How All of TV Is Still Taking Place in Twin Peaks: Introduction to The Rewatch

 

Author’s Note:  For the record I was planning to begin a rewatch and reviewing Twin Peaks at some point this year, mainly because it is the 35^th anniversary of the debut of the original series. However with the news of the passing of the iconic David Lynch I now have an added motivation to write about a series that holds a very special place in my heart to this today.

There will no doubt be countless tributes to Lynch in the days and weeks to come, but I suspect the majority will deal with his movies first. This piece will pay tribute to the influence his vision for Twin Peaks has had on television for the last thirty five years, which is incredibly wide- ranging for such a brief series. I suspect the tributes will start pouring in from quite a few of the talents I mention. As a viewer and a critic I think there are far more and I will try to reference them here.

 

As someone named David I’m always struck by just how many showrunners and creative force in the era of Peak TV share that first name. We are all familiar with Messrs. Chase, Simon and Milch whose creation of HBO’s holy trinity of The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood helped usher in the era of the Golden Age. David Mills doesn’t have the recognition these three do but he worked very closely with Simon and Milch on shows such as Homicide and NYPD Blue and worked with Simon on Treme before he died at the premature age of 47. He was also the writer of the miniseries The Corner which served as a bridge between much of those shows. And of course David E. Kelley has been dazzling viewers for nearly four decades, mostly in legal dramas but also in the world of limited series to the point I don’t know when he has time to sleep.

In a way David Lynch’s creative output pales in comparison. He only created one show for which he only wrote a handful of episodes (he was busy making movies during that period) and then wrote a sequel to it nearly twenty-five years later. That show only ran two seasons and just about thirty episodes before it was cancelled. But no one would dare call Twin Peaks ‘just one show’. Its influence can be felt on television to this very day and will no doubt go on even after the original series is long forgotten (which I seriously doubt will ever happen.)

I was only eleven when Twin Peaks arrived on ABC in the spring of 1990 but even someone who wasn’t paying attention to television at all would have been hard pressed to say that they hadn’t heard of Twin Peaks back then. I didn’t even watch the original series when it was first on the air but I sure as hell knew that everyone was asking the question: “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” I didn’t know that Lynch himself was never intended to answer that question which might explain why the bubble for this phenomena started to dissolve so quickly.

The world wasn’t ready for Twin Peaks in 1990. I’m still not sure its ready now.  Even after so many years of television with mythologies and mysteries and serialized drama, there’s a still part of the audience that wants everything to be tidied up in a bow by the end of the series.  By the time Lynch created Twin Peaks in 1990 anyone who had seen his movies knew that he was not the kind of filmmaker who believed in making coherent stories with a beginning, middle and end. I suspect that so much of the frustration that so many viewers would have about the endings of so many series from The Sopranos to Lost to Mad Men would make him bursting with pride at their commitment. I suspect he might admire Chase for ending The Sopranos with a cut to black by saying that he stole his original ending for the series. One suspects he might be irked at how so many mythology series built where people like Damon Lindelof and Joss Whedon engaged with the audience and promised them answers. “No!”  he’d probably shout. “Never explain anything! You have to leave your audience completely baffled!”

So much of television that followed bears a Lynchian stamp. The clearest starting point is The X-Files not only because of David Duchovny’s link to both shows but because it begins with mysterious happenings in a forest. Indeed so much of the brilliance of those Monster-of-the-Week episodes shows Mulder and Scully wandering through dimly lit areas and vast stretches of ‘the most beautiful tress I’ve ever seen”  (Amazing how much Florida could look like Vancouver.) Joss Whedon acknowledged how great an influence Twin Peaks was on Buffy and we can’t forget that the show was set in a mysterious small town called Sunnydale which had so much darkness even when you didn’t know it was set on the mouth of hell. (Lynch would have approved of the women being the strong characters.) Lost is almost directly an ancestor text of Twin Peaks and was more stylistically similar to it, particularly when it came to its stirring musical score which was more melodic that Angelo Bandeminiti’s themes but no less dark. And it’s clear that Damon Lindelof took as much of Twin Peaks into The Leftovers which starts out with two percent of the population being raptured and gets weirder from there. During much of the series Kevin Garvey can distinguish whether he is in reality or a dream world and so many of the episodes in the final season involve a surreal aspect; at one point one of the characters boards a boat to Australia and actually thinks that God is on board. (That’s the kind of conversation I can imagine happening on Twin Peaks.)

The most recent series to embrace this kind of mystery and lunacy combined, in my opinion, is Yellowjackets which has a surrealism to it that I think out Lynches even Lynch. I wonder if Lynch saw the season 2 episode where, among other things, Christina Ricci’s character has a dance sequence with the human version of her parrot played by John Cameron Mitchell. “That’s the craziest thing I ever saw!” he’d saw. “Bravo!”

But it is not merely the genre TV series that bares Lynch’s imprint. So many of the dream sequences in The Sopranos, from ‘Funhouse’ to ‘The Test Dream’ clearly show a Lynchian feel to them Six Feet Under starts with a character being killed when the hearse he’s driving is hit by a bus while the undertaker is using the dash lighter to light a smoke. I suspect if Lynch could have gotten away with Laura Palmer talking to Cooper in real life he would have done so; in that sense Alan Ball clearly outdid him.

So many of the episodes of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have a clear influence of Twin Peaks in them when it comes to direction and many times Vince Gilligan shows this by leading us down blind alleys with his teaser. The commercial for Los Pollos Hermanos, complete with the copyright symbol at one point, truly does make us feel the viewer is watching a real commercial. And considering how much of Fargo has always been a mix of the crime genre and the supernatural since at least season 2 (where UFOs seem to be stalking every major death( it’s hard to say that this show doesn’t take place in Lynch’s world. But interestingly I have found a huge amount of influence of Lynch in so many comedy series in the past decade more than anywhere else.

You could make a sound argument that everything that’s happening in the world of Donald Glover’s Atlanta is just having in a David Lynch world that is entirely populated by African-Americans. And from the moment I saw Teddy Perkins I could never trust anything I was seeing in any episode as reality. So much of Bill Hader’s vision for Barry also has that same note of dark surrealism, starting with the iconic ‘ronny/lilly episode and following that trend hard in the much darker third and fourth seasons. Jim Carrey’s Kidding a prematurely cancelled comedy, clearly took place in a surreal universe that while real clearly had Lynchian tones in its filmmaking. At one point when Jeff is under anesthesia, he begins to imagine he’s in the real life world of his kids show and the man who receives part of his liver begins to feel more like he got a personality transplant. And it’s impossible not to think of so much of the style of The Good Place as being the kind of afterlife that Lynch might imagine as well as visually stunning work as well. Janet is exactly the kind of benevolent deity Lynch has throughout Twin Peaks.

And in a way perhaps as a viewer I’ve been inoculated from so much of the controversy involving so many of these TV shows plot lines and endings because of what I was used from the world of David Lynch. I will grant you there are times I’ve shared my frustration with that, particularly with The X-Files or Lost. But maybe that’s because Lynch was never about explanations or coherence but entirely about atmosphere and aura. A coherent storyline was never something you got with a Lynch work and while I never truly liked it with the majority of his films, Twin Peaks is the sole exception to the rule.

That’s why, when the Return was announced in 2016, I looked forward to it with far more anticipation then so many of the reboots that had come before and would come since. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get with The Return but I had a feeling that he wasn’t just going to give us a reunion series with as many of the old cast members as he could get together. (That would have been difficult in 2016; quite a few of the stars from that period were already dead and many were ill and dying.) I’m kind of astonished when, after everything ended, in August of 2017 so many fans of the original series were upset that not only did The Return not answer any of the questions from the cliffhanger but basically spent the entire series mostly away from Twin Peaks and while Kyle MacLachlan was there, Dale Cooper wasn’t until the series was almost over.

To which I say to those people: have you met David Lynch? He does not do warm and sappy. He doesn’t wrap things up in a boy in his movies. Would it have been nice to see so many of the old stars happier 25 years later? Yes, but that was never going to be the kind of story David Lynch was interested in telling and he wasn’t going to do so here.

Even with that, my experience with The Return was one of astonishment. Lynch and Mark Frost managed to create an entire series that was almost, but not entirely, unlike the original. Sure a lot of the old faces were there and there were a lot of connections to the original series but as far as Lynch was concerned he had no intention of creating the feel of nostalgic familiarity the average viewer turns into a reboot for and he gave us exactly that. And he did so with a darkness that only cable could have provided and with a weirder mix that the original series couldn’t have. And rather than give even the possibility of closure, he went to an even darker and far less forgiving place with an even more ambiguous ending than the original. In both the original and the Return he had the opportunity to give closure that most series don’t. In neither case was he willing to do so. There’s bravery in that I admire.

