now and then, says a few lines to force the plot to move along, and then disappears again. If nothing happens in the last episode about her, I'll be unhappy. But, hey, I haven't seen the last episode yet and it's not fair to make that kind of assumption.
The episode ended right as Will got out of jail. I'm not sure how they would've included it in the scene between Will and the prosecutor. Will was almost certainly lying about knowing who the source was. Whether he did actually know or not, it's not like he was going to chat about it. Will's lawyer certainly wouldn't have casually started talking about the suicide in the middle of an interrogation. Why would she have? She's just there to facilitate the conversation, not to take part beyond her duties as Will's lawyer. The DoJ lawyer talked about it a bit professionally, and got rebuffed. There's no reason for him to talk personally about it with Will. They're not buddies.
I really doubt that Will and Mac would've talked about it when Will was in jail. And then he only got out at the end of the episode. What was Sorkin supposed to do? Have Mackenzie in tears, hugging Will, and then say "Charlie had a heart attack and died... but let's talk about Lily's suicide." I'm gonna guess that it wasn't exactly a major concern at the moment.
The limitations you're talking about are not imposed from without; the writers chose those particular scenes. It's not enough to say that they couldn't fit such and such into the story as written, because the story didn't have to be written that way. They could have focused on one death and not the other; could have written the rape victim to be more than a cardboard cut-out in the background of Don's Search For Ethics; etc. The decision to include or not include these things, or to frame them the way they are framed, isn't a logistical necessity but a reflection of those elements which Sorkin prioritizes and values and those which he does not.
Just to point something out here, the AV club review was only one of many that independently of each other call Sorkin out on his shit with the rape victim. Time and the New Yorker are the two quickest ones I could find.
Then there is his bullshit "sanctity of the writers room" response he uses against the female writer that tweeted that she opposed the storyline.
I mean every DVD writers commentary, every interview about the writing process he has ever given doesn't violated it, but her tweet talking about how he kicked her out when she said it was a bad story was? Sorkin has made a goddamn prime time television series about the goings on in the writers room(Studio 60).
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
0
Options
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
rapesplains is a word now?
I guess it means when a rape explains something like mansplain
anyway, that multiple people wrote articles in reaction is not damning to me at all. they mentioned rape, I knew immediately some people would be upset. people are absolutely awful at separating what a given character says from what the overall point of the story is
I haven't seen the episode or the series, so I don't have much to add to the discussion, but Sorkin himself isn't particularly good at separating what a given character says from what the overall point of the story is. He has a clear tendency to have characters pronouncing The Truth According To Sorkin.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Yes. If it was any other writer and any other show, but since it Sorkin and the Newsroom...
Especially since the story is all about how rape victim is using the internet to hit back at her rapists.
That is a famous shtick for Sorkin. Its not so much "somebody is wrong on the Internet" XKCD meme as it is "somebody is using the internet and that is wrong".
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
That New Yorker article is really, really excellent and on point (not only about the rape victim scene, but about the way The Newsroom deals and has dealt with alternate points of view). That's the best one to read to see why some people are upset about this latest episode.
Yeah the New Yorker article gives a pretty solid argument.
The AVClub write-up is awful though. AVClub's kind of gotten weird about Newsroom in general though. Like they start from this "Everything that happens on this show is terrible" viewpoint, where for some reason it's assumed that every single word that comes out of a named character's mouth is supposed to be the Gospel according to Sorkin.
I can't say I particularly get the criticism levelled in the New Yorker article. Sorkin's writing tends to be on the nose, but I think he navigated that scene well and I'm not really sure what people wanted from it, other then I think something that it is not?
Like, it very much wasn't meant to be a comprehensive argument about law and prosecution surrounding rape victims, it was meant to be talking about media coverage surrounding rape victims.
And how if you can't secure a conviction in a court of law, rape victims should shut up about their rapes... Never come forward or talk about it.
and how Journalists have to be like a court and treat every accused rapist as innocent until proven otherwise and call rape victims liars.
and how despite the court system being broken and many victims not even getting their day in court due to negligence(700 000 unprocessed rape kits), the victims should obey the non-existent findings of the system and just let their rapist move on with their lives unhindered.
