Aaron Sorkin [June 27 - July 1, 2011]

Monday June 27, 2011 – Todd Sodano (St. John Fisher College) presents: Say What, Sorkin?

Tuesday June 28, 2011 – Richard Newton (Claremont Graduate University)  presents: President Bartlet’s Bully Pulpit

Wednesday June 29, 2011 – Janet McCabe (Birkbeck, University of London) presents: Sorkin Lives: Mediating the post-9-11 US political mind in The West Wing

Thursday June 30, 2011 – Kelli Marshall (Independent Scholar) presents: Aaron Sorkin’s Elite Smart Girls (or Lack Thereof)

Friday July 1, 2011 – Pamela Ingleton (McMaster University) presents: Lacking “honesty” and “a human quality”: Sorkin and the Anti-Social Network

Theme week organized by Noel Kirkpatrick (Georgia State University).

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  Say What, Sorkin? by Todd Sodano

Over the last twenty years, serialized television programs have grown in number and sophistication. Some of these “narratively complex” series (Mittell, 2006), which include The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire, Lost, and Breaking Bad, have rarely used what Steven Johnson calls “flashing arrows” to “help the audience keep track of what’s going on” across episodes and seasons (Johnson, 2005, p. 73). However, West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin stealthily embraces and subverts this traditional narrative device through his unconventional yet familiar technique.

“Two Cathedrals,” the season two finale and one of the finest hours of prime-time television, typifies this contrast. President Josiah Bartlet attends the funeral for his longtime secretary, publicly announces he has multiple sclerosis, and deliberates over seeking re-election. Because his characters’ conversations can be so rapid, dense, and layered, and because his storylines often traverse several episodes, Sorkin dialogically tries to mitigate viewers’ confusion.

The accompanying video shows the numerous moments from “Two Cathedrals” when characters repeat themselves to their fellow interlocutors because they were not understood the first time. Through a unique application of “flashing arrows,” Sorkin has his characters acknowledge their incomprehension – by uttering, “I’m sorry?” “Hmmm?” “Excuse me?” “What?” – so the audience can hear again an important piece of dialogue.

While we can assume that no one from these scenes is hard-of-hearing, the reasons the characters repeat themselves are purposeful: one, they maintain momentum that suits the fast-paced workplace environment cultivated aurally and visually by Sorkin’s dialogue and by director Thomas Schlamme’s famous “walk-and-talks”; two, the repeated lines serve as natural transitions between scenes; three, Sorkin obviates the need for expository dialogue that often dumbs down television series (e.g., when a character might say, “Explain it to me like I’m a four-year-old …” or “Are you trying to tell me that …”); four, he draws attention more pointedly to what the characters are saying; five, the dialogue foreshadows critical moments ahead.

The West Wing is justly recognized as one of the most well-crafted series in television history. However, this industry-praised (four consecutive Outstanding Drama Series Emmys) and critically acclaimed show that evinced narrative complexity also modified an old-fashioned trope that is often applied to minimize it.

Johnson, S. (2005). Everything bad is good for you. New York: Riverhead Books.

Mittell, J. (Fall 2006). Narrative complexity in contemporary American television. The velvet light trap, 58, 29-40.

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  President Bartlet’s Bully Pulpit by Richard Newton

In Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, Josiah Bartlet holds the office of President of the United States. But in a show that portrays the drama of partisan gridlock, Bartlet also resides as leader of the Democratic Party.

The following two clips show Martin Sheen paying homage to noteworthy liberals. The soft Kennedy “R,” the piety of Jimmy Carter, the folksy wit of Bill Clinton—Sorkin imbues the fictional president with the traits of the 20th century’s great leftists. Avid followers of the show know that Bartlet suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and adopts the cane and wheelchair present in some of FDR’s iconic poses (1:15). What does Sorkin intend to convey by this? The fictional president’s name suggests the writer’s intent.