In 2024 Lynch announced to the world that he had contracted emphysema and that because of the risk of infection from Covid, he was no longer able to make movies. The Return was therefore the final project of Lynch that was ever completed. In my mind that is a fitting valedictory to a creative force that has had, by and large, a more beneficial impact on the world of television then it ever did on the world of film. Lynch was one of the great talents in cinema but he rarely was given the freedom to create the world he wanted and far too often that vision was deeply incoherent. But with Twin Peaks alone, both the original and The Return was the kind of vision he wanted to realize fully delivered.

A final anecdote from myself: I spent a lot of time after the Return ended hoping that Lynch had more to say about this world and would return to it. I spent a lot of time in the last few years hoping he was working on another season or a film that told it. When I learned the truth of Lynch’s condition and realized that he would never make another work of art I was saddened. In that sense his passing did little to shock me – he was already approaching 80 and he did have a disease that was likely fatal. In that sense it’s perfect that his final vision for the world ended on a cliffhanger that will never be explained. Maybe it wasn’t intentional but its Lynchian to the end. Always leaving them wanting more and leave the explanations to those in the cheap seats.

See you in the White Lodge, Gordon. Maybe you can finally get your hearing aid fixed.

 

 

The Oscars 'Not Always 'Special Relationship' With The British, Part 3: British Actresses in the 1960s

 

 

British actresses had a more up and down relationship with the Oscars then their male counterparts as I’ve mentioned. They were more than fine with Vivien Leigh win Best Actress for twice playing two very different Southern belles – Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche DuBois – but in other cases they were less friendly. The most obvious one was that of Deborah Kerr who, until Glenn Close came along, held the dubious distinction of the most Oscar nominations for Best Actress without a win: going 0 for 6.

In fairness all six of her nominations essentially came during a seven year period (she was nominated for Best Actress for Edward, My Son a Spencer Tracy potboiler in 1949) and the competition during this period was cutthroat to say the least. She lost for her most iconic role From Here to Eternity to Audrey Hepburn’s remarkable debut in Roman Holiday. She lost for her work in The King & I to Ingrid Bergman’s comeback role in Anatasia. She lost for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison to Joanne Woodward’s iconic performance in 3 Faces of Eve. When she was nominated for her work in Separate Tables she competed against such legendary performances as Elizabeth Taylor’s work in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame and Susan Hayward for her work in I Want to Live! (Hayward won.) And in what would be her final nomination for The Sundowners she lost to Taylor for Butterfield 8 in a role that Taylor herself thought was terrible but probably came to her because she had come close to death and many thought that she was not recover. No one could have known that Kerr’s best years were behind nor that by the end of the 1960s she would essentially retire from movie making and go back to England, only occasionally acting during the 1980s mostly in British TV before retiring for good in 1987.

Most of the roles Kerr performed in during this period were works of refinement and being a lady. This was not the case of many of the British actresses who followed in her wake – with of course, one critical exception.

There had been quite a few British Actresses nominated in 1963: Rachel Roberts for This Sporting Life with her future husband Richard Harris and I went into the ladies of Tom Jones. As anyone who knows anything about 1964, the showdown came between two classic musicals: My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins. I will not relitigate how much fighting their was about how Andrews had created the original Broadway role, only to have Jack Warner insist on Audrey Hepburn being cast as Eliza Doolittle on the silver screen, how the fact that Marni Nixon dubbing Hepburn quickly became public knowledge and may have been a factor in demeaning her work, nor the fact that Hepburn was ignored for Best Actress and Andrews was nominated instead.

What is worthy noting is that Andrews was not the sole British nominee for Best Actress in 1964. Indeed when the New York Film Critics gave My Fair Lady Best Picture, Director and Actor, they didn’t honor Hepburn or Andrews. Instead they chose Kim Stanley for her performance in Séance on A Wet Afternoon  Bryan Forbes’s adaptation of Mark McShane’s Australian Novel involving a medium and her husband (Richard Attenborough) staging a  kidnapping in order for Stanley’s character to achieve fame. A dark and riveting drama it was a sharp contrast to the work given in either musical. Stanley was nominated for Best Actress but chose to stay in London doing the theater, no doubt aware of how the Oscars was going to honor the younger talent.

Everyone knew what was coming and why. When Andrews’ accepting the Golden Globe she went out of her way to thank ‘the man who made this all possible, Jack Warner.”  She had won the Oscar on what many thought was her film debut; many of them had not seen the dark comedy The Americanization of Emily that she had made that year but wasn’t released until after Mary Poppins. Later asked what would have happened if that film had come out first, Andrews’s was frank: “I would have had a completely different career.”

That career was in full swing when her next iconic musical came out: The Sound of Music. Many were certain Andrews had a possibility to become the first Actress to win back-to-back Academy Awards since Luise Rainier in 1936/1937. But another, very different British Actress named Julie was about to arrive on the scene.

Julie Christie was basically unknown in America prior to 1965. She was known in some circles for her work on British television but in 1965 she hit America with the ultimate one-two punch. The movie that grabbed the attention of critics fist was her work in Darling. In it she played amoral model Diana Scott, who was sleeping her way to the top of the fashion scene in the London that the Beatles didn’t show anybody. The film also introduced Americans to John Schlesinger in what was only his second movie. The film would win almost every prize from the New York Film Critics: Best Picture, Director and Actress. And if that was not to drive the point home by the end of the year she had starred in the work of another iconic director David Lean, in his classic adaption of Dr. Zhivago. Both movies would be nominated for Best Picture and Director and Christie was nominated for Darling.

Christie was not the only nominee from across the pond who broke on to the scene. That year Samantha Eggar debuted to American audiences in William Wyler’s The Collector, where a man (Terrence Stamp) abducts Eggar’s character just for the sheer pleasure of it. Stamp and Eggar would win Best Actor and Actress at Cannes and the film received three nominations Best Actress for Eggar, Best Director for Wyler, and Best Screenplay. That said everyone knew Best Actress was going to come down to ‘the two Julies’.

On Oscar night The Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago each won five Oscars. But Best Actress would go to Christie. When she received the prize, she was in tears. “What do I do with?” it is said she asked Gregory Peck. “Well you put it on your mantle and everyone can look at it,” the 1962 winner replied. “But I haven’t got a mantle!” she said bursting into fresh tears.

Christie would become one of the most respected actresses of all time (I’ll hit on some of her other movies in what will be my entry on the 1970s and 1980s). But for Eggar, the path to fame didn’t go as smoothly. She was cast as the female lead in Dr. Doolittle, which 20^TH Century Fox would be the next Sound of Music. Instead it was a critical disaster that nearly bankrupted the company and Eggar’s career was never the same. She would work constantly in the next half century but almost entirely in TV and essentially retired in 2012.

1966 introduced America to two brilliant British actresses – sisters, in fact. Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave were the daughters of the great theater actor  and filmmaker Michael Redgrave. He himself had been nominated for Best Actor for his work in the film adaptation of Mourning Becomes Electra. As one might expect he spent much of his time in theater scene and worked with Oliver, Gielgud, and Edith Evans. He had married Rachel Kempson in 1935 and they had three children, Vanessa, Corin, and Lynn. All of them lived in their father’s shadow and had to deal with his frequent absences.

Vanessa got to American audiences in three separate occasions. She would play Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Season, which would be the eventual Best Picture winner. She then shocked the establishment with her work in the groundbreaking Michelangelo Antonioni film Blow-Up which earned Antonioni nominations for Directing and Screenplay. Yet in keeping in tradition with the Oscars she was nominated for her role in the British comedy Morgan! , in which a failed London artist descends into madness when his wife (Redgrave) leaves him for his best friend.

Lynn had made a few appearances to American audiences, most notably in a small roll in Tom Jones. But Georgy Girl became a phenomena. Both the movie and the title track charmed Americans and Lynn became the bigger phenomena. Georgy Girl received six Golden Globe nominations and Redgrave won Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical. However, she refused to publish a trade ad thanking the HFPA. “How dare they ask me to spent $300 to thank them for an award that only cost them a few guineas?” she said.