And how 50 women calling out their rapist is wrong because one of them is lying.
And since they are innocent until proven guilty the other 49 real rapist are just as much victims of false accusations as guy number 50 in Don's eyes.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
and how despite the court system being broken and many victims not even getting their day in court due to negligence(700 000 unprocessed rape kits)
I'm not sure how Don abandoning his ethics would change any of that! It's a big, scary, complex, messy issue and dragging a rape victim onto national TV to have a he said she said with her rapist for the entertainment of the masses certainly wouldn't improve anything for anyone
Note how happy he was do to the interview about the issue of rape on college campus before he was told they were also going to bring the rapist on and make it a debate
I guess the main complaint is that the episode could have been rewritten in such a way to make it not about what it was about, but to make it about ACN exposing the problem of law enforcement vis a vis rape? That I think would have actually fit in seasons 1 and 2 better. Frankly I'm not sure why Sorkin even went there
I didn't read Don as being scared of closing the door because he was worried she might cry rape. I saw that as more of trying to be courteous to someone who went through something traumatic.
And I think that the deal everyone is forgetting about the "taking away her agency" thing is that Don would still be the one in charge of producing it. Don would have his name in the credits after. And, as a reporter, he would be obligated to treat a rapist respectfully and professionally even if his gut told him that the dude was a sociopath lying through his teeth.
I followed this discussion here a bit, and kept thinking about why I didn't feel mad at the show. I read that scene and entire plotline as Don being a normal guy who, just like most other normal guys, hasn't figured out how to deal with rape culture yet. In fact, I expected him to screw this up, because most guys do. I probably would have felt worse about the episode if Don turned out to be perfect. I came out of it liking him a little less, but I found that his plotline was pretty much how you'd expect most men to act, even (or especially?) those who consider themselves intellectual progressives who should know better.
Would have been nice to see the show set a positive example, but on the other hand it fits with the entire season so far, which has started to show the characters more ambiguously.
The other thing to remember about this show is that the character have to lose, for the same reason they couldn't get the GOP debate they wanted to do and for the same reason the channel is in fourth place. Because if the show was successful, it means they made a difference. And if they made a difference, then the show no longer mirrors reality. It's supposed to represent how we wish the news works, while simultaneously dealing with the reality of what the news is actually like.
Which means that the story has to backfire. The audience knows it. Sorkin knows it. Don knows it (for different reasons).
And if you know it's going to backfire, then maybe you shouldn't do it.
Don's biggest crime is that he didn't act "professionally." But acting "professionally" also meant being sympathetic to the rapist, which he didn't want to do. It also meant being in charge of a complete train wreck.
I followed this discussion here a bit, and kept thinking about why I didn't feel mad at the show. I read that scene and entire plotline as Don being a normal guy who, just like most other normal guys, hasn't figured out how to deal with rape culture yet. In fact, I expected him to screw this up, because most guys do. I probably would have felt worse about the episode if Don turned out to be perfect. I came out of it liking him a little less, but I found that his plotline was pretty much how you'd expect most men to act, even (or especially?) those who consider themselves intellectual progressives who should know better.
Would have been nice to see the show set a positive example, but on the other hand it fits with the entire season so far, which has started to show the characters more ambiguously.
The idea that is was meant to be ambiguous seems at odd with both the presentation, the history of the show and the history of Sorkin's writing.
and how despite the court system being broken and many victims not even getting their day in court due to negligence(700 000 unprocessed rape kits)
I'm not sure how Don abandoning his ethics would change any of that! It's a big, scary, complex, messy issue and dragging a rape victim onto national TV to have a he said she said with her rapist for the entertainment of the masses certainly wouldn't improve anything for anyone
Note how happy he was do to the interview about the issue of rape on college campus before he was told they were also going to bring the rapist on and make it a debate
I guess the main complaint is that the episode could have been rewritten in such a way to make it not about what it was about, but to make it about ACN exposing the problem of law enforcement vis a vis rape? That I think would have actually fit in seasons 1 and 2 better. Frankly I'm not sure why Sorkin even went there
You took the quote out of context, missing the entire last part. Don tells her despite knowing the system is broken that she has to respect the system. Its akin to telling somebody with a broken watch that they have to act as if the time on the dial is correct.
