Why is it that conservative characters on prime time television, what few of them there are, almost always end up "evolving" into fuzzy liberals? "Entertainment Weekly" columnist Mark Harris asked that very question in the current issue of the media magazine [Emphasis added]:
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: I would like to see more conservative Republicans on TV. Fictional ones, that is. As a member of the self-deluding Eastern liberal politically correct media elite (so my reader mail tells me), I would like to learn more about the opposition. The problem is, they keep going soft on me. Last fall, TV promised us two conservatives: Kitty Walker on ABC's Brothers & Sisters, and Harriet Hayes on NBC's now-shelved Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Kitty was supposed to be a brash, Ann Coulter-like firebrand in a family of whole-grain blue-staters, and deeply religious Harriet was going to redress the injustices done to people of faith by godless showbiz types. As each series has unfolded, both women have been portrayed as multidimensional, sensitive human beings. Not incidentally, they seem to be turning into liberals.
In the case of Studio 60, it's not surprising. Aaron Sorkin, the show's creator, is a liberal. As a West Wing fan, I already knew that, but I didn't realize he was so liberal that he would harvest ex-girlfriend Kristin Chenoweth's stem cells and clone a fictional version of her to make a point. Harriet (played by Sarah Paulson) is the comic center of Studio 60's show within a show. She is also a devout Christian in an industry that, we are constantly told, mocks belief in God. It must be true, because poor Harriet is forever saying things like ''My faith is important to me and I don't apologize for that!'' before going on to defend free speech, gay rights, and a sketch making fun of fundamentalists.
The problem with Harriet is that she exists only to disprove an argument that nobody made in the first place. Sorkin has set up a straw man — the idea that ''liberals'' hate ''Christians'' — and then given us a spanking by creating a Christian character so open-minded that only a fool would oppose her. When the writers on Studio 60's version of SNL are working on a Christmas sketch, one complains ''Christmas is a sham!'' and we're supposed to realize, ''We liberals just don't get it.'' But what if Harriet actually said aloud that gay people are immoral, that abortion is murder, that illegal immigrants should be deported, or even that she's for school prayer? What if she espoused positions that some viewers find intolerant? We'll never know, since Harriet isn't permitted to say anything potentially offensive. She's just there to remind us all to play nice.
Hungry for nastiness, I turned to Brothers & Sisters and Calista Flockhart. Now, I understand why the show's writers couldn't make Kitty too Coulteresque; digital bat-wings and gargoyle horns are way too expensive to use in a series every week.
Early on, Kitty did sound conservative. She said things like ''I am tough on crime, America first, old-fashioned, and in-your-face'' (as opposed to, I guess, weak on crime, America last, newfangled, and shy). Since then, her politics have, shall we say, evolved. When Kitty learned her baby brother was about to be sent to Iraq, she tried to pull strings to keep him from going, then apologized on TV for supporting the war in the first place. Recently, another brother — the gay one — has fought Kitty's decision to work for a Republican senator (Rob Lowe). The senator voted for the anti-gay marriage amendment. Of course, he's sorry he did: He supports gay civil unions and voted the party line only so he'd save his education bill.
Despite Harris’ own liberalism and his inability to refrain from taking a swipe at Ann Coulter, he does make a good point about TV conservatives. Why do these fictional right-wingers end up spouting liberal talking points? Could it be that "tolerant" Hollywood finds it difficult to write sympathetic characters who hold a non-leftist position?
The MRC has covered this topic before. The ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters," which Mr. Harris mentioned, featured a conservative character who, only a month after the show aired, began sounding like a liberal. From the November 20, 2006 CyberAlert:
It took ABC until just the ninth episode of its new Sunday night drama, Brothers & Sisters, to have its sole conservative character "grow" -- as they say of conservatives who move to the left -- from a pro-war right-winger to a critic of the Iraq war who declared it "a mistake." The show evolves around the "Walkers," a southern California family of two adult sisters and three adult brothers with Sally Field playing "Nora," the liberal widowed matriarch who regularly clashes with daughter "Kitty," the conservative half of a left/right daily TV show, played by Calista Flockhart.
Additionally, an April 2005 CyberAlert chronicled the aforementioned "West Wing" and its GOP dream candidate, a "pro-choice," "pro-environment" liberal:
Hollywood' ideal Republican President, as brought to life two weeks ago by NBC's The West Wing, which has its season finale tonight (Wednesday), is "pro-choice," "pro-environment," will save the party from the "right wing," engineers a deal to raise the minimum wage and lectures about keeping religion out of politics. On the March 23 episode, a Democratic consultant told Republican presidential candidate, "Senator Arnold Vinick," played by Alan Alda, that he can win in a landslide because he's "moving the Republicans away from the right wing. You're not saying Democrats are not patriotic." After a pro-life Republican, who is so intolerant that he rejects Vinick's offer of the vice presidency, invites Vinick to join him in church, Vinick lectures a gaggle of reporters: "I don't see how we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government."
Finally, Mr. Harris closed his piece by bursting the liberal myth that Fox’s hit show "24" is conservative propaganda (A subject that was also covered in NewsBusters).
Conservatives might argue that creating faux Republicans does a disservice to real conservative beliefs. That's true, but the characters do an equal disservice to liberals by refusing to articulate the beliefs that make some of us so furious. Conservatives might also argue that if you want to see a real conservative, don't look to shows created by liberals. Fair point, but when I checked in with 24, whose co-creator Joel Surnow is so hardcore GOP that he gave money to Rick Santorum, its vision of conservatism doesn't seem much stronger; this year, the civil-rights-shredding White House loon (Peter MacNicol) is even scarier than the Arab terrorists that the show is always insisting might live right next to us. When even 24 can't produce a coherent conservative worldview, where's the fun? Who's a liberal supposed to fight with if, suddenly, everyone is on my side?
