Where Are You Now, America!
As a youngster and then young/older man I don’t recall the virulent emphasis on “patriotism” that’s peddled today by the media, politicians and the Permanent Government (not yet all purged by Trump; as if most didn’t know his “drain the swamp” catchphrase was just a convenient tool). “Patriotism” was a benign word, sprinkled into recitations of American history by, in my case, public school teachers, eliciting not even a yawn from students. Colleges weren’t as politically combustible as today, but at Johns Hopkins in the 1970s, with the Vietnam War’s end, Nixon’s daily Reality Show (nothing beat his November 17th, 1973 proclamation, “I am not a crook!”) and the spectacle of Patty Hearst on the lam, professors just sidestepped the word, save the several Marxists who became personalities on campus. (I was friends with two of them, but didn’t take their courses: no interest in Das Kapital.)
In elementary school, I mouthed the “Pledge of Allegiance” each morning, bored, and wondered why there was a framed facsimile scroll of the Ten Commandments in every room. It didn’t particularly bother me, but I got my fill of that indoctrination every weekend at church and Sunday school. Even during the Bicentennial in 1976, there was more emphasis on the Tall Ships that traveled from harbor to harbor (boring to me; ships were ships) than the red, white and blue. If asked back then if I was a patriot, I would’ve prevaricated, and then said, “Sure, I wouldn’t want to live in another country.” But no one asked.
Last week I came across a Frank Bruni column in The New York Times (he doubles as a professor at Duke University, and I doubt that potential students are given a “truth advertising warning label” about his anti-Trump sloganeering) about the HBO/Max TV show The Pitt. Since it was in the Times, the headline was predictably condescending: “The Television Show Every American Should Watch.” I skip recommendations from the Times arts review staff, but do like The Pitt, one more medical drama, this one carried out like the forgotten turn-of-the-century thriller 24, as each episode is one hour in a day. Noah Wyle, a key character in ER’s 15-year run, is the star, a crabby but skilled and respected surgeon (Bruni call him the “lodestar” and “conscience” of the emergency room), but Katherine LaNassa and Gerran Howell are far more compelling characters.
Bruni exhales: “The second season is almost halfway done and feels even more relevant than the first. It’s also more open about its desire to be a mirror for a nation in need of help. [Isn’t that Aaron Sorkin’s job?] To that end, this season takes place on America’s birthday, the Fourth of July. No subtlety there… [The Pitt] is an empathy exam. It’s a civics lesson… It’s a study of people under intense pressure—as they are when a pulse is fading, or when a nation is fraying.”
It’s a TV show! I haven’t noticed much about politics on The Pitt, no more than Chicago Med, part of the Dick Wolf Universe, which is liberal, but not overtly so. The Billy Bob Thornton vehicle Landman is more charged (and funnier), but Times readers are commanded to follow Dr. Bruni’s advice: watch The Pitt because “it’s the most patriotic show on television.” A couple of months ago I spent time in a Baltimore City emergency room, and, like most such wings of hospitals it was a madhouse, with physicians and assistants “under intense pressure,” but it wasn’t a “civics lesson” and if an “empathy exam” was given, I missed it. Guess I flunked, and now require a make-up test from Dr. Bruni.
The accompanying newspaper clipping (from Huntington, New York’s weekly Long Islander—founded in 1838 by Walt Whitman—) is from a time when the word “patriotism” wasn’t abused by partisan commentators. It’s also a relic, given that the home addresses of the four boys (I’m on the right) are printed. No news organization, print or digital, could do that today.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: PizzaExpress opens its first restaurant in London; cigarette advertising is banned from British television; The Magic Roundabout makes its debut on BBC1; Richard Burton stars in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Kenneth Tynan is the first person to say “fuck” on British television; Thunderball is released in London; Jack Nicklaus is the PGA Tour’s money leader; Frank Herbert’s Dune is published; Tom Rolfe wins the Preakness Stakes; Diane Lane is born and Stan Laurel dies; My Fair Lady wins Best Picture Oscar; the first SDS march against the Vietnam War draws 25,000 to Washington, D.C.; John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is released; My Mother the Car premieres on NBC; the Gateway Arch is completed in St. Louis; and the Pillsbury Doughboy is created.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023