And it wasn't that Don wanted to treat both sides equally. That's not what he said. He said that he was "morally" obligated to believe the accused rapist over the accuser. Despite the credibility of the accuser. That the rapist would get the benefit of the doubt and the accuser would be the guilty party.
Note he also said that this was how the network would treat her, how he would treat her. Not the court of Public opinion, not random trolls of the internet and twitter, but the network newsroom and the journalist mediating the debate.
The show presented this as right.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
+1
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
My issue isn't that I had a problem with how Don handled the story; I think he did absolutely right in following journalistic ethics in questioning the dangerous potential of a website like that. That's his job, and that's been this show's primary raison d'etre : re-establish and insist upon ethics in journalism. As we're seeing with the UVA rape case right now, a news organization cannot be a mouthpiece for the court of public opinion, nor can it pick sides without due diligence in investigating both sides of an argument.
No, my issue is that this is the story Sorkin wanted to tell -- how a rape survivor is being reckless and (again) how awful the new media is.
Because much like @Astaereth has already pointed out, Sorkin has this horrible habit of pointing out incredibly critical and timely issues and then self-satisfiedly wiping his hands like raising awareness is the be-all, end all. The story shouldn't be, "Oh, hey, this rape victim is being disenfranchised by the justice system so she's become one of them awful kids with the new media and she's gonna hurt someone," the story should be, "Hey, this rape victim is being systematically disenfranchised and the same thing is happening on campuses all over America and miscarriage of justice has become a fucking epidemic."
But no, Aaron. Let's build strawmen to talk more about the big bad internet and how irresponsible the New Media is again, because lord knows we haven't heard that enough by three seasons in. Oh, and while we're busy lamenting this new front of journalism, let's take great pains to make sure we don't offer any suggestions on what to do about it.
+4
Options
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I kind of disagree that pointing out a problem necessitates also pointing out a solution. Sometimes you are allowed to just be mad at a thing and come up short for knowing how to fix it.
The suggestion of "do better" has been the core of the show, and watching them get beaten mercilessly in both ratings and public opinion shows that the world doesn't actually want this kind of journalism by and large. And it is fair to say that this is not just Sorkin complaining about what would happen - proper investigative journalism is not something that brings in advertising dollars any more.
The shows raison d'etre is also the windmill, basically. It was never meant to be a success story.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
+3
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I kind of disagree that pointing out a problem necessitates also pointing out a solution. Sometimes you are allowed to just be mad at a thing and come up short for knowing how to fix it.
Yes, but we're three seasons in now, pointing out the same problem again and again, offering nothing but vague appeals to authoritarian integrity.
To keep seeing the ACN crew get their asses kicked while banging this drum makes them look, well, kinda stupid.
+1
Options
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
I kind of disagree that pointing out a problem necessitates also pointing out a solution. Sometimes you are allowed to just be mad at a thing and come up short for knowing how to fix it.
Yes, but we're three seasons in now, pointing out the same problem again and again, offering nothing but vague appeals to authoritarian integrity.
To keep seeing the ACN crew get their asses kicked while banging this drum makes them look, well, kinda stupid.
The word 'quixotic' comes to mind.
I wonder if that theme has ever come up on the show.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
0
Options
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
yeah they're meant to be idealists, I don't think it makes them stupid
also I feel they have presented an alternative/solution to the new media stuff they rail against... it's their network. what they do. don't fall for spectacle as story, report the truth later rather than bullshit now, etc.
perhaps don would realize there is a story worth telling here (atomika's bold). this doesn't make him not wanting to tell a different story incorrect.
If they were going to go with the website is reckless and Internet vigilanistm is bad they should have tied it back to the NYPost/Reddit Boston Bomber story from earlier in the season.
And it felt unnecessary since it's the penultimate episode and added nothing to the storyline other than the conclusion. And really even that was unnecessary since Sloan handled both the Internet vigilante and unsurbodination angle.
If they were going to go with the website is reckless and Internet vigilanistm is bad they should have tied it back to the NYPost/Reddit Boston Bomber story from earlier in the season.
