All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances.
Don't argue with that wisdom; it's from from Shakespeare's "As You Like It."
The idea that we all play our parts on the great stage of life--and that such a format translates naturally into TV--seems to have informed a piece from the always interesting Allesandra Stanley writing an interesting take on "Morning Joe" in The New York Times:
‘MORNING JOE’ This MSNBC early-morning political klatch is oddly addictive, even though its hosts at times come off like a cable news version of “American Idol.” Joe Scarborough is Simon Cowell, the Randy Jackson role is divided between Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle, and Mika Brzezinski is Paula Abdul, always seeking to say something nice about politicians the others mock. Willie Geist is their Ryan Seacrest, only much funnier.
What Stanley gets at here is that the best shows on TV are family shows--in which the show is the family, which opens its home to your family. That's what makes "The Today Show," work, not to mention any number of sitcoms and local newscasts.
And what makes "Morning Joe" stand out from most of the MSNBC lineup is that the characters are appealing--no humorless ideologues, no domineering talkathon-ers, no smarmy trashtalkers.
By contrast, the "Morning Joe" team is ideologically heterodox: Joe Scarborough is a former conservative Republican Congressman, now getting paid by MSNBC to take whacks at Republicans, but even so, he seems relatively even-handed. Mika Brzezinski is hard to place, but she has an appealing vulnerability to her--literally, as we saw in her much-discussed mugging attack in DC. As for Pat Buchanan, he is always refreshing, always honest, willing to go wherever his conservative ideology takes him, including in fierce opposition to the Bush administration's foreign policy. And as for Mike Barnicle, who flamed out as a Boston newspaper columnist because of plagiarism, he seems to me to be the weakest link. Back in Boston, he seemed to have a set role: to be the working class guy who would translate the upper-class liberalism of the Kennedys and Kerrys down to the proles. In other words, it was Barnicle's job to explain why the working class should support liberalism, welfarism, school busing-ism, and so on. And he did pretty well at it. But he's still a stooge for The Man--the Liberal Man. Of which, of course, there are plenty at MSNBC/NBC.
But still, it's a mixed bag on "Morning Joe." Just like any family.
