When Fantasy Hurts

A member of my family likes The West Wing so much she can't watch it anymore. The idealized White House portrayed on the show is so far from the current real one that it becomes no more than an unpleasant reminder of how scary and outraging and depressing the current real one is. It makes her angrier than she already is. The contrast between reality and fantasy becomes a knife edge, and the show just twists the knife in deeper.

Last night I caught up on some of the week's television I'd taped, including The West Wing. I'm glad I didn't watch it on Wednesday. Aired a day after the election we had on Tuesday, the show's election storyline twisted that knife in about as deep as it can go.

I like escapism, and I like idealization--I like fiction that shows how things could be, even though we're flawed, even though nothing is black-and-white. So I like The West Wing, and I keep watching. On that show, the guys I consider the good guys win. On that show, education and erudition and intelligence and articulation triumph over demagoguery--usually. It's fantasy, not reality; although I've seen people come close, at places like The New Yorker, nobody's as quick and funny and smart and articulate and well informed as the characters on that show. But it's nice to think we could be. It's nice to watch people be that smart, and do mostly the right things, and come out ahead most of the time.

Still, I have to admit that this week I felt a little like that family member. And I didn't even watch it on Wednesday.