When the Oscars were announced the Redgrave’s became the first sisters to compete against each other for Oscars since Olivia De Haviland and Joan Fontaine had in 1941, (Fontaine won for Suspicion, De Haviland won two others during the decade.) The Redgrave’s had a closer relationship than De Haviland and Fontaine ever did (Fontaine and De Haviland’s relationship was always awkward and it may never have recovered after Fontaine won in 1942) but both Redgrave’s knew going in that the Oscar was almost certainly going to Elizabeth Taylor for her iconic role as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Nevertheless, on a night when the majority of the nominees were absent, the entire Redgrave family descended on Hollywood en masse on Oscar night 1967. As expected Taylor did prevail but she wasn’t there to take her second Oscar.

It should be mentioned many of the key absentees that night were Brits: Burton and Paul Scofield weren’t there, neither was Robert Shaw for Man for All Seasons and James Mason, nominated for Georgy Girl hadn’t shown up on principal. He was infuriated to be nominated as a Supporting Actor.

On the fortieth anniversary of the Oscars the following year the Academy got pissed at how so many of their nominees weren’t showing up and insisted that the acting leads do so far more rigorously then before. It worked for awhile (three years) and then during the 1970s the absenteeism resumed. That year the major contender from the British was 80 year old Dame Edith Evans, already nominated twice as a Supporting Actress, but now contending as a lead for her work as a frail old lady in The Whisperers, another film by Bryan Forbes  Evans dominated much of the early awards, winning the New York Film Critics and Golden Globes for Best Actress. At the time the oldest nominee for Best Actress, she faced a tough field two of the most iconic performances of all time: Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde and Anne Bancroft for The Graduate. She also had to face both Hepburn’s: Audrey for Wait Until Dark, Katherine for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Katherine ended up winning that year, shocking everybody who believed she was given the prize because Spencer Tracy, her co-star in nine movies and longtime lover, had died not long after the movie was released. Hepburn herself believed that.

In an Oscars that in hindsight was the end of an era, the Brits were back in force in 1968. The majority of them were nominated for either Oliver! And in my previous article I discussed the British acting nominees. However the lone British actress’ nomination infuriated the masses.

Karel Reisz’ biopic of the controversial dancer Isadora Duncan infuriated an America who had no use for the moral changes that were coming everywhere including movies. America hadn’t much cared for the real Duncan in the 1920s; a film celebrating her infuriated them even more. Vanessa Redgrave’s work in the title role knocked out everybody, even those who disliked the film. And even though she was the winner of Best Actress in Cannes, no one thought she had a chance. Then on the day of the nominations there she was and everybody in Hollywood was infuriated.

To be fair, they had a good reason. When the iconic Rosemary’s Baby had come out earlier that year everyone was absolutely certain Mia Farrow was going to earn Best Actress for her incredible performance. But when the Oscar nominations came out: the film was nominated for two awards  - including Ruth Gordon as Supporting Actress – but Farrow was nowhere to be found. And there was Redgrave, alongside Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Streisand, Patricia Neal for The Subject was Roses and Joanne Woodward for Rachel, Rachel. (I’ll get to that film in a different series.) In hindsight the exclusion of Farrow in favor of Redgrave is one of the biggest blunders the Oscars made for acting during the decade and may have more to do with the Oscars long-term loathing for horror than anything else. Redgrave showed up on Oscar night to witness a different kind of history.

A different kind of shock closed the 1960s. Maggie Smith was hardly a stranger to the Oscar voters by 1969. She had a supporting role in The Pumpkin Eater which had earned Anne Bancroft here second Oscar nomination. She had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work as Desdemona in Laurence Oliver’s Othello in 1965. After that, however, she went back across the pond.

However in 1969 she had managed to become popular on both side’s of the Atlantic for playing the title role in the spirited adaption of Muriel Spark’s comedy The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The film was known as much for Rod McKuen’s score as Smith’s work and both were nominated for Oscars. But no one seriously considered her a possibility. The Oscar, everyone knew, was going to go to an iconic new star who was an heir to Hollywood royalty: Jane Fonda, nominated for her first Oscar in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They and Liza Minelli for her stunning debut in The Sterile Cuckoo.

By this point the studio system was all but dead considering that among the nominees for Best Picture was the first ever          X-Rated film John Schlesinger’s landmark Midnight Cowboy. It would be the big winner that night, taking Best Picture, Director and Screenplay. (That wasn’t the biggest shock among the nominees; I’ll get to that in a different series.) Then they announced Best Actress and Hollywood was stunned when Smith was announced. Smith had not shown up, though whether it was because she was engaged in London or was engaging the passive aggressive attitude about attendance I don’t recall. What I do remember is that Shirley MacLaine, as much a rebel of that decade as anyone else, staged an Oscar watching party that night.

When Smith’s name was announced, there was a similar silence. Then someone said: “Gee, they finally voted for someone with talent.”

Smith, as you might expect, did not go Hollywood being one of the greatest actresses of the rest of the 20^th century. Naturally she didn’t become a household name until the start of the next century, which is as we all know par for the course.

In the next article I will deal with the radical sea change that pervaded Hollywood during the 1970s and how the Academy Awards started to acknowledge the Brits more often and why the Brits track record with attendance began to seem acceptable by Hollywood in a way it wasn’t before.

Will Trent is Back for Season 3

 

Author’s Note: As we reach the halfway mark of this decade I will occasionally go out of my way to give reference to series that I believe have the potential to be among the greatest series of the 2020s. I already have a few solid candidates for comedy which I’ve already referred too. Drama has been harder to nail down, particularly with the recent cancellations of such potentials as Cruel Summer and The Old Man. However some strong possibilities remain, some of them from unlikely sources, and as you will see the series that I’m about to review is one of them.

 

The question on viewers mind at the end of last season of Will Trent was, of course, where was Will Trent? He had just arrested Angie Pulaski (Erika Christensen) who he was about to plan a future with, for her role in obstruction of justice that had led to a series of murders and a total of five deaths. Amanda had gone to his home only to find Will had paid the rent for awhile and had not left a forwarding address.

Six months later we get an answer – and it’s surprising, to say the least. Will ended up in Tennessee in a cabin, with a scruff of beard, working out and doing a job as a private investigator. It doesn’t come as a huge shock that his boss tracked him down (there’s a line in one of Karin Slaughter’s novels that hints she has a gang of crochety old ladies throughout the country feeding her information) and it was inevitable Will was eventually going to come back to Atlanta. (Even streaming was unlikely to have its title character out of action for more than an episode.) The circumstances, however, are more surprising because it reveals even more about Will’s childhood then you’d think.

In the opening of Season 3  Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) is attending an Atlanta PD barbecue with his children. When we last saw Ormewood his wife had announced that she was divorcing him and filing for sole custody, something he had no intention of letting happen. During this barbecue, two cops go out to get more supplies and shots are fired. One of the cops dies, another’s in the hospital. The new mayor of Atlanta (clearly modeled on Stacey Abrams) was elected on an anti-crime and anti-police platform and has no problem hanging both Amanda and the GBI out to dry in a press conference. Two rival gangs are suspected and the Atlanta PD jumps on the ball and surrounds a gang leader’s house. They clearly have every intention of shooting first and avoiding questions. It therefore strikes us as odd when that gang leader asks for Will Trent by name.

We’re not sure of why until Will agrees to come in from the cold (or the muggy, as is the case) when he hears the situation. When Will enters the home the two of them look at each other – and then they start to fight. It is not, however, the fight of cop versus criminal but rather of two people who used to be friends before an old feud. (Criminals rarely give cops a wet willy.) And when the criminal’s grandmother shows up, both of them immediately stop fighting and act deferential. As becomes clear Will was once places in this family’s foster home – and may have been more criminal than we expect. (The show is loyal to Will’s juvenile background as well as the fact that Amanda Wagner basically saved him from a life of crime.)

Will wants to go back to Tennessee having done his job but circumstances do not allow it. And Faith in particular is not happy about it: the first chance she gets she punches her former partner in the stomach. Perhaps not surprisingly Faith and Ormewood have bonded the last few months; more surprisingly is that he now seems to be taking a role as a surrogate father, which leads to some laughs as he worries about her blood sugar.

As the mystery unfolds it becomes clear that the cop who was killed was involved in corruption involving a stolen car ring and that he was planning to be a whistleblower. We learn this when Will comes to a meeting and finds the new ADA there. (Just to be clear Gina Rodriguez is no relation to Ramon Rodriguez.) Things unravel when the gangster confesses to the killings – and we learn at the end of the first part that his teenage daughter was abducted and is being held over his head. (Will is surprised by this as he knew the gangster was gay. “My one experiment with heterosexuality” he tells Will.”)

