For all you nubile young people who laid out on the beach instead of vegging on the couch in colder climates, you missed out. The past two weeks' television fare was wildly political, no matter what channel you tuned into.
Probably the most-watched program of the week was Obama's ‘fireside chat' with Jay Leno. The first sitting president to appear on ""The Tonight Show,"" Barack Hussein himself showed up to share mostly-neutral political commentary and jokes on differently-abled people. Controversial comments or not, there's no doubt this kind of dialogue coming into people's living rooms is a signal that new connections are being forged between Washington and Hollywood.
That fact was backed up by Will Ferrell, who appeared on HBO with his one-man show ""You're Welcome America: A Final Night With George Bush."" It was funny, and the audience laughed as he did things like mispronounce the country of Niger, but as he made his closing monologue, a shift seemed to come over the theatre that reverberated all the way to my living room. Now that Bush is gone, will the liberal media still be unified if there's goodwill toward the White House?
One source would firmly respond, ""no."" Jim Cramer of ""Mad Money,"" the former hedge fund manager who screams a lot and tells you where to put your money, got into a cross-channel wrestling match with Jon Stewart over uncritical reporting about Wall Street. Stewart called him out, Cramer called Stewart a mere comedian (ouch!) and Stewart eventually invited him on ""The Daily Show,"" where he made Cramer look like a big idiot.
Later, a CNBC panel railed the crossfire with one anchor saying ""No group in America, no profession in America is more self-absorbed than the media is."" But wait, isn't CNBC technically ""media""? Where does media end and news begin? It's no longer cold, hard fact, it's two opposing sides vying for America's trust. Is it possible that a president embraced by the media will cause journalists to tear one another apart? When Cramer said Stewart was a comedian, he meant he didn't have the intellectual seriousness to make economic politics his place. But the ratings say otherwise.
I wrote a few weeks ago that science fiction thrives on cult status, but I was proven wrong when the United Nations held a discussion/retrospective with the creators and actors of the Sci Fi channel's ""Battlestar Galactica"" while watching a preview of the show's final episode last Tuesday. Both sides discussed the show's relevant issues of civil rights, terrorism and religion. The United Nations! That says volumes about what kind of TV is really relevant. While the news networks were fighting over the Stewart/Cramer dispute, world powers were coming together to recognize the significance and power of good, scripted (cable!) TV.
The past two weeks not only point to the TV box as the hot seat for politics, but lo and behold, the strongest unity was forged over a fictional drama on the Sci Fi. It's reassuring to know that while I spent spring break in front of the TV, the United Nations was doing the same.
Do you think Jon Stewart and Battlestar Galactica are just entertainment? E-mail Ali at rothschild@wisc.edu.
