2013 Golden Globes Week: ‘The Newsroom’: Misogyny 2.0

During the first episode of HBO’s The Newsroom, news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) delivers a rousing monologue about why America is not the “greatest country in the world.” He renders the crowd of college students speechless as he lashes out at the “sorority girl” who asked the question, bashing America’s current “WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period.” Soft piano music plays in the background as he laments America’s past greatness:

“…We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered.” (emphasis added)

Most of the speech is eloquent, and will have audiences of all political persuasions nodding in agreement (as they should–American exceptionalism is misguided). 

What the audience of college students can’t see, and what no one seems to focus on, is the fact that Will, in all of his “great men” bravado, got this idea from a woman.

I’m not sure if Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom‘s creator and writer, got the memo either. In  “How to Write an Aaron Sorkin Script, by Aaron Sorkin,” by Aaron Sorkin in GQ, AARON SORKIN (in case you missed it) writes:

“A student asks what makes America the world’s greatest country, and Will dodges the question with glib answers. But the moderator keeps needling him until…snap.”

In reality, Will sees what he thinks is an hallucination of MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) in the audience. As he struggles to answer the question, she writes him a prompt and holds it up: 

Then he launches into his “great men” manifesto, and the story begins.

Much has been written about the “hostile” misogyny of The Newsroom (see here, here, here and here), and rightfully so. 

While all of the characters are flawed, Will is a hero, but the female characters are incompetent, clumsy and hysterical. Will goes on the air stoned, is condescending toward dates, tricks MacKenzie into thinking he was going to propose to her years ago, changes MacKenzie’s contract to allow him to be able to fire her every week, but he is our good guy, our hero.

The women? Again, critics have been deconstructing the show’s misogyny from its inception, but the women are unbelievable. Will’s ex-girlfriend and new executive producer MacKenzie is especially baffling. She has returned to America after reporting in Afghanistan and Iraq for two years to serve as the executive producer of News Night. She’s a well-respected reporter and producer, but throughout the first season she consistently unravels into a heap of one-dimensional stereotypes. Is it believable that an esteemed journalist doesn’t understand how to work email? That she doesn’t know anything about economics? 

It doesn’t make sense. Unless you’re Aaron Sorkin–then this is who women are. They are the flighty associate producer who mixes up the state Georgia and country Georgia and writes “LOL” on a funeral card. They are the gorgeous woman with a PhD in economics who is only convinced to anchor after being seduced by the Gucci wardrobe. They are the women who think an important news tip is a pick-up line, don’t understand the acronym or are too preoccupied with being jealous to get the news (thank goodness there were men to decode the message). They are the women who love Sex and the City and blow up if Valentine’s Day doesn’t go their way. They are purveyors of gossip, and love reality TV.

Will has flaws, of course. However, he is consistently portrayed as competent and heroic.

After Maggie’s (Alison Pill) roommate is a guest on News Night and goes on a tangent about abortion rights (which would have been a welcome conversation had it made any sense), her boutique is emblazoned with “Baby Killer” graffiti. Will literally walks out of the steam of the streets to go comfort her. It was was an overly dramatic visual reminder that he is a hero–in fact, he is a “great man.” 

If Sorkin’s sexism isn’t clear enough in his writing, an interview with The Globe and Mail serves as a persuasive character study. He refers to his interviewer as “Internet girl,” and tells her:

“I think I would have done very well, as a writer, in the forties. I think the last time America was a great country was then, or not long after. It was before Vietnam, before Watergate.”

There it is. Greatness was a time before women’s liberation and before the civil rights movement. And while I’m sure he wouldn’t admit to meaning that, there is clear white male American privilege and hubris that allows someone to truly believe that America was greatest in the 1940s. 

In the final episode of the season, Will ends up hiring the “sorority girl” from the beginning (after accusing her of ruining his life) and telling her she is what makes America the greatest country. He learns that seeing MacKenzie in the audience wasn’t his imagination–she was there with the prompts. She shows him the signs, and he says, “It was you?” She says,

How unfortunate. His defining moment was prompted by women, yet he finishes with all of the power, even claiming or being given the power from their own contributions. Of course an audience of a news program only sees the glory of the anchor, not the leg work of the producers. But when a show revolves around the behind-the-scenes work of a news program, it’s disheartening and infuriating that MacKenzie–who prompts Will’s monologue and remakes News Night–is the fool, and Will gets all the glory for “civilizing” America.

It’s easy to laud the accomplishments of “great men” if you’re so sure that you are one yourself (Will McAvoy and Aaron Sorkin certainly do). And while the show features good acting and interesting critiques of media and almost-current events, it’s hard to fully appreciate all of that through the cloud of self-importance.

Is The Newsroom the best dramatic television series?

It’s not. And unless Sorkin quickly figures out his issues with women, it can’t be.