I Like to Watch

Sept. 24, 2006 | Self-importance may be the defining characteristic of the American professional -- which explains why so many American professionals are so deeply, abidingly irritating. Don't play dumb, you know just who I'm talking about: those arrogant people who talk about their jobs in tones that suggest they're curing cancer.

Now, if they were actually curing cancer, that would be one thing. In fact, doctors, high-ranking political figures, community leaders, teachers, cops and pretty much anyone who is, at least in theory, aiming to help the populace and serve the common good gets a free pass to employ as much of a self-important tone as needed in order to pound home their point. Also, most firemen, by dint of being enormous, fit human beings with square jaws and booming voices who rush into burning buildings to save feeble weaklings like myself (at least in my dreams) also have a free pass, as do Bill Clinton, Spike Lee and Bono.

But most people are not curing cancer or rushing into burning buildings and pulling people out with their enormous hands. Most people are doing jobs that don't matter at all, or creating stuff that no one reads or watches or buys, or even if people do read or watch or buy it, they don't enjoy it that much, it doesn't inform them or make them laugh, or they shouldn't have wasted their money. The stuff most people are writing or making or selling should be much, much better than it is.

And why isn't it better? Because it's totally acceptable in American society for groups of professionals to go on and on and on about themselves as if they matter, as if they have the remotest interest in quality, as if they're not doing a mediocre job at their jobs, day in and day out, as if they're not doing the least possible amount of work for the greatest possible amount of money and prestige.

Yet another fantastic aspect of HBO's "The Wire"? It captures the way that people and systems perpetuate the status quo and support the least common denominator and celebrate mediocrity, all the while patting each other on the back for their so-called excellence.

Sorry entertainers
All of which brings us to Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (10 p.m. Mondays on NBC), a show that, on the one hand, tackles the pathology of the professional circle jerk and its resulting mediocrity head-on, yet on the other hand, indulges the incredible self-importance of the TV writer to an extent heretofore unseen on the small screen.

Again, for the same reasons that it's easier to stomach the self-important banter of idealistic politicians and cops and doctors and other high-minded civil servants, it's also easier to stomach TV shows that focus on these kinds of people. On "Grey's Anatomy" or "ER" or "The Wire" or "The West Wing," we tolerate the melodrama that characters drum up about their jobs, we tolerate their all-knowing tones and their self-righteousness and their indignant attitudes because they do have pretty high-pressure jobs that serve the common good, at least in theory, and it makes sense that they're dogmatic and idealistic and stubborn about what they do and what they should be doing.

But self-important banter among magazine editors, just for example? Not so easy to swallow. Amway salesmen, political bloggers, TV and film critics, advertising executives? We'd prefer that they keep their mouths shut, yet when groups of them get together, their tone of voice would lead you to believe that they were doing the pressing and important work of foreign dignitaries.

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