Much is made up of the Extreme Telethon Energy of the Virtual Democratic National Convention, which on Wednesday aired its third night with segments fired from across the country.
Billie Eilish and Jennifer Hudson sang. Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, and, in a brief standout moment, Gabrielle Giffords delivered moving speeches. Kamala Harris made history.
By moderating everything, an inspired choice of A-list actress in an inspirational pin-stripe pantsuit, Kerry Washington, in full mode Olivia Pope, was staring at the camera and pleading with seriousness typically reserved is if there is a toll free 1-800 number at the bottom of the screen: “If we repair the damage done … we need to involve the people.”
On the first night of this, as Washington called it, “unconventional convention,” which swapped the cavernous, cacophonous conference room for intimate speeches and testimonies, my colleague Scott Bixby humorously observed, “The PBS telethon vibes are so strong that the DNC is about to throw a free tote when you call in the next five minutes.”
In many ways, even Wednesday’s relatively anticipated program echoed that unmistakable, undoubted crippled-y telethon tone.
But you could make the argument – and I would just do that – that the tone fits perfectly. What is the Democratic Party trying to accomplish at the moment, if not asking for terrible help to rid its ranks and, certainly, the country, of devastating trauma and disaster?
As a television, this format is much more influential than trying to filter the typical arena chaos through the screen. Reason, musical performances, segments edited specifically to make you feel very, very sad. Telethons are entertaining! You do not know what? Conventions.
This is something that participates; a virtual layout that for once seems to handle the intentions of the convention directly to you. Those massive halls lay like rooms you would never want to be in. But in this case, it is the politicians who are legally engaged in making their way to you.
Yet there is also an inconvenience in playing when great fluctuations are made to make inspirational TV in such chased and destroyed times as these: the more we need the sincere glow of that inspiration, the more allergic we become to it. It’s too quiet and invisible, when in fact shit has become real. Let’s really get on with it.
More than the nights before, Wednesday’s program seems to be transcending the banality and, to some extent, pointlessness of convention agendas. It was more urgent and less frightening.
Kamala Harris became the first Black and South Asian woman to be officially nominated on a presidential card for a major party. (And made an iconic impression while I was doing it; suffice it to say, that silence after “I know a predator when I see one” is perhaps the most pregnant break of the election season.)
Not only did Harris’ confident, personal and powerful speech fill the moment – and it did all night.
It is easy to mock the telethonic nature of the virtual event. It tends to dispel the need for an old-fashioned production like this, which, no matter who you ask about it, seems to extend a hand to the wrong people and leave you and your worries behind. But the fact of the matter is that it was historical television, an explanation that may have served outside of any of those criticisms.
The biggest challenge for this year’s DNC, virtual or otherwise, was to figure out how to overcome a palpable cynicism – what use is all this? – and bitterness: Here’s a brilliantly edited package about female leaders who fought to break the glass ceiling and how those achievements could change the country for the better, and then many of those women here speak in support of ‘ the white man about whom we must in any case rule.
I do not think Obama’s incredible speech liberated that. But it certainly spoke to it, and loudly.
Billie Eilish speaks it a little more quietly, though in ways that will certainly resonate, performing her song “My Future”.
“You do not have to tell me that things are a mess,” she said, before the smoke in the nearby forest began to bark. “Donald Trump is destroying our country and everything we care about. We all have to vote like our lives and the world depends on it because they do. “
Apparently, the annoying older cousin you both admire and are afraid of appears, who can not believe she has to tell you that herself – go, boys! – the appearance was counterbalanced by influence. It’s an inspiring combination for the whole Billie Eilish thing. Even the eternally bored must be politically active!
And so she sang of what turned out to be the reconstructed set of Hocus Pocus, a decision that simply needs to be applauded: is asked to perform a song about the current political moment and serve an aesthetic of a camp horror film.
“People on conservative Twitter already behaved as if this vocal, appropriately polluting performance was the equivalent of Cardi B and Megan the Stallion grinding for “WAP” at the top of the American flag.”