Much of the first two episodes have everything the viewer has come to expect from Will Trent both the show and its title character. Ramon Rodriguez’s Will is making huge strides forward from his dyslexia (he now has a new app on his phone which is very helpful) but he still relies on the old standard (he has his portable cassette recorder handy at all times) Will’s reasons for going into hiding are understandable: he was torn between his two loves: the law and Angie and his decision to choose the former over the latter devastated him in ways that are still unclear. Trying to earn the forgiveness of Amanda (the always wonderous Sonja Sohn) was easy enough. Faith’s is going to be harder but there are signs they’re getting somewhere. At the end of the first two episodes both of them awkwardly apologize, attempt to hug each other and then walk away which for these two is the equivalent of bawling in each other’s arms.

The larger question is how Angie will deal with it. The show gives us no easy answers which is natural. Angie is currently working security at a gated community where the biggest thing she has to deal with is arguments between dog owners about who refused to clean up after herself. Her sponsor, a fellow detective, is surprised she’s still sober and Angie is honest. “I never got high because I was depressed. I got high because I wanted to do good.” By the end of the second episode she knows Will is back in Atlanta but the two have not reached out to each other. Angie has been suspended and is facing a disciplinary board hearing for her actions. (This is, sadly, probably the most severe punishment she could face in today’s police environment.) By the end of the second episode she goes before the board to give a statement of remorse for her actions and essentially beg for her job back. There’s still no clear indication how the show will land on this  - in the books she is dismissed from the police but the series is far from canon in that regard.

As to the larger question as to how Will and Angie will deal with this the series seems to be toying with a new element. In the first two episodes Gina Rodriguez played Marion, the new ADA who happens to be less inclined to color inside the lines. During the episode the two of them engages in an interrogation with a shooter, first by saying they were letting him go and then discussing their various pets. Marion it turns out is a cat owner and she thinks Betty is cute. Karin Slaughter’s novels eventually do introduce a third character in the Will-Angie toxic relationship and the basic goodness of Gina Rodriguez which by and large is always present in every character she plays on television serves as a contrast to the behavior we see from Angie. Marion represents the angel on Will’s shoulder and Angie, more often then not, is the devil. It’s unclear if Gina Rodriguez’s role is a one season one or just a recurring role. But no TV series has ever suffered from her presence and I hope she comes around one way or the other.

The series offers other wrinkles as well: Amanda ends up trying to foster Sunny, the child abducted and who she helped rescue in at the end of the second episode. It’s hysterical watching this tough-as-nails boss performing so awkwardly around a fourteen-year old girl, in a role that she’s absolutely unqualified for. (“Shoes off inside the house,” she tells Sunny as she invites her to her new home.) So much of Will Trent’s brilliance beyond a procedural has been the often awkward family dynamics with the entire cast. Faith has had problems with her college age son, who was considering dropping out of college last season, as well as a potential romantic relationship with a reporter. Ormewood is trying to be a better father after his wife left him and is trying to figure out whether he should be proud or afraid his teenage son is interested in girls. Each season we keep learning more about the complicated family dynamics of Will Trent, and in this case we learn that the last time he talked with the gang leader was when he went to jail for manslaughter. There’s clearly a history we’re not aware of yet, but this show has a long memory and we will come back to it sometime. The fact that by their final interaction Will has put back on the mask of a Special Agent and now regards his old foster brother as a criminal shows that his sense of morality has not been lost.

One of the best moments of last night’s episode was Will donning his old three-piece suit, putting a handkerchief in his pocket and mouthing the words to “Midnight Train to Georgia” with a stone-faced Betty. “I’ll be Gladys, you be the Pips,” he said to his cute but indifferent dog. The song is iconic and has been used in so many other occasions but rarely has it been more fitting in the case of Will Trent. The fact he’s behind the wheel of his fancy sports car during the final scene doesn’t change the fact that now that Will Trent is back in Georgia, so is one of the best series on television. And if that’s not worth parading around your room mouthing the words to Gladys Knight, then, well what is?

My score: 5 stars.

This is Jeopardy! - Failures of the Superchampions, Part 6: Jason Zuffranieri's Triumphs and Tribulations

 

Jason Zuffranieri is one of the greatest players in the history of Jeopardy. The reason he has never gotten the same recognition of the super-champions who came before him is because, like so many of us, he had terrible timing. In Jason’s case, it couldn’t have been worse.

On June 3 2019 Emma Boettcher made history when she defeated James Holzhauer. One more victory would have officially made James the greatest player in Jeopardy history as in just 33 games he had already won $2,462,216.

On that historic date James needed to win $58,000 to officially surpass Ken for the most money won in Jeopardy history. Considering that he had won over $100,000 six times to that point, even a modest day would have done the trick. But on that day Emma Boettcher did what no other player in Jeopardy history had been able to do: finish ahead of him at the end of Double Jeopardy. That would lead to her remarkable triumph as James had to settle for second best.

I didn’t know it at the time but after Emma’s run ended three days later the producers officially closed off eligibility for the 2019 Tournament of Champions. Those consequences would be critical at the end of the season for three players and one in particular.

In July of 2019 two players had remarkable runs. Ryan Bilger won four games and $107,049. On his fifth appearance he would be defeated by Sam Kavanaugh who went on to win $156,202 in five appearances before being defeated. With the exception of James Holzhauer and 7-game winner Josh Hill,  Sam had won more money in his appearance than anyone who had already qualified for the Tournament of Champions – including Kyle Jones who had won $145,703 in seven games. Ryan, meanwhile, had won more money in four games than quite a few other competitors won in five.

But the real story on July 19^th when Jason Zuffranieri, a math teacher from Albuquerque won $26,600. He was still there at the end of the season having won six games and $137,300 – not bad, but not as good as Sam had done in five games. None of us watching at home could have imagined what was to come when Season 36 began.

On the first day of Season 36 Jason ran away with the game. He did so every game the first week of the season, winning $58,400 on Friday. He’d now entered the hollowed ground of eleven games won and had already won $332,243.

His runaway streak stopped on September 17^th after seven consecutive runaway victories (stretching back his sixth win on the last day of Season 35) A tough final Jeopardy that no one got right led to his smallest payday so far that season with $5300 but it was enough.

The next day he got right back on the horse and had another runaway victory, his fourteenth win which put him at just under $400,000. Two more runaways put him at $437,096 – third on the all-time list when it came to money won passing David Madden and Julia Collins. On his eighteenth victory he officially crossed the threshold of half a million dollars, more money than all Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer had ever won. The next day he managed his sixth straight runaway victory and tied David Madden for fourth place with 19 wins.

By that point it was clear how excellent Jason was. After nineteen wins, he’d won more than a hundred thousand dollars that David Madden had in his nineteen games or Julia Collins had in twenty. It was not quite on par with Ken Jennings (James Holzhauer had obliterated any possible comparison) but it was pretty close.

Then in his twentieth appearance he faced off against Gabe Brison-Trezise and Christine Ryan. He was as dominant as he usually was – 25 correct responses and not a single mistake – but he had not been able to find a single Daily Double. For that reason, he finished with a commanding lead over his opponents but not quite a runaway: he had $21,000 to Gabe’s $11,400 and Christine $9000.

The Final Jeopardy category was WORLD LANDMARKS. “’The Eighth Wonder”, by composer Alan John & librettist Dennis Watkins, is about this building that opened in 1973.”

Christine wrote down: “what is the Sears Tower?” That was wrong. It cost her $8900. Gabe’s response was revealed next. He wrote down: “What is the Sydney Opera House?” That was correct. He doubled his score. It came down to Jason. He wrote down: “What is the Prado?” His wager of $1500 was irrelevant. Gabe was the new champion

When Alex said: “What a great run Jason had”, he was in typical fashion, understating the case. Jason Zuffranieri had won 19 games and $532,496. Thirteen of his games were runaway victories. David Madden, by contrast, only had 11 runaway victories in his nineteen wins and Julia Collins managed just twelve in 20 wins. Both had won considerably less money that Jason during that period.

And while the recently completed All-Star Games had done much to shift the leaderboard when it came to who was where in money won Jason Zuffranieri was already in the top ten of money won before he had even made an appearance in the Tournament of Champions. Under any other circumstances he should have received media coverage worthy of that fact and he almost certainly would have had his original appearance come just six months earlier.

But America was still reeling from the seismic event that was James Holzhauer. This was perfectly understandable considering millions (myself among them) had spent his run wondering if ‘the Gambler had broken Jeopardy”. By the standards of everything that had come before on Jeopardy Holzhauer had erupted like an Everest in Kansas. Anyone who was even a casual fan of Jeopardy knew how remarkable Jason Zuffranieri’s run had been. Holzhauer’s, like Ken Jennings, had transcended it in a way that has never truly  been seen before and only occasionally has been seen since.

