Opie and Ned: The Effectiveness of Emotional Investment

SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading here to avoid spoilers about both Game of Thrones and Sons of Anarchy.






Forward thinking shows have less and less of a problem offing main characters. Recently, however, certain shows have taken the next leap by having very popular main characters, often representing the "good" in the show, murdered.

The first that comes to mind for many is Lord Eddard (Ned) Stark from Game of Thrones. Amidst all the royal intrigue and jockeying for the Iron Throne, Ned was the ever loyal right-hand man who tried his damnedest to stay a bit above the fray and always do what is right. Despite this, all his good deeds got him, once his homeboy King Robert died, was a shocking (for the TV audience) decapitation. I remember, at the time, sitting in shocked silence with two friends not knowing what to make of this. Game of Thrones, the trend setter that it is, had just killed off a character that had, until that moment, seemed like an integral and necessary part of the show to the viewing audience. HBO was playing a dangerous game as, at least as far as I can remember, a TV show had not killed of such a character until the very end of the show's run. Even Tony Soprano, despite all the beefs he had and the fact that he was a mob boss, did not maybe die until the last episode cut to black.

Ned Stark was very much in my mind this past Tuesday when another favorite show of mine, Sons of Anarchy, killed off the biker gang's Vice President, and Pres Jax Teller's best friend, Opie. The response was a little bit different here as shock was replaced with a light sadness mixed with a tad bit of outrage. Opie was the only character on the show who truly felt fundamentally unchanged by the club and true to who he was. He seemed relatively untarnished. He was easy to like. Not to mention the fact that the initial shock provided by good ole Fast Eddard helped soften the blow of a similar move being made. All that being said, whether it was conscious move by Kurt Sutter and the other show runners, there were striking similarities between the situations. The "good guy(s)" in the viewers' eyes were in the clutches of there enemies and there were scores to be settled. Blood had to be spilled as "blood will have blood." Even how the scenes were shot are strikingly similar (see above). Both main characters take up the center of our (the viewer's) screen as the off-center and only partially seen murderer does his work. And though there are slight differences in the characters' expressions, Opie with his face forward defiantly wearing a smirk and Ned head and shoulders down waiting for the steel, they are both accepting of their fates. Ned is just reluctantly accepting while Opie, due to all the tragedy he's faced, is ready and more than willing for the cruelty of his life, and this life in general, to be over.

The shock and/or sorrow felt by myself, and viewers generally, is quite effective in tying the viewer to the show if done right. And it most likely will be done right since the fact that you are tied enough to the character to care, the writing is pretty damn good already. I guess what I am saying is it in an interesting evolution in television, but future practitioners might want to tread carefully. If the audience is not already invested in the character, it is just a gimmick that will fall flat. But not for you Justified. Make moves.


IMAGES: both Google Images; upper left is Ned Stark and lower right is SAMCRO's Opie.

Repetitions of History

In last week's New Yorker, an article written by Salman Rushdie described his time in hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini declared fatwa against him, sentencing him to death, for writing the novel The Satanic Verses. The article is interesting in general but what really stuck was Rushdie's opinion that a lot of the offense and anger that was ginned up was done so for various individuals' and groups' political gain. In Mr. Rushdie's words:

The book that he had written would vanish and be replaced by one that scarcely existed, in which Rushdie referred to the Prophet and his companions as “scums and bums” (he didn’t, though he did allow the characters who persecuted the followers of his fictional Prophet to use abusive language), and called the wives of the Prophet whores (he hadn’t—although whores in a brothel in his imaginary city, Jahilia, take on the names of the Prophet’s wives to arouse their clients, the wives themselves are clearly described as living chastely in the harem). This nonexistent novel was the one against which the rage of Islam would be directed, and after that few people wished to talk about the real book, except, usually, to concur with Hermione Lee’s negative assessment.

In essence, much of the Muslim world was taking offense from a nonexistent book as they did not bother to read the real book, which was respectful of Islam. Then various leaders decided to take the deliberate misconception and utilize that to strengthen their own power bases. As stated by Rushdie:

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was on a state visit to China at the time, and it was speculated that destabilizing her administration had been the demonstrators’ real aim. Religious extremists had long suspected her of secularism, and they wanted to put her on the spot. Not for the last time, “The Satanic Verses” was being used as a football in a political game that had little or nothing to do with it. 

 What is striking is the similarities between the context of Salman Rushdie suffered through and what is currently occurring with the protests over the recent, inflammatory YouTube film "Innocence of Muslims." While, unlike "The Satanic Verses," the latter is clearly meant to be inflammatory, the exaggerated response seems to be the same. In a post-Qaddafi world, there is still a power vacuum that various factions are filling and, in a predominantly Muslim country, raising the ire of the electorate seems a good way to solidify a power base. A new football in the same political game. Further, much like the threatened violence that Rushdie faced, the protests launched against "Innocence of Muslims" was used as cover for a horrific terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi; an attack in which a dedicated public servant, U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens lost his life.

I guess, despite the "Arab Spring," the more things change, the more they stay the same.

P.S.: I planned to go on about how the purposeful break from reality was also analogous to the entire modus operandi of Fox News, but I don't feel like going on a rant today and, as bad as that network is, they should not be compared to terrorists.

IMAGES: Google Images taken from somewhere else; and Google Images via Newsweek.

The REAL Mittens: An Addendum

I am sure I am not the first to write about this and it this case has been written more eloquently elsewhere, most likely by Ta-Nehisi Coates, but it fits in so nicely with what I wrote yesterday. The above depicts a familiar talking point for those who've been following the 2012 Presidential race. Or even before, actually. Conservatives, once they got tired demanding his birth certificate, have been loudly demanding the release of President Obama's various school transcripts. As shown above, we all know Mittens is BAWSE because he graduated BYU with high honors and HBS/HLS in the top 5% but how do we know that President Obama really DESERVED to be the first black Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review (because, y'know, they probably just give that away). The clear implication, though never expressly stated, is that we do not know if President Obama has deserved any of this because blahblahblah affirmative action. Up to and including the Presidency; which is nicely exhibited by the "in over his head" comments on the President.

