Re: Actual "Commander In Chief" Dialogue:


"Rick" <sigma957@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4vmdnS7Al5i5Oc7eRVn-pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Donna B" <shallotpeel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:if04l1tnlgh79vephqf9h6csq4ncpingd8@xxxxxxxxxx
>> In rec.arts.tv on Sun, 16 Oct 2005 03:11:15 -0400 in Msg.#
>> <r2n4f.1$GH1.226@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Taylor <taylor.taylor@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> But if you look at it, IS IT really so ridiculous? Imagine a weekday
>>> morning during the first year of Clinton's Presidency and imagine a
>>> 14-year-old Chelsea sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast as
>>> Bill enters the room. Chelsea asks her father: What do you have to do
>>> today, Daddy? Bill replies: I'm going to address the nation tonight.
>>> It's possible for a President and their child to have such a convo.
>>
>> It was a part of the ongoing theme. She was afraid to talk to her mother
>> &
>> ask to get to go back to private school but got up her nerve, only for it
>> to
>> be a REALLY bad time to ask for anything!! Excellent dialogue. People who
>> don't see that really shouldn't be watching the show because they don't
>> get
>> what it's about. And, I would argue that there is a definite sense of the
>> ironic to much of this.
>>
>> --
> I get the sense it's stupid writing or bad acting or a combo.
>

I'd blame bad writing. The actors, Geena Davis, Donald Sutherland, Kyle
Secor, Harry Lennix and Peter Coyote, are good to great actors, and do their
best with what they're given. They almost make it work, but the writing
undermines them--worse the writing is so hamhanded it makes it hard to like
even when you agree with the "point" being made.

It's like the movie ERIN BROCKOVICH. Julia Roberts was supposed to heroic
because she stood up to everyone--except everyone else backed down. How
"heroic" is it when everyone is so cowed by you that they don't put up a
real fight? Where's the struggle? Fictional heroes are only as good as the
opposition they face. If the opposition is so obvious, so one-dimensional,
so clear that any support they get is only by editorial fiat, it's makes Our
Heroes' victory seem kinda hollow.

Classic case is Star Wars. The sides were as clear as black and white and
yet there was some gray, you could see the appeal of order, structure,
security of the Empire, even the evil seductive appeal of the power.

The same was true of Lord of the Rings. Use the One Ring to bring order and
justice to all of Middle-Earth--and conveniently it's under your rule.

In short, there has to be something of appeal to the opposition--if said
opposition is sentient (as opposed to forces of natures, diseases, animals
or machines run amok).

-- Ken from Chicago


.