I wrote this in 2009 also – mid second term of George W Bush.Not that I’d ever had any doubt, but it was gratifying to see others catch on to the fact that the Dixie Chicks had been right all along.
When does a comedy-drama become a satire-driven reality parody?
Answer: when it’s Boston Legal.
Quality film and television generated from within the US has a proud tradition of being open and frank in its sometimes blatant criticism of the government and, what it (or its makers) perceive to be, evolving social, cultural and ethical evils.
Cometh the time, cometh the men ~ and the women ~ of Boston Legal.
At a time when few would argue that the US has hit an all time low in world popularity, with the US military ~ having learned nothing from the debacle that was Vietnam and who couldn’t win a game of rock, paper, scissors in Iraq ~ are starring in a remake of Apocalypse Now, and the Oval Office and it’s evangelising, flat earth, square peg resident being reduced to a laughing stock albeit a very scary one, the US people are the international losers.
Who, after all, can take seriously a nation that voted for George W Bush, not once but twice?
Who can take seriously a nation of fundamentalist Christians who believe HIV/AIDS can be beaten by abstinence education alone, who believe that marriage is a right from which same sex loving couples should be legally excluded but who believe, with equal vehemence, that every citizen has the right to carry a gun? Who hasn’t read the literalist’s tag ‘the Bible condones war’?
Who can take seriously a nation with such thinly disguised ambitions in oil producing countries, claiming a desire for democratic government in the Middle East while the basic human rights of US citizens are eroded daily at home in the name of homeland security?
Clearly ~ and thank a loving God ~ not the makers of Boston Legal!
In what is often an avalanche of gut-wrenchingly funny satire each character (courageously) barracks for the rest of the world with open war declared on the Supreme Court, barbaric prostitution laws, all contenders for Bush’s (somewhat damp) Oval Office chair, each of the major political parties, the war in Iraq, the law, the dumbing down of the US and in particular the farce that is Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ fiasco.
The churches get a pasting too ~ especially the fundamentalist Christians and the traditionalist Catholics ~ and the constitution is seemingly fair game at all times with the NRA well represented by Denny Crane (William Shatner) in the now permanent absence of Moses himself, Charlton Heston. When did one actor ever get to carry so much firepower concealed in a Versini suit and ~ to such devastating effect!
Actors have always been in the forefront when it comes to expressions of community outrage, often causing the early demise of their careers. The McCarthy era, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, Robin Williams, George Clooney and others have frequently stood up against the establishment often to their own detriment – and God love them for doing so. Perhaps one should say ‘only in America, the land of the free’ but the truth rides quite a different horse.
And why is Boston Legal so outrageous? Simply because it has to be to bluntly make its point. The US has become such a gross parody of itself that to satirise it the show must go to lengths previously considered unnecessary. To think that it’s such a few short years since we were shocked by the words ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’, when we were astounded by M*A*S*H and Good Morning Vietnam. It seems nothing compared with the 8 years of the Bush administration and the lies about weapons of mass destruction, the Florida election and ‘winning the war’ in Iraq.
Still, Boston Legal gives us hope that at least artists remember what freedom of speech is all about and, in the hands of some of the most impressive actors of our era, this voice is certainly being heard throughout the rest of the world. Let’s hope it’s not being missed in the US too.
Postscript: The principle concern must be the knowledge that everyday Americans are as concerned as we in the free world are.
With an 82% disapproval rating for where the country is headed let’s hope the answer is ‘towards truth, towards humanity and compassion, to a time when the most powerful nation on earth uses its power for a common good and to inspire in a way we can all applaud.’
The cynics amongst us, however, aren’t optimistic when the choice of leader is between a political infant touting some substanceless ‘change’ and a Vietnam vet who calls everyone ‘friend’.
dykiegirl 