Noted in passing: the great and the good at ARC are asking if the West is in some kind of civilizational twilight? The answer, in case you don’t already know, becomes clear when watching the kids swarm out of hight school at noon, heading towards the nearest Starbucks. Here in Victoria, they all look alike, wearing unisex black, grey, beige and jeans. Colour is not fashionable, unless you’re making a political statement about gender preferences. Didn’t see much of that though. What is very striking is the dominant greyness and overall, deliberate sloppiness. So that must mean something. I believe in looking at what’s in front of us, and those kids are right here and now, looking disheveled, grey and kind of cowed. Yeah, I know, it’s just a snapshot. And maybe there are energetic, laughing teens in happy colours somewhere; I just haven’t seen them…
And it’s only one way of interpreting the ongoing decline of the West. The other way is to watch the disturbing but sometimes brilliant series THE GOOD FIGHT available on Amazon Prime. I keep bringing it up because there’s a lot to digest.
This series, a sequel to The Good Wife, takes on the things that give us anxiety attacks, insomnia, feelings that the West is over, and shows what happens when Trump Derangement Syndrome takes over even the best and brightest. We get to watch as the American Justice System is outsourced and becomes a ‘reality show’, how a big tech bro tries to buy the Democratic Party and what it’s like to cower in your office while angry mobs are ruling the streets and turning off the power. It’s riveting for all the wrong reasons, mostly because it mirrors our own feelings of anxiety emanating from the characters and our current ‘reality’ that feels increasingly ‘unreal’. In fact, the show plays games with the concept of what is real and what isn’t. Which is why it feels contemporary though it was released in 2019. Even Diane Lockhart, the central character, winds up questioning ‘progress’ which is akin to losing your faith in God.
If you can’t stand the character of Diane Lockhart, a staunch Democrat married to Kurt, a laconic guy who works for the National Rifle Association and knows Trump personally, best to leave this one. She is a card carrying member of the Trump hating club, as are most of her colleagues and friends at her law firm consisting mostly of black lawyers. That she is a white woman and a name partner in a black firm cannot be supported, so she has to bow to the racist demand to step down. She does, and doesn’t seem to mind it too much. It is one of the wrong notes in the show; Diane isn’t like that. She fights, she doesn’t just say, oh well, it’s okay. The race politics in America gets a lot airtime here and they try to be ‘fair’ in how they present it as both a problem and something that needs solving. But it all looks biased anyway. Some of the series explores old territory and the well worn ‘progressive’ message that women must stick together to fight the ‘patriarchy’ falls flat. Nobody oppresses these smart ladies, and if they try, they lose. So all of that feels dated and out of step with the current moment of madness.
But what they got right is the increasing public disorder, the endless ‘protests’, the sense of frustration and anxiety about a sclerotic justice system that is failing to deliver justice. In fact, they were prescient in how the ‘twenties’ would play out: in an even more polarized and rage filled public square where all sense of hope has disappeared and bad actors have taken over. It’s a world trying to hang on to ‘normal’ and failing.
The opening sequence shows things like vases, telephones, furniture et al blowing up in glorious violence and it’s certainly fun to watch. It’s no longer fun when this very same sequence is played as ‘reality’ during the final episode when the building in which the law firm resides is targeted by ‘far right’ extremists, and sharp shooters blow the offices to pieces while the lawyers cower in mortal fear. This sleight of hand is a brilliant visual metaphor, a kind of ‘be careful what you wish for’ scene. When it’s all over, Jay, the young black guy who does research for the lawyers decides that ‘I want to make a difference’ and joins the underground organization that managed to stop the attackers and has taken them all ‘away’ to their private jail or perhaps, to Antarctica.
This is the best scene in the final episode, at least for me. The self congratulatory mutual adoration between Diane and her black counterpart at the firm about all the people they have represented and ‘saved’ when nobody else would, sounds just a bit hollow, while the defection of Jay to the dark side seems like a terrible omen for the future. He is one the outstanding, truly splendid good guys in the show, and if someone like him cannot see the value of what the lawyers are doing or even the law itself, then America surely is in dire straits, and we are in decline.
The series also does a fine and often very funny analogy of The Apprentice, the reality TV show that brought us Trump at his best. Here we get its sequel in the shape of a ‘court’ presided over by a guy called ‘Wacker’ and filmed for TV by an enterprising black dude who also happens to be sleeping with the black name partner of the firm. What goes on in the court is sometimes just common sense, at other times, sheer insanity. It is named Court 9 3/4 after you guessed it, the Harry Potter train platform. Oh boy. Reality, anyone?
Overall, Wacker’s court is an improvememt over real courts because at the very least, judgment is quick, Wacker doesn't suffer fools gladly and shuts them up, and there is a kind of score system, on a black board no less, showing when a good point has been made. Announced with a bell. Sometimes, Wacker gets the plaintiffs to appear in animal costumes because he wants to be ‘impartial’ and also, it makes for good theatre and he likes them. People love it. Justice is being seen to be served….except this court has no legal standing at all. But it turns out that it has power. There is some dark money behind it and it is in fact running its own jails where people are held and released except no actual lawyer ever sets foot inside it. You get to ask yourself whether something like this could happen. After a while, you decide that it could. This is America, after all. And it’ living through a rather rocky period just now.
Whether it’s the actual decline and fall of the American Empire, only time will tell. Watch for July 15 to deliver some kind of answer. Only a month and a day to go. Meanwhile enjoy the show…both the real and the unreal one.
We do live in fascinating times, don’t we?