selenak

veritykindle pointed out to me yesterday how often intelligence in current media is either vilified or as a default option presented as tied to a cold/broken/rude/next-to-sociopathic/any-or-all-of-the-above personality. Which, if you think about it, is depressingly true. "Very smart" seems to come coupled with "clueless about emotions" almost automatically by now. The exception that came at once to mind for me when I thought about it was The West Wing, where most of the cast, both male and female, is presented as very intelligent and conscious of it, and, while having character flaws and entirely capable of behaving like jerks on occasion, but as an exception, not as a rule. Toby Ziegler, one of the smartest as well as one of the most argumentative characters, is also written and played as passionate, both about issues and people. And of course gets the scene with Jed Bartlet where Aaron Sorkin verbalizes his frustation that intelligence and education seem to have become dirty words in politics and politicians assume they have to play both down if they want to win elections. (This reminded me of an American journalist telling me once, back in the early Bush years, that Clinton got elected twice not because but inspite of the fact he had a Fulbright scholarship and went to Oxford, that he only got away with this because he could play up the Southern good old boy thing as well as the poor background and thus could avoid being perceived as elitist.) Of course, The West Wing ended years ago. Thinking of more recent shows, Damages and The Good Wife came to mind, also shows where intelligence does not automatically come with emotional cluelessness or even disengagement and is not something the leads have to play down or disingenously pretend not to have. Which was a relief. Self, thought I, you drew premature conclusions.

But then again, thinking about Damages and The Good Wife reminded me of something else, something

abigail_n brought up in her overview of The Good Wife in regards to the main character, Alicia: It's become a pernicious commonplace, not only of fiction about politics but of politics in the real world, that ambition is always a hallmark of evil, and that the only people who deserve power are the ones who truly don't want it. It's an attitude that gives us leaders who are either accomplished liars or easily-led fools. That Alicia feels such disdain for the games of influence and power that surround her (even as she occasionally plays them herself) suggests that the writers don't believe it's ever possible to be both ambitious and moral. I'm not sure this is true of The Good Wife, and it's definitely not true of Damages - Patty Hewes is ambitious and morally grey for many reasons, but not for lack of an ethical code (her anger at Frobisher's self glorification and Hollywoodesque claim to a "redemption story" in the third season, for example, is genuine), and our other leading character, Ellen, by the third season is definitely long past naivete yet still both ambitious and moral - but the lure of what I'd call the Cincinnatus ideal - that you can only be good and powerful if you don't want power, end up with it by accident and withdraw from it as soon as you can, whereas if you're ambitious you're automatically suspect - is certainly strong in many other stories.

And perhaps in some odd way, this ties to the need of combine intelligence with inability to handle emotions and/or indeed feel them (not the same thing). From a Doylist pov, there is probably the fear of presenting a character as "too perfect". Witness the quickness with which the term "Mary Sueeeeeee!" is hurled at any female character both smart and in tune with her emotions. But to a lesser degree, it's true for male characters as well. Conversely: the assumption that a "good" person must be a primarily emotional one, not an intellectual, and without ambition because having ambition is not a positive emotion. And yet, see above, you can tell a story with flawed characters for whom this is not true.

Moving away from shows about lawyers and politicians, and looking at real life reactions to actors and musicians: maybe I'm exaggerating, but it seems to me that again, there is an assumption that ambition, especially when combined with smarts, is something a true artist should not have but should, if he/she wants to stay sympathetic, look at their success like a bewildered child, helpless in the hands of evil-yet-smart managers. Almost as soon as the Henry V applause was over, the media response to the openly ambitious Kenneth Branagh was distinctly hostile, with an ongoing undertone of "who the hell does he think he is?" and lots of Schadenfreude when after a string of success at the box office he flopped and his personal life derailed; only in the last five or six years, after various character roles instead of leading roles, did the media hostility turn to approval again. And the other day I watched a German Beatles documentary film with that old chestnut, the "Paul was a soulless business person from the start, rather than a true artist, even as a teenager, because he made the band practice (shock horror) and read the contracts they were given instead of just signing (the cad)". See what I mean? It's easy to love Vincent Van Gogh, who sold only two pictures during his lifetime. Less easy to love Michelangelo (as a person, I mean, not his creations) who in addition to being a genius artist was also a savvy businessman completely up to negotiating with popes and cardinals about his fees (and also dying in his old age and in bed, not young).

This insistence: if you're good at something - intellectually, or artistically, - there has to a comparable drawback; if you're successful, it has to be either be punished by a fall, or it has to come to you by accident and through other forces, not because you worked for it and wanted it.

I find it bewildering, and occasionally downright depressing.