And it felt unnecessary since it's the penultimate episode and added nothing to the storyline other than the conclusion. And really even that was unnecessary since Sloan handled both the Internet vigilante and unsurbodination angle.
It showed that 1. Pruitt is a bad idea factory and 2. He has beaten down Charlie completely. It's not just one thing. Every idea the man has is awful and counter to how a news outlet should be run.
yeah they're meant to be idealists, I don't think it makes them stupid
also I feel they have presented an alternative/solution to the new media stuff they rail against... it's their network. what they do. don't fall for spectacle as story, report the truth later rather than bullshit now, etc.
perhaps don would realize there is a story worth telling here (atomika's bold). this doesn't make him not wanting to tell a different story incorrect.
Don did want to tell the bolded, it was earlier in the episode
then he was told he had to include the rapist in it and his personal ethics insisted he give the rapist credibility if he was going to host a debate with him
Posts
first, edit and spoiler that for others pls.
watch the scenes again. "maybe he was just trying to teach you to fish" and othersuch lines are interesting moments of self-doubt and reflection.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I missed that too.
Yeah, when he was about to leave the cell Will grabbed the photo of he and his Dad and the Dad was Devil from Justified(the actor who was his cellmate). They also gave a camera shot to the still rolled up in plastic bedroll sitting on the other bed in the cell to make sure you didn't miss it.
I think you're reading way too much into this:
I'm willing to admit its far-flung, and I am not betting the farm on it.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I followed a very charismatic leader who eventually sacrificed his entire army in exchange for godhood. I escaped, but not before being branded.
alt answer: I grinded rep for years until those purples dropped.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I just watched it again on HBOGo and I'm not seeing that at all.
It was jarring the first time we watched it because we didn't see it coming, but if you go back and watch it again I think you'll see it just looks like a guy collapsing.
I thought "great reveal wow!" but synd shows me I just wasn't paying attention haha
Just about any story runs on conflict, and in Sorkin's shows there are two kinds of conflict. The first is interpersonal, between main characters, who either disagree on ideological grounds or more commonly on romantic ones; the second is societal, when the main characters collectively face outsized external conflicts which define, clarify, and inspire their interpersonal ones. On a scene by scene basis, one character is arguing with another over what to do next; on an episode to episode and season to season basis, some problem must be solved or task accomplished in a situation necessitating the argument over what to do next. The overarching plot is the foundation--the President needs to run for re-election and now we have to figure out how to do that. These are your basic building blocks of drama, at least when you're Sorkin and more interested in telling a didactic story about ideas and social constructs than in telling a character drama. That sounds snarky, but there's nothing wrong with that, as long as it's done properly. When it's not done properly, it's not typically because Sorkin forgot how to write engaging, rhythmic scenes of clever dialogue and romantic intrigue, it's because his larger conflicts are meaningless.
Case in point, the problem with The Newsroom's second season was that its main conflict was utterly, 100% toothless, an outsized external threat that didn't actually affect a damn thing--the person responsible for bringing it down wasn't part of the main cast, it didn't change how they reported the news (not until season 3, anyway), and nobody suffered consequences as a result.
I've been pretty excited each week for The Newsroom's final run, but that excitement, built on the several very good episodes that started the season, has most definitely flagged. I was excited to start with because it seemed like Sorkin had finally fixed his conflict problem by giving our heroes with internal conflicts dealt with fairly (including some honestly exciting debate about journalistic ethics that didn't seem totally didactic) and then surrounding them with an outsized external conflict that had real stakes (people might go to jail!) and didn't come out of nowhere (the situation developing through the way Neal and the others reacted). Moreover, I was simply excited to see how Sorkin would get his characters out of the tangled web of threats that faced them.
Now it's become apparent that he had no idea, either. Rather than triumphing over adversity through virtue, in this episode our heroes wait around until their problems go away on their own. Apparently insurmountable deadlines vanish, antagonists commit suicide off-screen for no apparent reason, and the fearsome specter of government simply... relents, because why not. Even the HR plotline literally ends with its antagonist going j/k lol nvmd. At this point I have no doubt that in the season finale, BJ Novak will trip and fall on a pencil, leaving nothing behind but a will which reads "Hahaha just for kicks McAvoy now owns the network" and then everyone on the cast, including Charlie, will mount literal horses and, in defiance of all logic and taste, ride into the actual motherfucking sunset. BECAUSE WHY NOT.