Josiah was the name of one of Israel’s kings in the Old Testament.  The kingdom of Judah had fallen into chaos because its rulers had done evil in the sight of the Lord, But Josiah restored the kingdom’s famed glory by finding the Temple Scroll and following it faithfully. Like the kingly prophets of old, Sorkin’s president wields scroll (1:30) and scripture to rebuke those who have lost sight of righteousness.

Josiah Barlet’s more direct namesake is Josiah Bartlett, a delegate to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Bartlet and Bartlett both served the New Hampshire governorship. Viewers are reminded throughout the show’s seven seasons that Bartlet’s patriotism is a family affair.

Thus, Barlet stands as an ideal liberal interlocutor, charged with the role of countering the Christian Right’s monopoly on God and country. The 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton spurred Republican moralism. And to quote a contemporaneous episode of Sorkin’s Sports Night, “A lot of folks [were] running in that direction.” But the Commander in Chief called the Left to arms; Sorkin presented a Democrat who was more Christian and more American than the GOP could ever imagine.

In the last few years the Bartlet Legacy has experienced a resurgence. Maureen Dowd invited Sorkin to “conjure a meeting” between Senator Obama and Bartlet. It was September 2008 and down in the polls, the candidate visits Sorkin’s Deus ex Machina for counsel. And today, 15,000 enjoy similar exchanges with @pres_bartlet. Sermons from Bartlet’s bully pulpit resound, and fans are still listening.

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  Sorkin Lives: Mediating the … by Janet McCabe

It was an entire season before The West Wing offered its most powerful and eloquent response to the lingering trauma of 9/11, following its initial ‘storytelling aberration’ less than a month after the terrorist attacks. Aaron Sorkin may have ushered in a rhetorical style rarely before heard on network TV, but he did so using language and dramaturgy deeply entangled in concerns of US politics and cultural identity.

The season four opener (“20 Hours in America”) finds President ‘Jed’ Bartlet returning from the campaign trail (leaving three other colleagues stranded in the American mid-West) to news that pipe bombs were detonated during a ‘swim meet’ at the fictional Kennison State University, killing 44 people and wounding over a hundred. Paralleling the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, this act of domestic terrorism involving troubled teens moves deputy communications director, Sam Seborn to write an electrifying sermon of national unity.

Building toward narrative catharsis illustrated in the clip is common to The West Wing. The use of the sound bridge — the rumbling, mournful, tones of Tori Amos’ singing “I Don’t Like Mondays” — ties together different spaces, locations and time zones. Escalating toward Bartlet delivering his speech with dialogue crafted for effect, language used like musical notation, with a rhythm, clarity and image of its own.

Adroit wordplay with a precise staccato rhythm defined how politics was communicated in The West Wing (especially in the first 4 seasons). President Bartlet led by the power of words. His oratory had a symphony-like structure to it, functioning, as Sorkin describes, like ‘solos’; and, as this sequence illustrates, the scene moves from the ensemble (assembled around different television screens, echoing how 9/11 played out); and advances toward the solo, in which the President through soaring eloquence offers patriarchal benediction.

Patriotism and promise—woven into the fabric of this speech are threads of the American rhetorical tradition. Redemption is preached with scriptural passion. This is the old-fashioned art of US political oratory stretching from John F. Kennedy to Abraham Lincoln and as far back as the farmers who made revolution. Within the DNA of this speech are traces of how language is used to talk about what it fundamentally means to be American. Sorkin understood only too well how words and texts have the force to reform politics, even change government—something indeed a little known Senator from Illinois also appreciated.

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  Aaron Sorkin’s Elite Smart Girls (or … by Kelli Marshall

Almost immediately after its release, The Social Network came under fire for its limiting and misogynistic portrayals of women. Most harsh were writers for Jezebel, The Daily Beast, and EW who identified the film’s female characters as set pieces, “nearly naked scenery at parties, bimbo potheads, and mini-skirt-wearing interns.” By the time the Golden Globes rolled around, such grumbling had mostly died down, the hubbub shifting instead to the two-horse Best Picture race between said Facebook movie and The King’s Speech. As a result, the “vengeful sluts and feminist killjoys” scattered throughout The Social Network no longer occupied the forefront of viewers’ minds—that is, until the film’s screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, took center stage.

