The popular Netflix series The Diplomat has Keri Russell playing a woman who's really sore that she's been made American ambassador to the United Kingdom. Many Americans would pay a fortune to become America's representative to the Court of St. James's, and some do. It's a non-secret that ambassadorships in the choice capitals go for campaign contributions of around $300,000. There has been only one career foreign service officer in London since 1952.
That's the sordid real-world of American politics. But in this fiction, you wish the honor had gone to a shopping-mall developer who wanted to do the job rather than a ludicrous character who hollers vulgarities and walks barefooted through the grounds of stately Winfield House, the ambassadorial residence.
A career foreign service officer who served five times as ambassador told me, with diplomatic understatement, that he started watching the series and was "not pleased." He couldn't get past the first episode, saying, "That was enough."
And that was just as well, I told him, in that the second episode has "Ambassador Kate Wyler" sprawled on the steps outside the front entrance dressed in a short silk slip. This was apparently her sulk over being allegedly forced to participate in a fashion shoot the episode before.
The real-life diplomat also missed the part where she tells the U.K. foreign secretary, "You're kind of an a—hole." Also the scene where she and her problematic husband (who previously had the ambassador job) are rolling around the grounds in a fistfight.
Had this story been presented as a frothy Cinderella tale for saucy teen girls, it could have been easily ignored. There's some precedence for fantasies of American gals behaving like slobs in manor houses as starchy Brits quietly place formal flower arrangements on their side tables.
But the straight-faced theme here is that the heroine is a savvy war-zone expert whose steel-trap brain is being wasted doing all this ceremonial fluff. (That she didn't have to take the position is nowhere noted.)
"You know why I don't want this job?" the character spits out to an underling. "I spent a decade building a reputation in a community such that when I say something, people f—-ing listen to me."
Even the lowliest female employee would know not to prance around the formal residence in tight, distressed jeans. They probably wouldn't do it on the streets of Kabul, either.
Aside from the portrayal of the ambassador as a bad-girl 10th grader, the story suffers quite a few flaws regarding the mechanics of becoming and being an ambassador.
For starters, Wyler leaves for London without the distraction of a Senate confirmation. Thus, she is not a valid representative of the United States. (The Senate Foreign Relations Committee would have closely questioned and delayed the confirmation of so inexperienced a diplomat for an important post.)
Furthermore, diplomats do not enjoy regular, casual access to the president. They surely wouldn't be making references to "motherf—-ers" as Wyler does with "President Rayburn," who volleys them back.
Nor could any foreign service professional imagine a situation in which the spouse, whether or not possessing the distracting title of ambassador, would work at cross purposes with the chief of mission and intentionally embarrass her and the United States. That person would be immediately ejected.
I could not get beyond episode three, so embarrassing was it all to America, the foreign service, women and grown-ups. But where are the cultural troops to back me up?
The Hollywood Reporter at least had the decency to make some fun of it as a "gourmet cheeseburger." But the critic for NPR, supposedly a defender of standards, called The Diplomat a "smart" political thriller.
Et tu, NPR?
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
God keeps an eye out for Trump, Stratcom’s New Year’s tweet bombs, and the Romney Family Reunion implodes. This cast of characters put the ass in asylum. It’s This Week in Crazy!
5. Katt Kerr Prophetess with the mostest Katt Kerr plans to grace Capitol Hill with her presence several times during 2019. Kerr, whose YouTube page says she’s “commissioned by God to see and share Heaven,” proclaimed the Lord will see Trump win the 2020 election. Really? Must be all those doorway anointings the White House ordered.
The Grease castoff urged, “If you’re not behind [Trump], get behind him and be on the winning side, on God’s team.” Or he’ll grab ‘em by the pussy. Amen, Pink Lady.
4. Netflix This week Netflix is anything but chill…especially when it comes to their money. The streaming giant pulled a recent episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj from their lineup, following blowback from the Saudi government
On the show, Minhaj spoke out about the murder of Washington journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The comedian stated, “This is the most unbelievable cover story since Blake Shelton won sexiest man alive.”
Obviously, the Crown Prince is a huge fan of Gwen Stefani’s man. Mohamed bin Salman took offense and called in a few favors. Before you know it, Netflix pulled the show.
Quite an interesting time for Netflix to reveal their moral compass. After all, Netflix carries The Interview — the flick that infamously provoked North Korea to threaten war. And since Netflix recently “acquired Seth Rogen”…
…It doesn’t seem Netflix will be dropping the controversial North Korea satire anytime soon.
3. Star Parker This week, the Trump Administration made it harder for people to get food stamps. The GOP applauded the human suffering that resulted during a segment on Fox & Friends. But guest panelist Star Parker, who takes no pleasure in people going hungry, philanthropically offered the starving a solution: Stop watching porn and get a job!
