So I did it. I went back and watched the rest of this
series called The Newsroom, created by Aaron Sorkin. Resuming my mixed feelings
of frustration and wonder, at the end, I am really surprised with myself
because of the way I found the reasons’ so vividly to this series’ annoyance,
because, really, I find it to be incredibly annoying. This show focus mainly on
these three sides, I guess: news broadcasting and politics and on the other
hand romantic causes/issues. My inclination and later annoyance it is with these
characters’ way of communicating but this situations cause necessarily a huge
hole, a sick hole in the entire conflicts on the day to day lives of them and
ultimately of the show. Plus, I never came across with such an incredibly
annoying hero of a character. So, “Oh my god, it still sucks’ were my thoughts.
Because no, Aaron Sorkin didn’t want to write an
almighty character in Will McAvoy, he wanted to write someone above God, a man
better than God, and you know what I mean by God. There’s nothing that he do or
might not do that will in any way diminish his intelligence, his righteousness,
his powerfulness, his almighty influence. He is god. You see it in this episode
when one of his co-workers is almost beat to death in Cairo, when other of his
journalists is kidnapped and his life is also threatened, Will McAvoy still is
the hero and why? Because he’s the one who gives the money so that the young
journalist is released; really he had to sacrifice a lot, really a lot. No he
didn’t have to sacrifice anything because he’s rich. Still, Will co-workers all
gathered around and give checks to him and clap their hands like he was the hero, like he was the guy assaulted or kidnapped. And this goes on and on.
Which on the other hand, there’s nothing that women do
that might sometime stop their diminishing actions. The writer humiliates them
and it’s just hard to watch. Take Olivia Munn, for example. I actually suffer
every time she’s in a scene because her character is demeaning; Sorkin
diminishes her character in ways it’s just hard to swallow. In her first scene,
she’s supposed to come as an independent, confident and competent worker but
that’s not in any way what he represents. Instead, Sloan Sabbith becomes for
the most part of the scenes this really superficial and unreal caricature of a
woman. He shows her womanly ways, in the way her male and female co-workers
come to ask her advice on relationships. The way she doesn’t want to substitute
someone as an anchor but once someone tells her she can wear Gucci she
immediately changes her mind and finally as with yet another complicated missed
shot on a romantic link, but I don’t think this is even the negative part. The
negative part it’s the way she sticks to Will, no matter what.
The all Maggie and Jim situation is ridiculous, it was
a constant back and forth situation through the entire season and what happened
at the end is it stayed the same. And Maggie, oh Maggie, it's like her head is simply hollow. Maybe some characters aren't just credible enough. Should I even begin to mention McKenzie McHale?
I wonder how Emily Mortimer must feel representing a character that is
constantly humiliated by her efforts. She screams and yells and the end Sorkin
turns her into this hopeless distracted kind of woman. Like all she knows is to
shout.
(*not this one...)
People have flaws*, oh so many flaws. Sometimes even
the most evil flaws are accepted in film because there’s an interesting and
reasonable background, three dimensional developed characters and other times
it’s just plain acceptable. But this writer fails with his conflicts. Because
it lacks tolerance, it lacks humanity. Most of the time, these men and women
don’t sound natural, maybe only with some exceptions from the broadcasting
scenes. I wonder if my frustration is somehow exaggerated, given that this
story is so rich in research. It is clear that this show has a tremendous work
on that level and it has surely a tremendous will to show different sides of
politics. But it just fails on levels that are hard to cope with the show, as a
whole. At the end, I kept watching this show not because of Olivia Munn but
because it challenges myself.
But still, these are my emotions - or my head - when I am watching scenes from this series, or any scene with Sloan, for example this one above.
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