Winning

Showering Ourselves with Number One

A Media Shmedia column

by Scott Patrick Wagner

Paul Newman seemed like a pretty decent fellow. I base that stunningly deep appraisal not on his film career — which was an impressive triumph of substance over pectorals — but on his extracurricular activities. Making a film career succeed is largely a tunnel-vision affair, and that concentration of focus is a commonality in the bios of most movie stars. I'm not here to disparage the "eyes on the prize" mindset, but rather to admire a life where "the prize" didn't seem to be the only goal. Mr. Newman made a 1969 film called Winning, in which his race-car-driving central character lost track of the deeper virtues of love and relationship in his obsessive quest to win the race. The lesson apparently wasn't lost on the purveyor, as a latter lifetime of salad dressing and philanthropy might attest.

Like many ambivalent Americans, I watched the first Presidential debate between Barack and Johnny Mac. To be clear, I'm not ambivalent about my Presidential choice; I'm looking for the one that acts least like George Bush and sounds least like Karl Rove. Any guesses which one that might be? My ambivalence stems more from what to expect in our debates. In obedient solidarity to the media soundbyte-ization of our times, the debates are not a landscape to hear policies and gauge competence. They are a game of Mouse Trap, waiting for the one glaring faux pas or the one memorable catch-phrase to slam down the cage match.

We are not watching the debates to see who makes more sense; we are watching to determine who wins. The point was covertly implied in Tina Fey's brilliant, second Saturday Night Live parody of Sarah Palin. When asked for a specific example of one of her talking points in the faux-Katie Couric interview, the bewildered Feylin ultimately asked to use one of her lifelines. This reference to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is not so far off from how the televised election process has devolved. Even the Emmys make a distinction between "regular" reality shows and the competitive ones. Yet the ultimate win in the electoral college has now so significantly trickled back to the debates, that the period reserved for thoughtful examination now resembles Wheel of Fortune (with the unfortunate detail that Sarah Palin would make a much better Vanna than a contestant).

The American need to win is a funny thing. It's not quite as all-encompassing as the German version (Kids, Google the word "Holocaust" for details), but it does motivate us forget the baby while we throw ourselves under the bus. In previous debate years, John McCain actually did seem like a maverick, with a serious desire to change the corruptions-that-be. Now he has fully morphed into newest Howdy Doody for the Neo-Con marionette wranglers. And his mention of the bracelet he now "proudly wears" in honor of a dead G.I. has all the substance and gravitas of canned cake frosting. But because this is the sort of thing that scores points in the reality-competition, I was actually relieved when Barack Obama went dick-swinging and flashed his own bracelet from a G.I. who was equally dead. (I do not mean to mock our soldiers, only those who would exploit them.)

The need to win also pervades our entertainments that aren't politically themed. When creative minds contort themselves to win an audience instead of fulfill their artistic vision, sharks jump and babies cry. The season premiere of Ugly Betty proved unwatchable, as the unique and winning tone of previous seasons was replaced by an inexplicable hodgepodge of what can only be explained as puree of market research. And this season's Desperate Housewives is dangerously close to embodying only the first word of the title.

But let's face it, all network premieres are second banana to the show everyone's waiting for: Moosealini and the Man. The Palin/Biden debate (which will probably be in one phase of post-mortem or another when you read this) is anticipated by both the bloodlusty and the low-blood-sugar. Try as some of us might to resist the lowest-common-denominator siren song of drama over issues, none of us are immune to the potential The Real World–style violence we might get to saturate ourselves with. Sure, the Tasmanian Devil was wild and unpredictable — but Elmer Fudd had a gun! I can't wait to find out who wins.