Fox News guest claims that food stamp recipients are too busy “watching porn” to get a job, which is why they’re still on public assistance. (h/t @CourtneyHagle) pic.twitter.com/RQV8MVJoMe
According to Star Parker, if men stop workin’ it in the house, they’ll start getting to work outside the house. Therefore, they’ll no longer need SNAP assistance.
We hate to ruin your perverse fantasy but actually, Star, 60 percent of SNAP recipients are employed. Whether they watch porn isn’t really your problem. Or maybe it is…
2. Ronna McDaniel In a Freaky Friday role reversal, Ronna McDaniel became the angry drunk uncle berating an innocent niece over the holiday season for speaking out against the President. In this scenario, McDaniel’s niece is Utah Senator-elect Mitt Romney.
Like any responsible adult, RNC Chair McDaniel took to Twitter to air her family grievances:
POTUS is attacked and obstructed by the MSM media and Democrats 24/7. For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack @realdonaldtrump as their first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive. https://t.co/ArhI7Bi7bo
Yeah, the claws came out when McDaniel dissed her uncle as “Freshman Senator.” That stings almost as badly as “Failed Presidential Candidate,” and “Guy Who Had to Move to Utah to Get Elected Again.”
1. Stratcom
Times Square for New Year’s Eve is such a celebrated tradition each year. Bringing in millions of people means there’s always a heightened fear of a terrorist attack. Somehow the officers in charge of our nuclear weapons thought it’d be the perfect time to prey on that hysteria.
Stratcom rang in the New Year by dropping a tweet promoting their drone capabilities:
Not so long after posting this piece of war propaganda, the US Strategic Command pulled the video. Realizing their jokes were about as funny as Louis CK’s latest bit, Stratcom issued the following tweet:
Our previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values. We apologize. We are dedicated to the security of America & allies.
Amanda Knox was innocent of the grisly murder for which she did time in an Italian jail. There was no DNA link suggesting that the student from Seattle had slit the throat of her English roommate. Other evidence at the crime scene had been contaminated.
Yet to the angry locals, it mattered not whether Knox had just been convicted or vindicated, both of which happened. They stood outside the Perugia courthouse yelling “shame” and “murderer” every time a dark van rushed Knox away. They clearly hated her guts.
A new Netflix documentary on this 9-year-old case, “Amanda Knox,” shows why. It deftly balances the miscarriage of justice with the American’s in-your-face contempt for Italian sensibilities.
Knox comes off as a type, the American who seems to regard other countries as amusement parks for their adventures. She’s not the only example here but certainly the most bizarre one.
From the moment British student Meredith Kercher’s brutalized body is found, Knox seems to take little interest in or even notice of the tragedy. It’s an inconvenience to her fun agenda.
We see the Italian police carrying the body bag out of the house. News cameras start flashing, and an official shouts to the media: “As a courtesy, please stop! Have some dignity!”
Then we see a blank-faced Knox standing nearby, smooching ostentatiously with her boyfriend.
At the police station, Knox throws the F-word around at authorities. In an exhibitionist display, she does cartwheels and stretching.
Italians thought she was crazy, evil or both. Crashing insensitivity is somewhat foreign to them.
“In Seattle, I was cute,” Knox tells the filmmakers. “In Italy, I was the beautiful blond American girl.” Italians, it turned out, were not quite so awed as she thought.
During the recent Rio Olympics, Americans swelled with pride at the performance of their athletes. But then a handful of their champion swimmers deflated the good feeling with their disgraceful behavior in the host country.
The details: Ryan Lochte had drunkenly vandalized a gas station bathroom as he and friends were returning from a party. They could have just apologized, having already paid to fix the damage, but no. Lochte and his three teammates cooked up phony stories about being held up at gunpoint. Lochte said the robbers wore police badges.
To beat the rap on their own minor criminality, the Americans were willing to exploit Brazil’s painful reputation for violent crime. Brazilians were enraged.
The last example involves no crime, just an obnoxious presumption of American superiority. Jonathon Dunne, a Coloradan, has been badgering London subway riders to talk to one another. Chatting up strangers is not the local custom in the Underground. Londoners generally regard their time in the Tube as “sacred space,” a British etiquette expert explained to media.
Nonetheless, Dunne stands outside subway stations handing out badges with the words “Tube chat?” Far worse, he’s at Covent Garden with a bullhorn barking, “It is time to make London the friendliest city in the world.”
Dunne acknowledges that many of the people he confronts with his pushy camaraderie are not amused. But, he told The Wall Street Journal, “I’m expecting to change the culture of London.”
Those are high expectations for … exactly who is this guy? What would happen if a foreigner stood in Dunne’s hometown of Durango and harangued passers-by not to talk so loudly? I’d hate to think.