To put it in a baseball metaphor Ken Jennings had seemed to be a mix of Babe Ruth’s dominance and Gehrig’s longevity. Holzhauer had played in a way that reminded us of McGwire and Bonds – if there was a performance enhancing drug that affected reflexes and intellect. By contrast Jason Zuffranieri dominating performance seemed pedestrian even though he was playing at a level better than almost anyone else who’d played the game to that point.

Things might have been very different had Jason been eligible to compete in the Tournament of Champions that was scheduled for that November. But what I wasn’t aware of until the following day was that Jason had missed the eligibility cut-off and would not be eligible to compete until the next one. By the time that happened the world was such a radically different place that the fact that Alex Trebek had succumbed to his ailment in November of 2020 was insignificant. The fact that Jeopardy was essentially playing to an empty studio and that it didn’t have a host also were minor details.

It's safe to say that by May of 2021 all but the most devoted Jeopardy fans could very well have forgotten the accomplishments of Jason. By the standards of the outside world or even Hollywood, the crises Jeopardy was facing seemed relatively minor. But after Alex Trebek passed away the show was still filming in an empty studio, there was no clear idea who the new host would be and it was not uncommon for champions to not return because they contracted Covid.

Death had been stalking the Tournament of Champions for awhile the last few years; after Cindy Stowell’s passing in 2016, Larry Martin who’d won the 2018 Teachers Tournament died of pancreatic cancer in January of 2019 before he could participate in the Tournament of Champions. And in what seemed to be the sickest joke of all Brayden Smith, the last five day champion Alex Trebek ever saw play, died of complications of surgery in February of 2021, a month after his final episode aired. The last episode Alex Trebek hosted before his passing ended up airing three days after Brayden was defeated.

Jeopardy was in such an uncertain state when the 2021 Tournament of Champions took place that the fact that it was being emceed by Buzzy Cohen – the winner of the 2017 Tournament of Champions – itself barely seemed odd. The show had been going through a series of guest hosts from Katie Couric to Dr. Oz to Aaron Rogers and very few of them were thought of favorably. It might have helped had there been great champions and there were some during this early period. Brian Chang had won 7 games and $163, 904 and Zach Newkirk had won six. But even these moment were tainted by the aura of Covid.

Zach had won four games before Covid shut filming down in Hollywood. He would not be able to return until they were lifted in January of 2021 when he competed against Brian. The memories associated with this no doubt tainted the records of both men.

No doubt fans were hoping the Tournament of Champions would do something to restore order to the chaos surrounding the show. I was no different. One of the few things I’d been clinging to during this period was the Tournament of Champions and the return of Jason. And as a result I’d forgotten everything I’d learned about the performance of super-champions during this period.

Much of it had to do with Jason’s dominance which was still very clear but while the field did not have a champion at his level to consider them unworthy was something that I – more understandably this time around – had neglected to consider. Among them was how  another trend was developing before the previous season had abruptly ended.

When Julia Collins had her incredible run in 2014, it wasn’t noticed that she had shattered the all-time number of wins for a female contestant. It had been set in October of 2012 when Stephanie Jass became the first woman to win seven games. Numerous female contestants had won six games in the following five seasons. Then in the space of three months, three different women managed to win eight games: Jennifer Quail, who won $228,800; Karen Farrell, who won $159,603 and MacKenzie Jones who won $204, 800. Combined with the performances of Ryan Bilger and Sam Kavanaugh it was a strong field and Jason found that out when he appeared in the first quarterfinal match.

His opponents were Ryan and Sarah Jett Rayburn who’d qualified with four wins in April of 2020 just before the season came to an end. The dominant player in this match was in fact Ryan who started the Jeopardy round with a near sweep of QUOTABLE MOVIES OF THE ‘80s and ‘90S and was never seriously threatened for the lead from that point on. Jason was good – he managed sixteen correct responses and only made two errors the whole game – but Ryan was on fire with 28 and correct responses on two Daily Doubles. At the end of Double Jeopardy he had $32,400 and Ryan was in a distant third with $9400. His only hope was a wild card berth.

The Final Jeopardy category was ANCIENT GREEKS. “Plutarch quotes this man who sentenced many to death: ‘Small ones deserve that, and I have no higher for the greater crimes.” Jason wrote down the correct response: “Who is Draco?” (As Buzzy reminded us: “The adjective Draconian comes from that Greek lawmaker who was known for his harsh penalties.” As Jason had too, he bet everything. He was helped that Sarah responded incorrect and had also wagered everything. He had to wait and see if his score of $18,800 would hold up. And it did: not until the last quarterfinal did Vernonica Vichit-Vadakan managed to surpass it for a high score.

In the semi-final he faced off against Jennifer Quail and Nibir Sarma, winner of the 2020 College Championship who’d also managed to earn a wild card berth. The Jeopardy round was evenly matched between all three players and Jason maintained a narrow lead throughout. He finished with $4800 to Jennifer’s $4200 and Nibir’s $3400.

Jason increased his lead early in Double Jeopardy and held it for much of the round. But Jennifer was close on his heels throughout. Late in the round he found the last Daily Double in THE ANCIENTS SPEAK. At the time he had $16,800 to Jennifer’s $14,200. No doubt hoping to put some distance between them in time for Final Jeopardy he wagered $5000:

“Augustus Caesar said he ‘found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of’ this, which was much nicer.” Jason struggled before guessing: “What is gold?” It was actually marble. He dropped into second place with $11,800. Despite his best efforts he couldn’t close the gap and finished with $13,400 to Jennifer’s $15,000. Still it wasn’t over by a long shot.

The Final Jeopardy category was CLASSICAL COMPOSERS. “Monsieur Crescendo and Signor Vaccarimini (“Mr. Racket”) were derisive nicknames for this composer whose last opera dates from 1829.”

Jason wrote down the correct response: “Who is Rossini?” (Buzzy: “Critics felt the composer of the ‘William Tell Overture’ relied to much on crescendos and other vocal artifice.” Jason added $7000 to his total which put him at $20,400. It was on Jennifer. She also wrote down Rossini. And she wagered everything but a dollar. Jennifer had earned her spot in the finals and Jason went home with $10,000.

But even had Jason gone on to triumph in that Tournament of Champions it is likely he would have been soon forgotten anyway. Because as the world knows before the end of the 2020-2021 season the world would be introduced to the extraordinary Matt Amodio who by the end of the season had won eighteen consecutive games and just under $550,000 – and as we all saw, was just getting started.

What followed would be the rise of the super-champion and by May of 2021 Jason had dropped from being tied for fourth in number of games won all the way to eighth place and the triumphs of Amodio, Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach made Jason look like a piker. The fact that it took Mattea 22 days to win as much as Jason did in 19 was little noted nor well-remembered even by the most devoted of Jeopardy fans who were understandably astounded as to how super-champions were coming out of the woodwork. Considering that in little more than a calendar year seven players managed to win eleven games or more –  as many as their had been in the last five years of the Alex Trebek era  - led millions to redefine what a super-champion truly was.

In the epilogue to this piece I will give a brief recounting of how the players I’ve listed in the previous articles have performed during the times they have been invited back to Jeopardy after their original run.

 

Did the 26th Amendment Fail, Part 5: How Bernie Sanders 2016 Campaign Galvanized the Young Left - And Damaged the Democratic Brand

 

 

Much of the criticism of ‘neoliberalism’  has been led by economic geographer David Harvey, himself a Marxist. Much of the criticism against it involves politicians of the 1980s including Bruce Babbitt, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley and it is considered a critical factor in Bill Clinton’s becoming elected President in 1992. Because the policy was deeply prevalent in the conservative administration and was at the center of so much of the formulation of the conservative movement, the argument goes that during the end of the 20^th century both parties moved fundamentally to the right. The Democrats have taken far more criticism than the GOP on the part of the left because it is seen as a betrayal of the liberal cause.

There is a truth to this when one considers the policies unfolded. But left out of the discussion are the outside factors when one considers the results of two very different GOP landslides: Nixon’s in 1972 and Reagan’s in 1984. In both cases they managed to win 49 out of fifty states against an old style liberal Democrat. Walter Mondale may have been less to the left of McGovern but it couldn’t have been a clearer message for the Democratic Party. In the case of Reagan’s massive electoral victories the Democrats could not have gotten a clearer message from the electorate: embracing the liberal order would be a death sentence for the party.

Political theorists and activists have a difference obligation then elected officials and it is something that both progressives and conservatives have been fundamentally unable to grasp. A political party is supposed to listen to the message of the electorate and govern based on the message they got. Every four years both parties have to reshape their message based on previous elections.

