What I'm Watching And Thinking

I've recently been marathoning The West Wing, which is, of course, yet another demonstration of Sorkin's brilliance.
It's interesting, however, to see what is still relevant from a show that first aired almost 20 years ago.

Clearly some things are severely outdated, for instance the need to stress the importance of the internet and what it could do for the world.  These fictional people leading the country preferred to use boxes upon boxes of documents when their secretaries suggested they digitize them instead...when's the last time you heard someone say "digitize"?  Nowadays that's the standard; printing is what we suggest on a rare occasion instead.
But speaking of secretaries, it'll surprise none of you who know me to hear that I'm irked by the casual sexism of twenty years ago.  All of the "be a man" or "he was defeated by a girl" lines.  One of the only strong women on this show is compared to Lady MacBeth... Being a man doesn't mean being strong.  Being defeated by a girl doesn't imply humiliation.  And why, if you're not a secretary serving a man (because of course all of them are women), and instead you're a strong and passionate woman are you likened to a woman who orchestrated a murderous coup?
I'm sure she was the inspiration for that one specific character, and yet in this Universe you either have to chose to be weak or murderous...unless you're the one exception: CJ Craig.  And yet she isn't treated fairly either.  When she walks into a room from a dinner function, the men tell her she looks great, but they don't compliment each other.  Clearly this mentality is child to the fifties and sixties when there were very few women in power and that was the generation after women had the right to vote.

So when we are the following generation....how is it that we're still fighting for equal pay and equal rights?  There are more CEOs named John than all women combined.

And that brings us to what's still relevant from this seventeen year-old show:

To be honest it's a little disturbing to see what prejudices we are still fighting.

An episode I just watched depicted politicians and society's predisposition to unfairly judging Muslims; "that's the price you pay for having the same physical features as criminals," the President's second in command remarks.  In another episode they say "Islamic Extremists is to Islam as the K.K.K. is to Christianity."  How is it that two decades later we still haven't learned this?

In the the first season there is a shooting where one of the President's aids was the target.  This was because he was a black man dating the President's white daughter.  This as well as some discussion on the number of black men in prison, feels oddly familiar.

How is it that a writer know to accurate portray society is touching upon the themes we still need to hear today?  Perhaps because we didn't hear the message the first time.  Hopefully we'll progress more in the next twenty years and I can look back on this post and think it impossible that we would need such reminders that all people are equal.  Everyone bleeds, everyone loves, everyone is doing whatever they can to find happiness.  And if they scares us, it's because we don't understand and that makes it our responsibility to learn (not theirs to teach).
I truly hope we grow.