West Wing
Explores how the award-winning NBC drama offered a space for vibrant conversation about U.S. politics, identity, and culture.
With its fast and furious dialogue, crackling wit, and political savvy, The West Wing became appointment TV for millions during its seven-season run between 1999 and 2006. The behind-the-scenes ensemble drama about Washington politics premiered on the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was the first series to respond to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and concluded in the closing years of the Bush administration. Its subject matter was ambitious and germane, its cast star-studded, its production team acclaimed. In this volume, Janet McCabe explores The West Wing as both a space for political and social discourse and a force that reshaped contemporary television.
McCabe begins by examining the series' broadcasting history, including its scheduling in the United States and around the world, and how the show defines channels and television markets. McCabe goes on to explore the role of the show's creator Aaron Sorkin as a TV auteur and investigates the program's aesthetic principles, including the distinctive look, feel, and sounds of the series. McCabe concludes by considering the political discourse of The West Wing, as the show spoke back to a U.S. culture divided by politics, race, and gender as well as the trauma of 9/11 and anxieties over terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
McCabe's analysis of The West Wing provides an intriguing look at the institutional, formal, and cultural politics of television. Fans of the series as well as students and teachers of television history will enjoy this detailed volume.
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Janet McCabe is lecturer in media and creative industries at Birkbeck, University of London. She writes on feminism and television and is co-editor of several collections, including Quality TV: American Television and Beyond and Reading Sex and the City.
Places a television series of great prominence within its media and political context, showing how the series fits into the history of television and illuminating how the real presidency was affected by the depiction of the real office holder.
--Peter RollinsBoth volumes adhere to the series' promise of lively and accessible writing. Though they are undoubtedly academic studies invested in making a case for each programme, both McCabe and Vint write with energy, making their studies light but not insubstantial. They will be ideal for undergraduates wanting to fill in their understanding of a particular programme and also have potential for compact contributions to ongoing debates around authorship (and thereby studies of Sorkin and Simon as television authors), quality, politics and aesthetics. Although their diminutive size could constitute a drawback for books addressing television programmes which are distinguished by their complexity, the extent to which each presents a focused and exacting critical argument increases the significance of their contribution to the field. These short monographs made me want to rewatch The West Wing and The Wire, having drawn out some of their key pleasures and reinvigorated some critical questions to take back to each series. This is a measure of the books' skill and value.
--Lucy Fife Donaldson "Critical Studies in Television"