In the case of the ‘Atari Democrats’ – the so-called neoliberals I mentioned above –  they had gotten the message of political winds of the 1980s and shaped their message accordingly. When Bill Clinton ran for office in 1992 he was the first Democrat since Carter to try and run from the center more than the left. After twelve years of Republican leadership and having lost four of the five previous Presidential elections the Democratic Party was facing the possibility of never winning the White House again with a traditional liberal message.

Activists like Nader and his ilk never accepted that fact and still can’t. During Clinton’s Presidency (and later on, Obama’s) activists continued to argue that there was no real difference between the two parties because the Democratic party had abandoned what they considered its traditional leftist values. The fact that those values might not be shared by the electorate at large didn’t matter; the fact that both men managed to win reelection on those messages and were immensely popular was, to many, proof of their distrust of the electorate at large.

There has always been two types of progressive politicians. One type -  Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Hubert Humphrey as a senator and in his domestic policy Lyndon Johnson  understand that rhetoric alone doesn’t lead to sweeping change. One must have the will of the people, be willing to make compromises and build coalitions to achieve your goals. The other types – Thaddeus Stevens and the Radical Republicans, Robert LaFollette, Henry Wallace, Eugene McCarthy through much of his active political life  - care little for public opinion and believe that it is their job to get their vision through regardless whether their colleagues in the Senate or the White House or even the electorate itself want it done. They generally never move beyond their seat in Congress and most of their visions end up never being achieved. Like Mondale’s description of McCarthy, they are big on rhetoric but reluctantly to do the ‘heavy lifting’ which is how policy gets made in a democracy.

And it is for that very reason, I believe, that so many of today’s scholars then and now admire them so much. In a movement that has increasingly become more based in ‘performative activism’ rather than achieving policy and where principles and purity have always held the left back more in winning elected office than the right, these elected officials are held by some as heroes because they had a vision and did not compromise in it. That they failed spectacularly and the nation is worse because they didn’t agree to compromise is also why they are valued: increasingly over the 21^st century the left admires candidates who lose by huge margins rather than compromise rather than win and have to govern.

For that reason I suspect many young voters in particular were drawn to Bernie Sanders when he ran for the Democratic nomination, a decision that I increasingly believe has done as much damage to the Democratic Party as the rise of Donald Trump.

It’s worth remembering something that academics almost always refuse to mention when they talk about Sanders: he’s not a Democrat, he merely caucuses with them. Sanders is everything the activist left wants him to be because he was primarily an activist. And he has been  a proud socialist since his 20s and was part of the anti-war movement as well as part of SNCC and CORE. He actually tried to run as a member of a social party multiple times during the 1970s. He actively ran for the as a Socialist when he was Mayor of Burlington, praised Noam Chomsky. He was the first socialist elected to Congress since Vito Marcantonio who’d run for office in 1946 (under the mantle of Henry Wallace)

Sanders’s presence in Congress for the first eighteen years of his life was one of someone who alienated allies and colleagues. It is unlikely he would have been tolerated as much as he was had he not spent the majority of his tenure in Congress (1991-2006) when Congress was under Republican control. The fact that he has been a constant critic of so many conservative causes (including the Patriot Act and the War in Iraq) no doubt helped him.

When Sanders ran for the Senate in 2005, the only way he managed to win was to align with the Democratic Party. In large part he was endorsed by the establishment and it helped that the Democrats needed him in 2007 to win back control of the Senate.

Throughout his career however, in the Senate, he was just as much pissing inside the tent as he was when he was on the outside. When he gave ‘The Speech’ against TARP  in 2010 the bill still passed the Senate by a huge margin. But it did what leftists have always wanted: it made him a name. In 2007 he helped kill a bill for comprehensive immigration reform, arguing its guest worker program would depress wages for American workers. He has spent his career advocating for progressive causes but rarely forging actual legislation. According to the Times: “Big legislation largely eludes Mr. Sanders because his ideas are usually to the left of the majority of the Senate.” He has a far lower legislative effectiveness then the average Senator and is also one of the most popular politicians in America.

Sanders is, in other words, everything the left could ever hope for in a candidate. He shouts at the top of his lungs about the causes they care about, they fail because they go against what Congress believes in, and then he can campaign about how corrupt ‘the establishment’ is even though he himself is part of it. He was in fact considering challenging Obama in a primary campaign in 2012 because of Obama’s betrayal of the cause. Obama had been one of the first Senators to campaign for Sanders when he was running for office the first time and Sanders was going to need his help to win reelection that year. Harry Reid had to intervene to stop him.

When he chose to run for President in April of 2015, he was essentially the opposition to Hilary Clinton who everyone was sure was going to be President in 2016 and whom nobody really seemed happy about. Clinton had never been popular among the left even though she should have been. The author is far from Hilary’s biggest fan but one can’t help but think this has much to do with the fact that Hilary was connected to reality in a way that the left never liked.

When she had first run for President in 2008 she had been harshly criticized  about a statement she had made about the  Voting Rights Act: “John Lewis marched for the Voting Rights Act but it took a President to sign it.”

Clinton was accused by many – including the Obama campaign – of diminishing Lewis’s work as an activist. Clinton’s larger point was true – all the marching in the world does no good if you don’t have the political headwinds at your side and Lewis, himself a Congressman, knew this very well. But in the binary world of activism and the media Hilary was seen as shitting on the accomplishments of a black activist to bolster a white President.

I feel to this day that much of Sanders’s success in the Democratic Primary of 2016 was based on the lack of opposition in that primary. Clinton was never a skilled campaigner, could not win over crowds and was never an inspiring speaker. Considering the bias against her compounded by sexism and the right-wing media throughout her political life, I believe sincerely that had she been challenged seriously by Joe Biden, she would have lost. But the field for Democratic candidates for the Presidency was essentially dry by that point and the disastrous 2014 midterms had essentially stripped the cupboard bare of opposition. Even by the time Sanders announced there was no one of consequence running against her.

Clinton could no doubt have made political hay had she chosen to point out that Sanders had no real business running for the Democratic nomination for President as he was no more a Democrat than George W. Bush. She could have pointed out that Sanders had been a gadfly to the Obama administration while she was Secretary of State and for all his claims of being an outsider had been in Congress for three times as long as Hilary. She did point out, multiple times, about the increasingly Populist tone of Sanders’s campaign and how his bringing down the institutions were not conducive of a man running for the Presidency.

But that never came out at Sanders’s speeches – or should I say, his speech. At the end of every primary or caucus during the spring and summer of 2016 Sanders would regardless of the results make the same speech. It would advocate for taxing the top one percent, raising the minimum wage, fighting climate change, gun control, realizing citizenship, campaign finance reform and ‘billionaires owning the political process’.

He made his campaign, it should be noted, with no real endorsement from the establishment. Many had wanted Elizabeth Warren to run for the Presidency but she decided not to. She welcomed him into the race but in the most neutral terms possible: “I’m glad to see him get out there and give his version of what leadership in this country should be.”  She never endorsed him, with good reason. Warren was part of the Democratic Party and Sanders was not part of it.

Sanders no doubt drew huge crowds because of his use of social media and much his coverage was the most favorable. Because of this he was immensely popular on college campuses, who no doubt were inclined to vastly admire his politics. Because the majority of them knew nothing about his standing in the Senate and assumed, because he was campaigning in a Democratic primary he was de facto a Democrat and because he didn’t sound like the typical politician because he wasn’t one, he had the same kind of appeal on campuses that had been unheard of among primary voters since the era of McCarthy and McGovern. That in itself should have been a sign to anyone how limited his appeal would be nationwide but no one ever accused cable news of having common sense either.

Much of this must be blamed on the media’s desperate need to turn what was looking to be a coronation of Hilary Clinton, someone that was already an old face on cable news and had never been popular with them before. The media must be considered an unindicted co-conspirator in everything that happened in the leadup to 2016 and that includes the Democrats as well as the Republicans. There has always been a tendency on the media to try and make excitement where there isn’t one and the Democratic primary was shaping up to be dullsville. Cable news hadn’t liked Hilary Clinton when she’d run in 2008 and no one was any happier about her running now.  So they seized on the early excitement over Sanders as something genuine.

And because of that, everybody ignored the very real fact that Sanders’s polling was never high nationally from the start of the race to the end of it. The reason it seemed like Sanders had momentum was because of the narrowness of Clinton’s victory in Iowa and Sanders’ overwhelming victory in New Hampshire (which was of course, right next to Vermont. In February Hilary won Nevada by a small margin and trounced Sanders by nearly three to one in South Carolina.

