Friday, November 07, 2003
From today's NYT:
And by making Mr. Rehaief the story's hero, the filmmakers avoid having to make up details about Private Lynch's ordeal or delivering too jingoistic a paean to American military prowess. Troops in the field are shown to be brave and true, but their bosses back home are not. The Bush administration's efforts to capitalize on the rescue operation are invoked obliquely.
And this is surprising? Seems perfectly natural to me! The Iraqis are all heroes, where have you been? It would be highly unusual for NBC or any network television station to run a drama that shows the US as anything like "the good guy". After all, we must be objective, mustn't we? And "objective" in Media Land means what most people term "treason": badmouthing your country and lionizing the enemy. Far be it from me to suggest that Mr. Rehaief does not deserve credit for his actions, but if an American had done what he did, it would be whitewashed over as quickly as possible. It's a horrible thing to our media to be seen as patriotic. Remember when it used to be a virtue?
That being said, I tend to agree with the writer's final analysis of the docudramas airing this weekend (CBS' "The Elizabeth Smart Story" and NBC's "Saving Jessica Lynch"--talk about original titles, good grief!). Alessandra Stanley comments, "It goes without saying that both "Saving Jessica Lynch" and "The Elizabeth Smart Story" are shameless attempts by the networks to capitalize on real-life horror stories." Yes, unfortunately to most people in media, making money and getting high ratings are all they really care about, and they'll do that anyway they can. Still, what is wrong about them telling us some good news for a change? The NYT certainly has not been printing much of that lately--unless you count federal judges reversing the death sentence reprieve for millions of half-born babies as good news. How odd. It's perfectly constitutional to force hundreds of older companies to pay big money to control their emissions into the atmosphere, even if it hurts their business; but let one abortion provider say it can't do its job without partial birth abortions, and the media and the courts bend over backwards to allow them to continue. Anyone else see the double standard here? Maybe we would be better off watching the docudramas than reading the newspaper: at least there we get to pretend that is still chic to save life rather than destroy it.
And by making Mr. Rehaief the story's hero, the filmmakers avoid having to make up details about Private Lynch's ordeal or delivering too jingoistic a paean to American military prowess. Troops in the field are shown to be brave and true, but their bosses back home are not. The Bush administration's efforts to capitalize on the rescue operation are invoked obliquely.
And this is surprising? Seems perfectly natural to me! The Iraqis are all heroes, where have you been? It would be highly unusual for NBC or any network television station to run a drama that shows the US as anything like "the good guy". After all, we must be objective, mustn't we? And "objective" in Media Land means what most people term "treason": badmouthing your country and lionizing the enemy. Far be it from me to suggest that Mr. Rehaief does not deserve credit for his actions, but if an American had done what he did, it would be whitewashed over as quickly as possible. It's a horrible thing to our media to be seen as patriotic. Remember when it used to be a virtue?
That being said, I tend to agree with the writer's final analysis of the docudramas airing this weekend (CBS' "The Elizabeth Smart Story" and NBC's "Saving Jessica Lynch"--talk about original titles, good grief!). Alessandra Stanley comments, "It goes without saying that both "Saving Jessica Lynch" and "The Elizabeth Smart Story" are shameless attempts by the networks to capitalize on real-life horror stories." Yes, unfortunately to most people in media, making money and getting high ratings are all they really care about, and they'll do that anyway they can. Still, what is wrong about them telling us some good news for a change? The NYT certainly has not been printing much of that lately--unless you count federal judges reversing the death sentence reprieve for millions of half-born babies as good news. How odd. It's perfectly constitutional to force hundreds of older companies to pay big money to control their emissions into the atmosphere, even if it hurts their business; but let one abortion provider say it can't do its job without partial birth abortions, and the media and the courts bend over backwards to allow them to continue. Anyone else see the double standard here? Maybe we would be better off watching the docudramas than reading the newspaper: at least there we get to pretend that is still chic to save life rather than destroy it.
// posted by The Pendragon @ 7:01 AM 