What’s going on here? Rampant narcissism? Immaturity? Arrogance? There may be some or all of that. Let’s just say it’s doubtful that these individuals would have tried the same stunts back home in America. And if that’s the case, their behavior is not naive innocence but plain ugly.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.
Welcome to the fifth part of our ongoing series, examining all the ways that the artistic and entertainment communities have been trying to warn America that Donald Trump (or someone like him) was up to no good.
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Would you believe that there are a lot of people out there who think Donald Trump bears an uncanny resemblance to an incorrigibly vulgar cartoon blue bear named Waldo?
Waldo comes to us courtesy of “The Waldo Moment,” a second-season episode from the British anthology sci-fi show Black Mirror. Written by series creator Charlie Brooker, “Waldo,” like all Mirror episodes, is set in its own distinct universe, telling a different acidic, disturbing satire that reflects our technology and media mores back to us.
In “The Waldo Moment,” the title character is entered into a by-election for a suddenly vacant MP seat as a publicity stunt. The fact that he isn’t human turns out not to be an issue at all for the voters. Waldo is a profane parody of the sort of well-informed teddy who might show up on educational children’s shows to explain what a “politician” is. Only Waldo, like a mean-spirited Colbert, lures oblivious pols onto his show and then calls them a “pussy” over and over again.
And who is Waldo? This is Waldo:
Meet Waldo
Seriously. I’m not the only one who sees the resemblance…
Watched the one Black Mirror episode I hadn’t seen, The Waldo Moment. By far the worst one but definitely reminded me of the Trump candidacy
“The current state of the race reminds me a lot of an episode of Black Mirror, a terrific BBC show about a dystopian near-future,” Cillizza wrote in The Washington Post back in September.
Trump’s kinship with the foul-mouthed gold-toothed bear is so striking that someone was able to mash up clips from the episode with actual Trump sound bytes:
Waldo is a kind of digital marionette that assumes the facial expressions and voice of a comedian named Jamie, who manipulates the character’s movements from behind a screen. As the episode begins, we gather that Jamie’s personal and professional lives have run aground. His former peers in comedy have gone on to bigger and better things, his most successful gig as an actor was playing “a corn on the cob in a high-interest personal loans commercial,” and we gather than he is struggling with the fallout from the breakdown of a relationship. When he gets the opportunity to run a fake campaign for an MP seat, he seems the least thrilled of anyone.
Of course, he isn’t going to win, and that’s the point. This is just to drum up enthusiasm for a potential pilot. The constituency is solidly conservative, so even the young Labour candidate, an earnest but pragmatic careerist named Gwendolyn, who steals Jamie’s heart, isn’t going to win — she’s just there to dutifully pound the pavement, and pay her party dues. Everyone’s just going through the motions, in Jamie’s words, for their reel.
But what catches Brooker’s eye isn’t the party politics of parachuting surefire candidates into safe-seat constituencies — it’s the way the crude antics of gotcha comedy and reality television find currency in the political arena.
The episode charts Waldo’s progression from a sideshow to a viable, popular candidate — to the delight of social media and the immense consternation of every sensible person watching this spectacle unfold.
As with Trump, the peculiar joy of watching Waldo spar with the other candidates and with journalists who gamely try to corner him, lies in the glib delight and ease with which he smashes through — and exposes — the staid conventions of the whole process. When Trump openly ridiculed his Republican rivals for having once accepted his money, it was hard not to savor the moment, regardless of your politics. Waldo shuts a pundit down by noting that he is bringing them the best ratings they’ve seen in months – how many times has The Donald done the exact same thing to assert his dominance over the news networks?
Waldo and Trump can mock the political-media maelstrom by reflecting, perverting, and amplifying everything that people find craven and insubstantial about it. Jamie (Waldo’s voice and wayward soul) isn’t interested in politics, so Waldo isn’t either — great thing is, he doesn’t have to be. His team will google whatever he needs to know — summoning rebound stats and nasty anecdotes which they can feed to him in real time. If the news crews want to point their cameras at Waldo’s producers, all the better. Since every candidate has a group of researchers, handlers, and mouthpieces — by being upfront about it, it all just feeds into the deconstruction. He’s phony, but so are they. If Waldo has a point, that’s it, and it turns out to be a winner.
His unwillingness to buy into the bull makes him a “mascot for the disenfranchised,” in the words of one pundit. Like Trump, Waldo succeeds at harnessing people’s disgust with the entire political process. But where Trump feeds off anger, Waldo’s ascent is powered by apathy. We know exactly who Trump’s “disenfranchised” supporters are — a contingent of incensed, mostly white Americans, who feel threatened and dethroned. But Waldo’s fans appear to be simply bored, their nerve endings and democratic ideals deadened by too much nicety and sameness in politics. In the words of one character, Waldo encourages people not to care. Trump encourages people to do much worse.