On Super Tuesday Clinton swamped Sanders winning eight primaries and caucuses to his four. She was dominant in the South while Sanders could only win in Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont and Oklahoma. Her narrow victory over Sanders in Massachusetts showed the weakness of the Sanders campaign but he decided to stay in the race in anticipation of more favorable territory in New England, the Great Plains, the mountain states and the Pacific Northwest. There was the troubling sign that the only primary he’d won was in Oklahoma and Vermont – Minnesota and Colorado were caucuses

Sanders won Kansas, Maine and Nebraska  - all caucus states. He would also narrowly win the Michigan caucus. However Hilary managed to win the majority of the primary states especially in the South – Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and Mississippi went to here by overwhelming margins. This pattern continued throughout the rest of the primary season: with Hilary maintaining a nearly insurmountable lead as early as the end of March.

Sanders’s campaign, in summation, very much resembles McGovern’s primary campaign in 1972. Sanders did very well in the caucus states, all of which were smaller and involved less organizing and did horribly in the primaries. His performance in the Southern states can’t be measured the same way because the McGovern campaign more or less yielded them to Wallace but compared to the larger states the comparison is undeniable: he lost Texas by a huge margin (Wallace won that state) Florida (McGovern finished dead last in a field of six) narrowly lost Illinois (McGovern didn’t contest the state) lost Ohio (McGovern narrowly lost to Humphrey) lost Pennsylvania (he finished third there). Indeed in many ways he did worse then McGovern, losing California and New York and being swamped in New Jersey, all states McGovern carried. Only in Michigan did he do better than McGovern, winning a state where McGovern finished a distant second to Wallace in.

So many of the victories that Sanders had in the caucuses gave his supporters the illusion that he had the will of the electorate. But most of them were small states that gave him very few delegates and in most of them Clinton was always able to negate his gains by finish just as strongly. In terms of delegate count the Democratic primary was over by mid-March but the media promoted the narrative. The contest was heating up rather than cooling down. And as a result to this day millions believe that Sanders had the will of the people on his side but the ‘establishment’ stole the election for Hilary. In fact all he did was overperform expectations.

Sanders’s campaign shifted the Democratic Party to the left and by and large much of the platform acknowledged it: calling for a $15 minimum wage, a carbon tax, wall street reform and pathway to legalization for marijuana. But either many Sanders voters never read the platform or they were so furious about ‘Bernie’ being defeated’ that they basically refused to go along with Sanders call for party unity. It is calculated that somewhere between 9 to 11 percent of all Sanders’ primary voters chose to vote for Donald Trump. Combined with the 2 percent that Jill Stein received as a Green Party candidate – much of it in states like Michigan and Wisconsin – there is an argument that the left played a small but measurable role in the shocking election of Donald Trump in 2016.

And perhaps it is not a shock. Both the campaigns of Sanders and Trump were described by scholars as ‘Populist’ and using the definition of the term, there is truth in that. Sanders chose the path of the economic populism that was the foundation of the Populist Party in the West by farmers in the Plains states, while Trump’s took on the mantle of the racist demagoguery held in the South by such men as Thomas Watson and ‘Pitchfork’ Ben Tillman. Sanders’s campaign as well as Trump’s was powered as much by rage and economic anger, in this case following the Crash of 2008. Sanders railing against the corporate interests; Trump’s was founded on illegal immigration and was just as racist and sexist as those of the far southern politicians of another era. And for all of his measured tones Sanders’s did use the measure of demagoguery in his speeches when he was railing against the corporate interests and greed that has been part of the campaigns of those such as the Dixiecrat campaigns of Strom Thurmond. Sanders blamed the status quo as much as Trump does. He just has a different set of scapegoats.

Bernie Sanders has been a huge influence on the Democratic Party ever since and there’s an argument it has not always been  positive. There remains no evidence – certainly not based in the elections in the eight years since Sanders’s arrived on the national stage – that the rest of the nation wants any of the policies that Sanders and so many of his followers advocate for. His policies as well as those of so many of the so-called Justice Democrats that have come to the part since then are non-starters in Congress even when  both it and the White House were under Democratic control during the first two years of Biden’s administration. Justice Democrats, like the Peace Democrats half a century earlier, have a limited electoral appeal nationwide that has shrunk ever since their major campaign in 2018 managed to land them eleven members in Congress. As of the last election only ten remain in Congress and they did not gain a single newcomer for the first time  since their founding. They have no presence in the South, as is the tendency for most far left parties. Yet they have a disproportionate voice in Congress compared to most Democrats. And there’s an argument that by staying loyal to them, the Party at large has suffered nationwide.

Of course fans of AOC and Ilhan Ohmar would argue that they are the future of the nation. I’d argue that they and the Squad are little more than the other side of the coin that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert represent. The Squad, for all its youth, diversity and photogenic nature has done nothing substantial in terms of legislation or advance the party nationwide. What they are good at is advocating for their issues on camera on social media and in the halls of Congress. Whether or not they know that this was the strategy of Newt Gingrich – to bloviate in empty halls for the cameras while making it seem it was speaking truth to power – is unclear. That it has done as much to make them popular in certain circles as it has done with the Freedom Caucus in theirs is unmistakable.

And for all the supposed inspiration they have among the youth of America, they also demonstrate the technological savvy as opposed to common sense. As representatives of Congress they have responsibilities to the party, the voters and the country but by and large they behave very much like they only owe a responsibility to their causes and their own self-promotion. They are more interesting in advocating for change than actually compromising and making sure it happens. The fact that many Justice Democrats chose to vote against Biden’s infrastructure bill in large part because he had to ‘compromise’ with Joe Manchin in order to get it to pass in the Senate shows that they cared more about making a point then helping the public. That they were defended in progressive outlets such as Daily Kos – who spent the last decade vilifying Manchin as a Democrat in Name Only – shows how little their common sense is.

And many of them chose to turn on their idol later on. After Biden’s election in 2020 Sanders was given major committee assignments and enormous influence well outside his standing or the fact he was a Democrat. Sanders seems to have understood that the only way to get his agenda passed was to work with the administration. Yet he received large sums of hate mail arguing that he had ‘completed betrayed the supporters of his 2016 and 2020 run for the Presidency by working with the administration. Sanders was actually trying to bring about the causes he had thought for into some form of reality, however watered down. In the minds of many of his most ardent followers, that was the worst kind of betrayal possible. In their minds marching for a cause was important. They still fail to understand that it takes a President to sign it.

In the next article this series I will discuss so much of the left’s activities and policies today and how technological savvy has prevailed among the young even more than intelligence then how they should be achieved.

 

 

The Oscars 'Not So Special Relationship With Great Britain, Part 2 (Finally!): The 1960s - How The Oscars Gave The 'Angry Young Men' A Real Reason to Be Angry

 

Like every other institution in America Hollywood was in turmoil during the 1960s. Unlike many of the others much of it had to do with internal as well as external factors.

By the start of the decade the studio system on which the industry had essentially been founded during the 1920s was beginning to go into a death spiral. Much of this had to do with the fact then the moguls who’d founded the studios themselves were either dead or were being removed from their companies. Jack Warner and Daryl Zanuck were the only bosses from the 1920s still around and by the end of the decade both men would be gone. Similarly most of the actors and directors who were part of this system were dead or dying themselves and while many of the actresses from that era were still alive in the eyes of an industry that prized sex appeal even more than today, they might as well have been. Similarly the gossip columnists and critics who had been so much involved in the building of the ‘Dream Factory’ from Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell would soon be dead themselves and many of the critics of that era were increasingly becoming out of touch with the new wave of filmmaking.

The film that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1960s in hindsight show an industry that is doing everything in its power to deny that the world around them is changing. Many of the weakest nominees for Best Picture that the Academy would ever give out took place during this decade and they tend to reflect the studio system increasingly desperate attempts to draw audiences in with the epics of yesteryear. In some cases they succeeded: movies like The Longest Day and the movies of David Lean are remarkable movies. But for each of them there were disastrous films that were epic only in length. These included John Wayne’s bloated epic The Alamo, MGM’s remake of Mutiny on The Bounty with Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian and most tellingly Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra which adjusted for inflation may have been the biggest box office disaster in history. Seeing these films nominated for Best Picture seems like the Academy was desperately trying to show the executives that they still had it when they kept showing how much behind the times they were.

Similarly the studios were turning out Broadway to movie adaptations at a ridiculous rate. To be fair the lion’s share of these were classics by any standard, among them West Side Story, The Music Man, My Fair Lady and Sound of Music. But the further one got into the decade the movie musical was looking increasingly stale, particular with the nomination in 1967 of Doctor Doolittle which was just as much a bomb as Cleopatra had been. By the time Hello, Dolly was nominated for Best Picture at the end of the decade, it looked like a relic of a different era and while it holds up better in hindsight then many other adaptations it was a sign the musical was essentially becoming a money-loser.

