Okay, Yeah.
I've been rewatching The West Wing...
I’ve been rewatching The West Wing, which simultaneously makes me very happy and very sad.
It makes me very happy because, for at least two of its first four years, it was arguably the best show on television. (In later seasons, after Aaron Sorkin left, it was never as good again, but was still pretty great compared to the rest of network television.)
It also made me happy because it’s basically progressive porn, where people genuinely want to use government and democracy to improve the lives of Americans. Even though, in the show they often fail. But they keep fighting the good fight.
It made me sad because we’ve lost so much as a country in the past ten or 12 years and we may never get those losses back in my lifetime.
When the show was first on TV, I noticed that the people who worked in the West Wing used the word “Okay” in a very specific, kind of strange way.
When two characters on The West Wing are having a conversation and one says “Okay,” it doesn’t mean “Okay.” It doesn’t mean “Yes” or “I agree” or “You’re right.”
It means “I acknowledge that you were speaking and stopped and the rules of etiquette demand that I somehow respond, but I have absolutely zero interest in continuing this conversation or argument with you.”
This is true in 99.8% of all uses of “Okay” on the show. Go ahead and check it out. Once you see it, you will never be able to unsee it.
This time through, watching from the other side of a dying republic, I noticed that characters who work in the West Wing on this show also use the word “Yeah” in a very specific, kind of strange way.
“Yeah” on The West Wing has a very different meaning from “Okay,” even if we use them in real life somewhat interchangeably.
On The West Wing, if two characters are having a conversation and one says “Yeah,” it means “I acknowledge you were speaking and stopped and I want to continue having this conversation, discussion, or argument with you, but maybe later.”
That’s not true 100% of the “Yeah”s, but most of them.
Go watch an episode (preferably from the first four seasons) and let me know what you think.
Okay.
Not entirely surprisingly, all the above reminded me of a song that almost (but not quite) fits. But since so much in the world today seems to almost but not quite fit, here it is:
Just before Trump took office, I binge-watched the whole series for the first time. (Don't know how I missed it first time around.) Watching the world crashing down since then has been extra bitter because I loved those fools so much, and I'd hate to think of them having to operate in the federal government today. And because I know there are still plenty of fools like that toiling quietly in D.C., keeping their heads down, and I can't even imagine how hard this is for them.