Waldo doesn’t have any hateful dogma fueling his campaign. He doesn’t want to build a wall; he isn’t enamored of the power and devastation of nuclear weapons; he doesn’t claim to be able to make anything great again. He just mercilessly “takes the piss,” to use the succinct British idiom that is Waldo’s touchstone, and in doing so becomes a lighting rod for protest voters. This is all just for attention.
But if their ideologies are divergent, their tactics are not. Waldo and Trump don’t play by the rules because they don’t have to.
Chris Cillizza, comparing Waldo to Trump, writes:
Waldo has no qualms about using profanity, lewd jokes and all sorts of non-PC behavior to win verbal sparring matches with his opponents. Those traditional pols have no idea how to handle Waldo because he is, well, a made-up bear. Waldo loses, but his impact on the public — and against politicians — is huge.
But wait, you say, Donald Trump is not an animated bear. You are correct! But Trump’s ability to say and do things no one else would makes it very difficult for Bush to win a fight with him. If your opponent doesn’t play by the rules — or doesn’t acknowledge there are rules at all — it’s no fun to play a game with him.
Bush learned that the hard way, Cillizza noted. As do Waldo’s hapless rivals.
Waldo and Trump are beholden to nobody, merrily unencumbered by any interest outside the advancement of their own celebrity.
The irony is that Waldo is owned by someone — the network — and he is responsive to their bottom line. Waldo becomes too marketable to let go of, and after a conscience-stricken Jamie abandons the character, his unscrupulous producer takes over the reins and turns Waldo into something much uglier, inciting violence by promising 500 pounds to anyone who can pelt Waldo’s opponents and hecklers with a shoe. Another echo there of The Donald, who has supported and even provoked violence at his rallies and among his supporters. (A hasty, and frankly weakly conceived, epilogue suggests that, long after the events of the episode, political operatives have harnessed Waldo’s reach and turned him into a dangerous, global instrument of control.)
The A.V. Club‘s David Sims argues that one large and simple flaw of the episode is that “Waldo isn’t funny, and he rarely even makes the kind of cogent points” we’d expect him to make. “He didn’t need to be funny, but outside of one particularly successful rant, his content is entirely dumb dick jokes and profuse swearing, which would certainly attract some media attention, but probably not the kind of phenomenal success he experiences in the episode.”
Frankly, I think this is a feature, not a bug. Not only has Waldo’s schtick supplanted actual political discourse; his crass mocking tactics, which are largely devoid of any insight or wit, have taken the place of actual comedy. I don’t find Trump’s ad hominem attacks and free-association ramblings very funny, but God knows his supporters do. According to any conventional standard, Waldo and Trump fail miserably as both entertainers and politicians — but in their respective bizarro universes (one a British sci-fi show, the other the United States in an election cycle) they succeed spectacularly as both. At least according to the vox populi on social media. Trending on Twitter is, Waldo’s producer notes, democracy in action. So be it.
“The Waldo Moment” becomes an iteration of the old story of an artist who loses control of his art, who achieves widespread success and is crushed by it. Jamie may not have political integrity, but he yearns to have artistic integrity, to be true to his craft and to the work of devising the best joke. And Waldo was never a very good joke — he knows that keenly. That this vile blue bear should become his breakout role is an embarrassment he knows he can never walk away from.
Even the politicians, in their own weary, eroded way, are allowed to show a glimmer of sincerity. Gwendolyn chastises Jamie: “If you were a revolutionary, that would be something,” but he’s not. He’s an equal opportunity spitballer. The conservative candidate observes that Waldo is making the whole system look absurd — “which it may well be,” he muses, “but it built these roads.”
Just because you play by the rules, that doesn’t make you an ineffectual phony. And just because you break every convention, it doesn’t mean you can achieve meaningful, positive change. The would-be MPs aren’t dolts, and Waldo isn’t a radical. He makes people laugh because the things he says are gauche and unexpected — but only an idiot would actually laugh at, let alone vote for, such a creature.
In the final analysis, the comparisons between Waldo and Trump are really only skin-deep. There is no puppeteer behind the curtain with Trump, turning his gears, losing faith, second guessing the vile nonsense coming out of his mouth. It’s just Trump all the way down. And there’s something more insidious and dangerous than a mere mercenary bid for publicity powering Trump’s campaign.
Ultimately, “Waldo” isn’t a satire of political theater, and it isn’t about demagogues and toxic ideologies. It’s a damning indictment of the idiocy of a hashtag electorate that thinks going viral and being legit are the same thing.
“The Waldo Moment” is less prophetic for what it says about Trump than for what it says about us.
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This is the fifth in our series “Pop Culture Warned Us About Trump.”
