“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” Oscar Wilde said it, and anyone who has ever been to a cocktail party knows how true that is. Well, maybe except the tedious ones.
I’m not a fan of “reality” television. To be sure, I’m not even sure what that term means. All I know about the “real” housewives is that—from what I’ve seen—they’re mostly “real” irritating. Unscripted, and tedious.
Back in the day when Dallas and Dynasty ruled the airwaves, television soap operas were more entertaining. The plots frequently were preposterous, to be sure, but they had their resident villains we all loved to hate. Think J. R. Ewing and Alexis Carrington. Scripted, but charming.
The world of political theater used to be more scripted and, frankly, more charming (if also more predictable). But with the arrival of the cable news networks and their growth, the commentators started giving us a peek behind the curtain. Those political scripts were exposed for being “spin” built on “talking points,” and many of us became just that more jaded about the whole, increasingly tedious, process.
Once we started getting wise to the “scripted” version of politics, it was only a matter of time before someone would figure out that “unscripted” politics might prove a successful new strategy. Sarah Palin (remember her?) tried going off script, but it didn’t work out so well. It would take a real “reality” television host to make this work.
I’ve complained recently that American politics has moved from soap opera to reality television, but maybe that isn’t the case. It might look unscripted, but most of the politicians are reading lines that they carefully rehearsed in front of a mirror or, worse yet, had written for them. Granted, these lines might have been composed hastily, given the erratic nature in which this White House operates. But it’s still a script, even if the ink isn’t quite dry.
And what was unscripted when originally said by Donald Trump during the campaign has now devolved into a repertoire of catch phrases and slogans. His speech about “no collusion” is so stale that it almost seems like a Saturday Night Life parody, without Alec Baldwin. (Which is all right with me, as I find him a little tedious, too.)
There are a handful of folks who seem to be winning on this new media-savvy political stage. Rachel Maddow (in her ratings) and Sean Hannity (with his access to Trump) are in one sense winning. Micheal Avenatti is another, as is his client Stormy Daniels.
Mr. Avenatti (I wish I knew him so I could call him Mikey) just doesn’t mince words, does he? He has predicted that Michael Cohen (I don’t want to call him Mikey) will be indicted within 90 days and will flip on Trump to reduce his legal jeopardy. Mikey (I can’t resist) takes credit for every trap into which Mr. Cohen has fallen. And, there’s something charming (not to mention sexy) about a man who tells you what he’s going to do to you before he actually does it.
Ms. Daniels was a star before any of this happened. True grit is almost always charming, and she has it in abundance. She has other charms in abundance as well, but I’m not the one to comment on those.
However, when it comes to tedious players, the prize goes to James Comey. Anyone who can draw fire from Donald Trump and Maxine Waters (who is the antithesis of tedious) is clearly doing something wrong. We’ll see how he “performs” in his interview with Rachel Maddow, which will take place in just a few hours as I am writing this. And if he employs his usual earnest honesty mixed with self-righteousness (and a soupcon of victimization), I won’t be taking back the prize.
For the most part, “the world is a stage, and the play is badly cast.” Right again, Mr. Wilde. Right again.
