It’s 2019, and Aaron Sorkin continues to ruin himself for the lot of us. The creator of shows like The West Wing and Sports Night, Sorkin was the brainpower behind The Newsroom—you know, that show that existed on HBO that we all attempted to like for a short period of time and then found to be insufferable?
Now, Sorkin wants to bring it back, probably to yell about how media and millennials are the reason that someone like Donald Trump is president of the United States. Most recently, Sorkin took to the news circuit to complain about Democrats acting “young” and using their social media platforms to promote their issues, essentially stating that we need a moderate representative to win any kind of election.
Imagine, if you will, that this is Aaron Sorkin to young Democrats:
So, with the news that Sorkin is in conversations over a revival of The Newsroom, we’re all screaming “no” into the preverbal void. The show, centered around the character Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), reinforced the narrative that female journalists would be lost without their male counterparts and that, when screamed at by a white male who thought that he was above them in intelligence and importance, they could finally understand the jobs they were given, but clearly were not qualified to occupy.
The rumor Aaron Sorkin might bring back The Newsroom pleases me greatly because, with that show and its two year delay, it means that Aaron Sorkin would get the opportunity to monologue at us about what we did wrong to get Trump and then we can say “Wow. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin.”
— Brock Wilbur (@brockwilbur) February 18, 2019
Let’s not forget, though, that this is the show that launched the internet into a frenzy when it talked about rape and how, without hard evidence, Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) is more than likely going to believe the “sketchy man” and his colleague than the woman. The episode goes on to suggest that Mary, the woman who was raped, should debate her “alleged” rapist in a segment on national television rather than having her set up a site where women could anonymously report men who sexually assault them.
When one of Sorkin’s writers, Aleana Smith, contested the scene in the writers’ room, he reportedly kicked her out rather than listen to her concerns, and it doesn’t help that Aaron Sorkin’s response to the “debate” over the episode (titled “Oh Shenandoah”) was just that he wanted people to talk about it. Your episode shouldn’t have a negative statement against victims of sexual assault with the goal to “spark conversation” based on an extremely terrible opinion of your male character, Sorkin.
So, should we bring back The Newsroom, a show that focuses on a man who verbally abuses his staff when they bring up an opinion differing his own and has a man, like Don, who thinks rape victims should debate their rapists? Do we need to have MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) not understanding how email works again? Or what about Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) being the hot intellect for the male gaze?
Absolutely not. Let it die with the rest of Sorkin’s 2019 opinions, thank you very much.
Not even John Gallagher Jr. or Dev Patel could make this revival worth it.
(image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for AFI)
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