On the other side, of COURSE Governor Romney has worked hard for/deserved everything he has achieved. And I'm sure he as (just like President Obama). But both Governor Romney himself and, seemingly, the right-wing talking heads discount all the built in advantages that he enjoyed throughout his life. Prep school. A stock portfolio bequeathment that he and his wife lived off of while in school. And I'm sure it probably does not hurt that your father was the CEO of American Motors and the Governor of Michigan. It seems, and I could very well be wrong, that in Mittens' mind, this was all predestined. He earned ALL of it, with no help whatsoever, and he DESERVES the Presidency.

In my mind, the Romneys' green paper was/is a lot more advantageous than Barack Obama's black skin. It'd be nice if some people would step back and realize that from time to time.


IMAGE: some moron from http://polination.files.wordpress.com.

Jon Stewart's (not so) Furious Anger

Jon Stewart's first segment of last night's Daily Show, where he verbally struck down Fox News with great vengeance and not so furious anger those (Fox News) who would attempt to poison and destroy his brothers, was a tour de force. Man crushing went to DEFCONs "Question Sexuality" and "Would You Convert."

There's not much that I can add to his perfect mix of legitimate anger and clear disdain towards the Fox News talking points, aside from the all too clever reworking of the famous Pulp Fiction quote, so please just click the link and watch for yourselves.

WARNING: may cause possibly incurable man crushing. You may want to consult with a medical professional if you have a family history.


PHOTO: I'm assuming from Comedy Central, via Google Images, via katywidrick.com

VIDEO: Samuel L. Jackson being Samuel L. Jackson-y in Pulp Fiction via YouTube.

The REAL Mittens Showed Up... Or Did He?

Ever since Mother Jones' fateful unveiling of Mitt Romney's 47/53 opinion from a private fund raiser, there has been much talk across the journobloggingtalkinghead-o-sphere about whether we've FINALLY seen the real Mitt Romney. Depending on who you were reading, these opinions have taking both good and bad connotations. Personally, in your humble bloggers opinion (IYHBO?), I agree that it is impossible to pin down the REAL Mitt Romney politically and still think that this WAS the real Willard.

Wah, wah, wwwaahhhhh, you say? Well, I do not necessarily believe that the talk revealed much of anything about his political beliefs and that he would be anything to anyone to get elected POTUS. At the same time, from my long experience having dealings with self-entitled douchers, it fits a pattern where, at each turn, Romney peels a layer to further reveal his self-entitled doucher core. The first instance of this was revealed when it came out that he was the ring leader of a group that harassed a fellow student by pinning him down and cutting his hair. Many cried homophobe when this was revealed, but it sort of just seemed like the seedling of a self-entitled prep school doucher (of course, the most common of all douchers). This trend has continued with his absolute refusal to release any tax returns outside of the two years he already has, despite requiring his VP candidates to give him 10 years of tax returns, essentially telling the American public to just trust him on this. Self-entitled douchers who think their deserved presidency is an essential fait accompli do NOT show the general public anything more than what they want to. Facts. In his mind it is probably unfathomable that he would not be President considering that the markets would rise upon his election.

The truly indicative phrase in Governor Romney's talk at the fundraiser, however, was not about the 47% of the electorate who will never vote for him. Do no misunderstand me. That little tidbit was certainly damaging and the coup de grace of calling them too lazy to rise up was horrible. But to really get into the mind of Mitt Romney (the self-entitled doucher) look no further than these words:

By the way, both my dad and Ann's dad did quite well in their life, but when they came to the end of their lives, and, and passed along inheritances to Ann and to me, we both decided to give it all away. So, I had inherited nothing. Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that's by hard work and…[applause] I see that—

I say that because there's the percent that's, "Oh, you were born with a silver spoon," you know, "You never had to earn anything," and so forth. And, and frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you could have, which is to get born in America. I'll tell ya, there is—95 percent of life is set up for you if you're born in this country.  

These are the words on a man who was born on third base but continues to suffer from the misperception that he hit a triple. Or, to be fair to a man who did work hard to get where he is but still had a TON of help and advantages along the way, the words of a man who hit a blooper for a single and then got to third thanks to a series of unforced errors. Though it IS fantastic that he did very well for himself in private equity and gave away any money left to his family from both sets of parents, he still does not recognize that he was still born with a silver spoon and all the built-in advantages that infers. This idea was further reflected in Ann Romney's admittedly great RNC speech where she talks about their struggles living in Boston while Mitt pursued his graduate degrees while leaving out the fact that they were living off of a vast, and bequeathed, stock portfolio that most people couldn't dream of.

Though clearly not the same level of megalomaniac, Romney's self-perception reminds me of figures like James Dolan or Woody Johnson (sorry about the NY sports team references but they are the only examples I can bring to mind of this phenomenon, since they are the co-banes of my existence; pun not intended) who go about doing whatever they want, infuriating their fan base, because they think they deserve it.

Anyway, long story short, Governor Romney probably does not hold disdain for 47% of the voting public. I doubt that he really thinks about 90% of the voting public at all. He's just a self-entitled giant doucher, surrounded by people of his ilk, who felt comfortable to let out his dawgs contained douchiness. I think his own self-entitlement matter a lot more in that talk than any other entitlement that he addressed.


IMAGE: Mittens goes for the full Boehner at the Univision Forum from miamiherald.com