As the freshman became bouncing, the lights came on around her. If you listened carefully to what you thought the beats of bass drums were actually, Fox News pundits were real-time pundits. People are on conservative Twitter al trade as this vocal, appropriately polluting performance was the equivalent of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion grinding to ‘WAP’ at the top of the American flag.
Whatever you think of the decision to bring in musicians and celebrities in these political moments, at least this year Eilish deserves DNC much cooler cred than Katy Perry’s Class Monitor energy of 2016 – which speaks to the programming Wednesday night as a whole.
What stood out was that the speakers were all emotional in pointy and striking ways. And they all made sense to be there, unlike past days when the daily announcements of Republicans who participated in the scheme made us for the imperishable renewal that Dick Cheney would participate in a tap dance about Zoom with Sean Spicer to perform.
The virtual format also lets “real Americans” and their stories be brought into the conversation in ways that, ultimately, do not compromise on exploitation and gross appropriation. In fact, they claimed to be deep and necessary.
I was shocked and surprised by the random moments in the last few days when I just burst into short bursts of tears as I watched this. Not long, drawn out bolts of sadness, but tingles of intense emotion pierced with a sharp, rapid pain: Matthew Shepard’s parents make the Roll Call for Wyoming. The story of Deandra Dycus and her son. The Bidens tell in detail about their family tragedy. Gabby Giffords’ beautiful, thrilling-inducing triumph. Elizabeth Warren talks about her Aunt Bee.
We need to feel sad. It is what we tend to forget in the anger and the fear and the imperfection of it all. Bad things happen to people like one of us, and it’s just so sad.
The packs that highlight certain issues, which always play as corny and superficial in normal circumstances, also registered with more sting the way they played here.
Each new, disturbing segment ended with the opening of the stairwell for the next to continue, as the release-driven packages of the night plunged into an endless tunnel of depression: Gunfire! Climate change! Deportation crisis! Domestic violence! It’s a slog that once felt like a slog. That’s an important point! That impact is so often lost when you look at recordings from the convention halls.
Wednesday night’s theme was “A more perfect union”, a seemingly innocent prompt that is actually divided into evidence of how publicly corrupts this convention.
You see something like that in which unity and reach across the aisle is the ethos that is tainted by the whole company like a deadly jackhammer, and then you listen to how pundits talk about it on TV, political commentators write about it, progressives on Twitter tweets about it – everything focuses on what went wrong, what was not done enough and what is just annoying. You are left with a dizzying, almost numbing dissonance ringing in your ears.
It’s the version of: How do you handle the town council meeting when someone up there is doing a danceless dance next to a monkey eating its own poo while being surrounded by circus performers who set themselves on fire?
It tells that the big headlines of Day 2 were false, trolling messages about AOC that Biden did not endorse. Or, in the hours before Day 3 of the convention began, Trump was back in the big tent, refusing to reject QAnon supporters and their crazy conspiracy theories
There is the obvious question: What value is there to pay attention to, let alone cover, to any of that? But you try to walk past the side show without trying to take a peek, let alone throw your hands up and buy a ticket.
In addition, it is noteworthy that Barack Obama did not simply deliver a resonant, sure-to-be-head-making speech. He provided good tv. He not only opposed the circus, but served as carnival barker for what finally makes the case a better show.
About that cynicism? They are counting on it, he said. ‘They know they can not overcome you with their policies. That they hope to make it as difficult as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote does not matter. That’s what they win. ”
When you are dismissive and powerless, it is hard to remember that you sometimes are not. You have no right to helplessness, jade or pessimism. Seek more of his speech to read more about the nuances of his point, but the argument is remarkable in contrast to what the DNC has reported so far.
So much of this convention has been about setting fire to how the Democratic Party, Biden, Harris and “we the people” can put out the fires that are raging in our democracy. Obama’s speech almost stood out as a contradiction. No, we need to set fire. Feel the sparks of anger and brokenness, and let it burn.
And while things are flaring up, Jennifer Hudson walks in, blowing the roof off what appears to be a very fancy building, performing the perfect choices for singing, belted out like a flamethrower.
“A change is coming”, and you could almost feel the temptation of DNC programmers to ask you to call 1-800-VOTE4US if you think, oh, yes, it will be.
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