During this era many forces that would bring Hollywood, kicking and screaming, into a new Golden Age were arriving and by and large the Oscars chose to react about as well as the old guard was to all the other outside forces: with repulsion and bigotry. One of the subtlest but most telling may have very well how the Academy Awards would choose to treat some of the next stage of British Actors who were arriving, most of whom would be called ‘the Angry Young Men’ because of their connection to how the British theater scene was turning them out. They were not Cary Grant or David Niven, then two of the only British Actors who’d managed to receive mass acceptance among American audiences.

The four actors who represented that biggest sea change had all arrived by 1964: Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney, Richard Harris and Peter Sellers. Richard Burton is traditionally ranked as part of this clique; in fact he predated their arrival by more than a decade. He had already received – and lost – two Academy Awards by the time the decade began: the first in 1952 for My Cousin Rachel, the second for The Robe in 1953.

Strictly speaking O’Toole and Harris were both Irish and Burton was Welsh. However in an industry that only saw things in terms of stereotypes all of them were British and more importantly ‘foreigners’. And during that decade the old guard viewed them with the same contempt and bigotry that they did everyone else in the industry.

Perhaps this explains one of the most appalling statistics in the history of the Oscars. These five men are among the greatest actors in history and yet their combined track record with the Academy is an appalling 0 for 24. O’Toole and Burton alone held the dubious distinction of the most snubs by the Academy for an actor: for twenty five years both men had gone zero for seven. O’Toole’s loss for Venus in 2006 put him as the ‘GOAT’ in this category having gone to his grave with no wins for his eight nominations. (As of this writing Glenn Close has tied him with that horse collar but O’Toole holds the record for male actors. Actresses – I’ll get to that later.)

Considering that during the 1960s in particular all four of these actors were doing some of the greatest work in the most iconic roles in film history part of this is explained that in many cases they were actually competing against each other. But that is only part of the explanation. A darker subtext was the American nature of Hollywood during the 1960s which became very telling throughout the decade against Brits in particular.

That Peter O’Toole lost Best Actor for his incredible work in Lawrence of Arabia may strike some as astonishing but considering he was beaten by Gregory Peck for his work as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird may make it sting less. Considering that role is considered by AFI as the greatest heroic character of all time, few would debate its power. Besides Lawrence of Arabia did win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director for David Lean. Anglophobia would have been hard to argue. The trouble really started next year.

When Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones debuted in the spring of 1963 the old guard was up in arms from the start. They could not comprehend how Tony Richardson’s film which was a blow to everything that ‘decent Americans’ considered moral was a critical and box office hit. (In fairness, it has not aged well and many consider it one of the worst choices for Best Picture imaginable.) Even more appalling to them was how Albert Finney’s work in the title role was winning over so many young women – how could this man who played a 18^th century man-whore be so popular considering his horrible table manners? And the way critics in America responded to it meant that they were going to have to give this man an Oscar.

Finney, it’s worth noting, never particularly cared for awards and made it clear he was not going to be there on Oscar night. At the time he was appearing in Luther in London and he saw no reason to change his plans. This was a further insult to the Oscars who have always been snippy at those who chose to regard their biggest night of congratulation as an inconvenience something that British actors in particular still considered it to be.

To be fair this was not something that was solely the province of Brits: Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn were notorious for never attending the Oscars, Marlon Brando’s attendance was spotty well before The Godfather and Paul Newman was more inclined to come to escort his wife when she was nominated rather than show up if he was. But the British were particular standoffish: Charles Laughton had not shown up for any of his nominations; Alec Guiness had been persona non grata when he won for Bridge on the River Kwai and James Mason hadn’t shown up for A Star is Born (and wouldn’t show up when he was nominated for Georgy Girl in 1967). O’Toole had not been present in 1962 and Finney made it clear he wouldn’t be. Richard Harris was also nominated in 1963 for This Sporting Life and neither he nor his Oscar nominated wife Rachel Roberts bothered to show up.

There is a good argument that Sidney Poitier’s groundbreaking win for Lillies of The Field was as much a stick in the eye to Finney and the Brits as it was a victory for race in Hollywood. For all the brilliance of Poitier as a performer many could argue he was being used during this period as Hollywood’s big argument that they were not a racist institution. “How can we be racist,” they might say. “We have a black friend.” That Poitier’s win came not long after the march on DC may very well have been a chance to show that they were patting themselves on the back; the fact that Poitier was the only acting winner to show up to accept on Oscar night in 1964 was a bigger sign.

And to be clear Hollywood had no use for any of Tom Jones’ other nominees. This went to the three actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Diane Cilento, Edith Evans and Suzanne York. When Margaret Rutherford ending up winning for The VIPs (another Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film) Hedda Hopper said when Rutherford was nominated that she was glad to see her there “even though she’s English.” Rutherford was best known for playing Miss Marple in a series of Agatha Christie novelizations, then as now one of the few settings that Hollywood was willing to accept British in.

The next year was worse by Hollywood’s standards. Four of the five nominees in the Best Actor category were Brits. Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton were nominated against each other for Becket, Peter Sellers for his iconic performance (s) in Dr. Strangelove and Rex Harrison for recreating his Tony winning role in My Fair Lady. The xenophobia was thick. One columnist said that every nominee for Best Actor was ‘foreign, even though Anthony Quinn is considered an American Actor. (Quinn was Mexican.) Quinn took it in good humor. “At last I’m considered an American actor,” he said after celebrating for being nominated for Zorba The Greek.

O’Toole and Burton didn’t show up. O’Toole was more gracious “Maybe someone could split it in half for us?” he said. Sellers was busy filming What’s New, Pussycat?, and said nothing at all. The love for My Fair Lady carried Harrison to an Oscar but many were troubled by the fact that “no American actor won that year. (The other winners were Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, Peter Ustinov for Tokapi and Lila Kedrova for Zorba The Greek.) The columnist was trying to argue against the direction American films were taking as opposed to the ‘wholesome entertainment provided by the Brits.” That they seemed to have forgotten Tom Jones already was a sign of selective memory.

Richard Burton was nominated for the next two year for Best Actor; for The Spy Who Came in From The Cold in 1965 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – arguably his greatest performance in 1966. He would lose to Paul Scofield for his work as Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Scofield was British himself but as he was a decade older than the majority of the ‘Angry Young Men’  he was never viewed in the same vein. He took the Oscars just as seriously as the rest of them; though – on Oscar night, he wasn’t there. Neither was Burton. To be fair, neither was almost every other major nominee that night: there had been a strike that had been settled only days before and no one was sure it would happen.

By 1968 the Oscars had started to crack down more seriously  on attendance but Peter O’Toole never got the message. That year he was starring in Lion in Winter playing Henry II for the second time in his career. To date he is the only actor ever nominated for playing the same role twice who was not also starring in a sequel to the same work.

Many people were certain Lion in Winter was going to be the big winner on Oscar night and that O’Toole would triumph along with the film itself. Everyone was shocked not only when the big winner turned out to be Oliver! (Carol Reed was just as shocked to win Best Director) but when the Best Actor prize went to Cliff Robertson for Charly (the film version of the landmark book Flowers for Algernon) Robertson himself wasn’t there because he was filming a movie and he saw no reason to show up when everyone knew O’Toole was going to win.

Both O’Toole and Burton would nominated again in 1969 but neither for the kind of movies that either would consider their best work. O’Toole was nominated for playing the title role in the musical version of Goodbye Mr. Chips which had been a critical and box office failure and Burton was nominated for playing Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days which essentially was the poor man’s version of Man for All Seasons. O’Toole chose to stay home again on Oscar night and Burton came on the arm of Elizabeth Taylor. There he witnessed the triumph of John Wayne for his performance as John Wayne – I mean, Rooster Cogburn – in True Grit.

The general disdain for British actors during this period was not limited to those angry young men. Laurence Olivier was nominated twice more first for The Entertainer in 1960 and then for Othello (yes I know) in 1965. He didn’t show up for either of those. Alan Bates was nominated for his work in The Fixer in 1968. He didn’t show up either. And a newcomer named Michael Caine received his first nomination for playing the title role in Alfie in 1966. He actually did show up on Oscar night, something he would do infrequently over the years. None of them won.

By and large British Actors were not receiving largesse during this period. British actresses were having somewhat more success but that it is a slightly different story – and one that I will cover in the next part to this series.