If there were any justice in this world, the headlines wouldn't be "Aaron Sorkin Prepares to Leave TV Forever," they'd be "Angry Mob Runs Sorkin Out of TV On a Rail."
I can't fathom anything else in that episode being terrible from a gender perspective because Sloan rocked that shit and the college scene while hard to hear...was an insanely beautiful strength position from the college female.
I loved the episode all the way through.
The impression I got from that analogy wasn't that he was talking about the website in general. He was talking about using it for revenge purposes. It provides a platform that could be used for false accusations. He focuses on that, the potential of false accusations.
So, what I took away from that conversation was that Don doesn't believe the guy. The guy raped the girl, came up with a thin half-assed story to protect himself, and Don knows this. Don must act as if the guy is innocent, though, because of journalistic ethics.
It's not about who the victim is in this or any specific case. It's about media accusations in general. Sorkin makes it clear that this girl was telling the truth. But at what point should Don stop giving the victim the benefit of the doubt? If he wasn't "sketchy", should Don automatically side with the rape victim? What if the accused had had a realistic alibi, with witnesses? What if he had proof of that alibi? At what exact point should journalists give the benefit of the doubt to the accused?
How does that play with the rest of the show, which for three seasons has been giving us the idea that journalists have a responsibility to vet information and report Truth-with-a-capital-T?
It's not about empathy, either. It's about journalistic integrity. The whole conversation made it clear that Don the Person and Don the Journalist had different feelings. Don wanted to show empathy. That's why they had the bit of dialogue where he admitted he didn't have any real point of disagreement with her. Even though Don the Person knows she's being honest, and even though he wants to show empathy, the rigorous ethics of Don the Journalist stops him.
Important to note that Don desperately did not want to engage in "rudimentary journalistic stalking."
In the couple of paragraphs discussing this, the author seems to assume that she has the right to just show up on a news channel. That's a bullshit idea that crops up whenever someone doesn't get to say exactly what they want on TV. She doesn't have a right to be on News Night any more than any other rape victim has a right to be on News Night, or anyone else who wants to air any kind of grievances (however just).
But that's beside the point because, again, Don's decision had nothing about her. That whole subplot was explicitly the result of the main cast style of journalism and the Pruitt style of journalism. When the story was initially being brought up, Don was fine with it. It was only when he was told both the accuser and the accused would be on that he disagreed with it. Pruitt wants the feeding frenzy where everyone picks a side and gets to make pithy tweets. Don wanted to present an actual, factual story. He wanted people to be informed, not entertained. He didn't make his decision because he wanted to protect the victim, he made his decision because of his journalistic ethics.
The author is really confused about the idea that the way individual characters act doesn't necessarily mean they themselves act the same way. Will is supposed to be a pompous elitist. Even though his overall "mission to civilize" is presented as a good thing, Will is not meant to be interpreted as a flawless ideal. I really don't think Sorkin was trying to literally say that you aren't a human if you don't know the difference between Harvard and Yale.
Sloan wasn't making a sudden realization. She and Don disliked the tech guys because they've had an ongoing argument about their stalker app. Nothing to do with Neal. That was just an excuse so she could get him on the show. Everything was Sloan making a perfectly human response to their actions. That's not dehumanizing at all!
And the Russian bit was just a fucking sight gag so the viewers could get a bit of a laugh at Jim's clothes.
It was glossed over because there wasn't anything anyone could realistically do about it. There were only two characters who actually knew who she was. One is in hiding in Venezuela and wasn't in the episode. And Mac couldn't exactly go around talking about it. What was Sorking supposed to do? Have Mackenzie hold a press conference with the whole crew to announce that Lily was the source and they should all send flowers to her funeral? I wouldn't exactly be surprised if they talk more about it in the final episode, either.
I agree that the AV Club misinterpreted that one, but I still think Sorkin is being insensitive by showing Don as more concerned about false accusations ruining a boy's life than rape ruining a girl's--and especially by putting that "This time I'll win" in there at the end.