In his acceptance speech for Best Screenplay, Sorkin (understandably) thanks The Social Network’s distributors, producers, director, and cast. But the last 15 seconds, he devotes to the evening’s Best Actress nominees and his 11-year-old daughter: “I want to thank all the female nominees tonight for helping demonstrate to my young daughter that eliteis not a bad word; it’s an aspirational one. Honey, look around. Smart girls have more fun, and you’re one of them.”

Sorkin’s shout-out to the industry’s “elite smart girls” (apparently represented by Natalie Portman whose visage is crosscut with shots of Sorkin) diverges from the remainder of his speech; thus, it seems odd and out of place, an incongruity which ultimately led viewers to examine the screenwriter’s intent. While some interpreted Sorkin’s words as empowering, a devoted father emphasizing intellect over beauty and body shape, many viewers read the statement as a weak act of contrition, a screenwriter trying to apologize for The Social Network’s one-dimensional female characters or lack thereof. For example, Christopher Watson believes Sorkin was just “trying to get his feminism card reinstated.” Similarly, Melissa Silverstein calls the speech “disingenuous,” adding that Sorkin shouldn’t have to use “other strong women in the room to compensate for the sexism in his film” (see also Vulture, several folks on Twitter).

Unquestionably, The Social Network features some women as “sluts, stalkers, and ballbusters,” but in the context of narrative/character motivation, are there theoretically valid reasons for this? Furthermore, what do we make of all the complex, feminist female characters that fill the remainder of Sorkin’s oeuvre (The West Wing, Studio 60, Sports Night, The American President, A Few Good Men)?

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  Lacking “honesty” and “a human … by Pamela Ingleton

As often occurs with mass-interview publicity tours for high-profile films, in promoting The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin became quite repetitive, insisting upon two particular points with respect to the film and its (presumed) subject matter, i.e. Facebook: first, that “the Facebook movie” is, in fact, an old-fashioned tale of greed and betrayal (Sorkin and others consistently liken it to Greek or Shakespearean tragedy), and second, that the disconnect depicted in the film between the two main characters (Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg, portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, and Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield) is indicative of the alienation and dehumanization of all social media participants. The first two to three minutes of the provided clip exemplify this second point, with Sorkin doling out what he terms an unsophisticated opinion of social media, deeming it “insincere,” dishonest, inhuman and disruptive to sociality and community.

Sorkin’s comments (admittedly not those of an Internet/social media user) are representative of a more widespread tendency in assessments of, and broader arguments against, “social media” (proposed by, for example, Malcolm Gladwell and, in a piece responding to The Social Network itself, Zadie Smith), whereby these media are characterized as disingenuous spaces, lacking a rather vaguely delineated “humanity.” At stake in this argument for Sorkin, perhaps, is a need to defend his more “traditional” art form, resulting in “a movie about 2.0 people made by 1.0 people” (Smith). That new guard Zuckerberg and Facebook could possibly represent the end of old guard Sorkin and Columbia Pictures is perhaps among the chief oppositions at the heart of the film.

The Social Network and Sorkin’s extratextual commentary around it (in interviews, DVD special features, award acceptance speeches, etc.) joins the lament of the social-media naysayers (whom Adam Gopnik wittily refers to as the “Better-Nevers”) over an apparently novel lost humanity, as if ignorant of the comparable mournings of a hollow modernism or pastiched postmodernism, for starters. This unclear, untenable humanist framework adopted by Sorkin and Better-Never critics is an idealistic crutch, a tired, recycled critique of “man” and “technology,” instead of an in-depth consideration of the specifics. In The Social Network, Facebook becomes merely the story’s macguffin. To paraphrase his own Zuckerberg iteration, if Sorkin had wanted to make a movie about Facebook, he would have made a movie about Facebook. Instead he has created a “classic” film about “humanity” for a generation he contends is losing theirs.