‘The Klan Gone Medieval’: Filling the Post 9-11 Void in NBC’s

‘The West Wing’

Jack Holland (University of Surrey)

Introduction

• 3 weeks after 9-11• Attempt to confront the events head on• Special one-off episode, outside usual

continuity• Well received by the public (less so critics)• Conditioned by the ‘lived experience’ of 9-11

and needs to be re-contextualised

Context

• 9-11 seen to be a moment of rupture for most Americans– The wrong: the

disproving of perceived security truths – The lack: the failure to narrate

• Combine as a yearning to articulate that cannot be fulfilled

The West Wing

• Popularity:– Running for two years– Previous season ended with

20 million viewers

• The Left Wing:– ‘nothing more or less than political pornography

for liberals’– the ‘ultimate Hollywood fantasy: the Clinton

White House without Clinton’

Isaac and Ishmael• One off episode

“... tonight we offer a play. It's called "Isaac and Ishmael." We suggest you don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out where this episode comes in the timeline of the series. It doesn't. It's a story-telling aberration, if you'll allow.”

• Two parallel stories, the second:– A group of school pupils who have been selected for the ‘Presidential Classroom’ – stuck in the White House Mess Hall due to a lockdown – main characters one-by-one join the group to contribute to a question-and-answer based ‘lesson’

on terrorism

• The experience of 9-11 as a traumatic event – as a moment of rupture, outside of normality – was recognised in the production of ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ as a stand-alone episode.

• The decision to frame the episode around knowledgeable, but scared and confused children asking questions was recognition of the voiceless-ness of the post 9-11 void.

Framing 9-11• ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ reinforces a number of

dominant tropes that were beginning to define events and fix increasingly hegemonic meaning to 9-11

• These tropes and narratives can be grouped into three main themes, based on the central questions they answer: – Who are the terrorists and what do they want? – What is going on and how should the United States

respond? – What should we do, as citizens?

Who are the terrorists and what do they want?

1. Terrorists do want to kill American citizens. 2. Despite wanting to kill, terrorists always fail. 3. Islamic extremist is to Islamic as KKK is to

Christianity… It's the Klan, gone medieval and global.

4. Terrorists target the United States because of American identity and values.

5. When you think of Afghanistan, think of Poland. When you think of the Taliban, think of the Nazis. When you think of the citizens of Afghanistan, think of the Jews in concentration camps.

What is going on and how should the United States respond?

1. killing terrorists is acceptable – “You don't have the choices in a war that you do

in a jury room”2. The United States has friends and coalition-

building is American– “The first thing John Wayne always did was put

together a posse”3. State sponsors harbour terrorists

1. “…an incubator for the worst kind of crime”

What should we do, as citizens?1. Don’t worry, put faith in education and continue to

believe in liberal values– “Remember pluralism… Keep accepting more than one idea.

Makes them absolutely crazy” 2. It is normal to feel angry and to seek violent retribution

1. “I'd put them in a small cell, and make them watch home movies of the birthdays and baptisms and weddings of every single person they killed, over and over, every day, for the rest of their lives. [clears throat] And then they'd get punched in the mouth every night at bedtime”

• We need heroes– “We don't need martyrs right now. We need heroes. A hero

would die for his country but he'd much rather live for it”

9-11 as Crisis

• These answers and narratives come together to fill the post 9-11 void in particular, contingent and significant ways:– They contribute to the process of constructing 9-11 as a

moment and marker of crisis• Crisis not an objective condition, but requires:

1. Identification of 9-11 as symptomatic of a wider, morbid underlying condition

2. Identification of the solution to that problem/condition3. Relocation/concentration of agency in the hands of those

capable of delivering the solution

TV and Political (Im)Possibility• The West Wing through the ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ episode actively shut

down the scope for debate in American politics and society after 9-11. • Alternative voices were silenced by the amplification of official

narratives. • What makes ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ noteworthy is that the episode is

explicitly written to respond to the events of 9-11 from a liberal perspective and it did so before any other entertainment television show of a similar nature.

• The West Wing episode ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ should be read as an important moment in the transition from void to crisis, as the meaning of 9-11 slowly harmonised across American society and the Bush Administration established a hegemonic foreign policy discourse that would come to underpin the subsequent ‘War on Terror’.

• It was limited and limiting.

Context

• The message in pre-9/11 West Wing was VERY different:

– Episode 3 called for a ‘proportional response’ in foreign policy– Advocating the long tradition of proportionality and restraint in

responding to events (including acts of terror)

– This reflected the foreign policy of the 1990s, Bill Clinton and limited intervention associated with liberal internationalism

– In contrast to the show’s post 9/11 leanings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXKd8Ps4nKs