It's definitely one of the running themes of The Newsroom that Sorkin thinks the news should basically act like a courtroom. I disagree with him. The news should be held to a certain standard but that standard is not and should not be as strenuous as that of a courtroom--for one thing, the stakes are lower. (Yes, the media can be damaging; but not as damaging as the power to imprison or execute.) Courtroom evidence is presented by a prosecutor (McAvoy, to Sorkin) and evaluated by a jury (the media audience), but the rules of what evidence to include or not include are different in journalism (in a courtroom, evidence is presented as long as it was obtained in good faith and isn't overly prejudicial or irrelevant; in a newsroom, "evidence" is presented as long as two independent sources are willing to confirm it and the presenters believe it has "value", whether informationally or as entertainment) and on News Night McAvoy is also the judge (along with his producers). Nor does a newsroom include such safeguards as appeals processes, jury instructions, impartial observers, equal time for both sides, or even a defense counsel.
Basically, Sorkin can't have it both ways. Either journalism should be held to courtroom standards, in which case it makes far more sense for the news to put on both sides of the story and let the jury/audience decide whether the accused rapist or the self-proclaimed victim are more credible; or journalism includes an element of subjectivity and personal bias, something which The Newsroom itself argued strenuously for in its first season. Courtroom "objectivity" is how you end up with "Democrats, Republicans Disagree on Shape of Earth", right? I was much more in favor of journalists openly taking a principled stand and speaking truth to power than I am of journalists deciding that as long as they can't prove an accused rapist committed the crime it's okay to put him on the show.
(Note that it's entirely possible that the outcome of Don saying, "I couldn't get the accuser for this rapist/rape victim segment" is that only the rapist goes on the air.)
Honestly? Other than the awkward business of asking an alleged criminal and his accuser to share the same room, having two people on at the same time to talk about each other is far more ethical than giving either one of them a solo mouthpiece. If you can't prove anything, and you can't because it hasn't gone to trial (and won't), you can at least "teach the controversy." The truth here is not knowable for these journalists, but the situation is still newsworthy and ignoring it isn't necessarily the right way to go, either.
The problem here is that the show, and Don, present this as the victim's choice. "Hey, I'm going to tell you what you're in for and I'm hoping you'll decide not to do this. Because my bosses are the ones calling the shots here, you are the only person with the power to change or ensure this scenario." Then when she makes her decision, he realizes he has a way to invalidate it. It's an unfortunate set-up that plays into everything else Sorkin has done poorly when it comes to writing women with agency.
By the time the episode ended there were five characters who knew who the source was--Will, Mac, Neal, Will's lawyer, and the government agent. Will and Mac could have had a scene discussing the suicide, or it could have been part of the scene where Will once again refuses to give up the source. We could have seen the source commit suicide, even, in a scene that might have helped us understand why it happened and, even more importantly, feel something for a character.
But the issue is less that the suicide is glossed over and more that it's first and foremost an out of nowhere way for Sorkin to drop a plotline he couldn't figure out how to resolve meaningfully. The last time we saw the source, she's threatening to go public; then Mac goes public first, giving the story to the AP. We don't hear anything about the story itself (because it's a MacGuffin that apparently nobody gives a shit about when it's not their scoop) or how this affected the source. Maybe she was depressed because the story got reported and nobody was immediately arrested. Maybe Mac feels guilty for inadvertently causing a suicide. Who knows? I don't, because apparently none of it mattered. What matters is that somewhere, somehow, people are tweeting and it has to be stopped.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
That's fine, but that's a separate point of disagreement and has nothing to do with gender issues.
I disagree with that. You talk quite a bit about the possibility that Don's action means the rapist now gets to present his side of the story without any kind of opposition. There's no way that could possibly happen. Nobody wanted that. Don obviously didn't. And Pruitt wanted both sides to be on, so that people could go in and pick sides and create controversy. Without the victim going on, Pruitt wouldn't have been able to get his way and there's no reason to get the rapist on in the first place. No one would've gotten a "solo mouthpiece".
He was presenting it as the victim's choice because he was forced to. He was clearly divided on the subject, and having her say no was the only way he could get out of the segment while keeping his job. Later, he decided that it would be worth risking his job. The conflict is, once again, between Don the Person and Don the Journalist rather than between Don and the victim. Everything was a result of Don's inner conflict and the conflict between the News Night staff with Pruitt. It advanced the theme and the plot of the show. Yes, it means that here decision was ultimately ignored. Tough shit. People's decisions get ignored all the time, and it's not sexist for Sorkin to portray that.
Again, the show's not over yet. As synd said, I think it's certainly reasonable that she would kill herself. I dislike how the whole Lily character has mostly been purely as a plot mover. She shows up every now and then, says a few lines to force the plot to move along, and then disappears again. If nothing happens in the last episode about her, I'll be unhappy. But, hey, I haven't seen the last episode yet and it's not fair to make that kind of assumption.
The episode ended right as Will got out of jail. I'm not sure how they would've included it in the scene between Will and the prosecutor. Will was almost certainly lying about knowing who the source was. Whether he did actually know or not, it's not like he was going to chat about it. Will's lawyer certainly wouldn't have casually started talking about the suicide in the middle of an interrogation. Why would she have? She's just there to facilitate the conversation, not to take part beyond her duties as Will's lawyer. The DoJ lawyer talked about it a bit professionally, and got rebuffed. There's no reason for him to talk personally about it with Will. They're not buddies.
I really doubt that Will and Mac would've talked about it when Will was in jail. And then he only got out at the end of the episode. What was Sorkin supposed to do? Have Mackenzie in tears, hugging Will, and then say "Charlie had a heart attack and died... but let's talk about Lily's suicide." I'm gonna guess that it wasn't exactly a major concern at the moment.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-newsroom-crazy-making-campus-rape-episode
http://time.com/3620882/listen-here-internet-girl-the-newsroom-rapesplains-it-all/
Most of them tell it better then I would.
Then there is his bullshit "sanctity of the writers room" response he uses against the female writer that tweeted that she opposed the storyline.
I mean every DVD writers commentary, every interview about the writing process he has ever given doesn't violated it, but her tweet talking about how he kicked her out when she said it was a bad story was? Sorkin has made a goddamn prime time television series about the goings on in the writers room(Studio 60).
I guess it means when a rape explains something like mansplain
anyway, that multiple people wrote articles in reaction is not damning to me at all. they mentioned rape, I knew immediately some people would be upset. people are absolutely awful at separating what a given character says from what the overall point of the story is
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Especially since the story is all about how rape victim is using the internet to hit back at her rapists.
That is a famous shtick for Sorkin. Its not so much "somebody is wrong on the Internet" XKCD meme as it is "somebody is using the internet and that is wrong".
The AVClub write-up is awful though. AVClub's kind of gotten weird about Newsroom in general though. Like they start from this "Everything that happens on this show is terrible" viewpoint, where for some reason it's assumed that every single word that comes out of a named character's mouth is supposed to be the Gospel according to Sorkin.
Like, it very much wasn't meant to be a comprehensive argument about law and prosecution surrounding rape victims, it was meant to be talking about media coverage surrounding rape victims.
and how Journalists have to be like a court and treat every accused rapist as innocent until proven otherwise and call rape victims liars.
and how despite the court system being broken and many victims not even getting their day in court due to negligence(700 000 unprocessed rape kits), the victims should obey the non-existent findings of the system and just let their rapist move on with their lives unhindered.
And how 50 women calling out their rapist is wrong because one of them is lying.
And since they are innocent until proven guilty the other 49 real rapist are just as much victims of false accusations as guy number 50 in Don's eyes.
Or what's the alternative?
There's a lot of whining going on here and I'm ... not sure why.
I'm not sure how Don abandoning his ethics would change any of that! It's a big, scary, complex, messy issue and dragging a rape victim onto national TV to have a he said she said with her rapist for the entertainment of the masses certainly wouldn't improve anything for anyone
Note how happy he was do to the interview about the issue of rape on college campus before he was told they were also going to bring the rapist on and make it a debate
I guess the main complaint is that the episode could have been rewritten in such a way to make it not about what it was about, but to make it about ACN exposing the problem of law enforcement vis a vis rape? That I think would have actually fit in seasons 1 and 2 better. Frankly I'm not sure why Sorkin even went there
And I think that the deal everyone is forgetting about the "taking away her agency" thing is that Don would still be the one in charge of producing it. Don would have his name in the credits after. And, as a reporter, he would be obligated to treat a rapist respectfully and professionally even if his gut told him that the dude was a sociopath lying through his teeth.
Would have been nice to see the show set a positive example, but on the other hand it fits with the entire season so far, which has started to show the characters more ambiguously.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
Which means that the story has to backfire. The audience knows it. Sorkin knows it. Don knows it (for different reasons).
And if you know it's going to backfire, then maybe you shouldn't do it.
Don's biggest crime is that he didn't act "professionally." But acting "professionally" also meant being sympathetic to the rapist, which he didn't want to do. It also meant being in charge of a complete train wreck.
The idea that is was meant to be ambiguous seems at odd with both the presentation, the history of the show and the history of Sorkin's writing.
You took the quote out of context, missing the entire last part. Don tells her despite knowing the system is broken that she has to respect the system. Its akin to telling somebody with a broken watch that they have to act as if the time on the dial is correct.
And it wasn't that Don wanted to treat both sides equally. That's not what he said. He said that he was "morally" obligated to believe the accused rapist over the accuser. Despite the credibility of the accuser. That the rapist would get the benefit of the doubt and the accuser would be the guilty party.
Note he also said that this was how the network would treat her, how he would treat her. Not the court of Public opinion, not random trolls of the internet and twitter, but the network newsroom and the journalist mediating the debate.
The show presented this as right.
No, my issue is that this is the story Sorkin wanted to tell -- how a rape survivor is being reckless and (again) how awful the new media is.
Because much like @Astaereth has already pointed out, Sorkin has this horrible habit of pointing out incredibly critical and timely issues and then self-satisfiedly wiping his hands like raising awareness is the be-all, end all. The story shouldn't be, "Oh, hey, this rape victim is being disenfranchised by the justice system so she's become one of them awful kids with the new media and she's gonna hurt someone," the story should be, "Hey, this rape victim is being systematically disenfranchised and the same thing is happening on campuses all over America and miscarriage of justice has become a fucking epidemic."
But no, Aaron. Let's build strawmen to talk more about the big bad internet and how irresponsible the New Media is again, because lord knows we haven't heard that enough by three seasons in. Oh, and while we're busy lamenting this new front of journalism, let's take great pains to make sure we don't offer any suggestions on what to do about it.
The suggestion of "do better" has been the core of the show, and watching them get beaten mercilessly in both ratings and public opinion shows that the world doesn't actually want this kind of journalism by and large. And it is fair to say that this is not just Sorkin complaining about what would happen - proper investigative journalism is not something that brings in advertising dollars any more.
The shows raison d'etre is also the windmill, basically. It was never meant to be a success story.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Yes, but we're three seasons in now, pointing out the same problem again and again, offering nothing but vague appeals to authoritarian integrity.
To keep seeing the ACN crew get their asses kicked while banging this drum makes them look, well, kinda stupid.
The word 'quixotic' comes to mind.
I wonder if that theme has ever come up on the show.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
also I feel they have presented an alternative/solution to the new media stuff they rail against... it's their network. what they do. don't fall for spectacle as story, report the truth later rather than bullshit now, etc.
perhaps don would realize there is a story worth telling here (atomika's bold). this doesn't make him not wanting to tell a different story incorrect.
If they were going to go with the website is reckless and Internet vigilanistm is bad they should have tied it back to the NYPost/Reddit Boston Bomber story from earlier in the season.
And it felt unnecessary since it's the penultimate episode and added nothing to the storyline other than the conclusion. And really even that was unnecessary since Sloan handled both the Internet vigilante and unsurbodination angle.
It showed that 1. Pruitt is a bad idea factory and 2. He has beaten down Charlie completely. It's not just one thing. Every idea the man has is awful and counter to how a news outlet should be run.
Don did want to tell the bolded, it was earlier in the episode
then he was told he had to include the rapist in it and his personal ethics insisted he give the rapist credibility if he was going to host a debate with him