The Catapault Malfunctions

by digby

CNN just reported that the ABC event movie, “The Path To 9/11” had 13 million viewers compared with CBS’s 10 million for the third repeat of it’s 9/11 documentary and football won the time slot with a strapping 20 million viewers.

When they look at the numbers closely, I think they will show an ABC audience that shrank tremendously within the first 15 minutes. This is not because it was politically sensitive but because it is one of the most tedious, incomprehensible pieces of garbage they’ve ever broadcast. A bunch of advertisers must be breathing a sigh of relief this morning that they hadn’t been talked into blowing any money on it.

It wasn’t just that it was a pathetic and obvious attempt to ape real talent like Oliver Stone, Steven Soderberg and Stephen Ghagan, or that the characters were robotic cliches whose turgid dialog actually made me laugh out loud several times. (There is a particularly hilarious scene in which Amy Madigan stomps around like a weepy linebacker, practically rending her garments before a conference table full of bedwetting bureaucrats, proclaiming “we had him and we let him go!”) It’s that it was, despite all the hoopla, so slow and plodding that even someone like me who had a great interest in watching every frame to find details I could use, simply could not sustain my interest after the first hour. I forced myself, but it wasn’t easy. Somehow, I doubt that middle America was more riveted than I was.

Here in LA on the ABC 11 o’clock news they held a sort of focus group to watch the film and comment on it. (They all looked a little shell shocked — and I doubt it was because the movie was so powerful.) I found it quite interesting that more than half of them saw it as a rightwing attempt to re-write history and found it “dangerous” and “false.” The rightwingers present were forced to say things like “I find it amazing that half this country refuses to accept we are at war.” From seeing that exchange, I’m hopeful that this movie failed to convince anyone who isn’t already dogpaddling around in the wingnut kool-aid. If that focus group is any indication, most of those who managed to make it through the whole thing without being rendered comatose could see that it was unbalanced.

The problem with wingnuts in popular culture is that they can’t seem to attract real creative talent. I think creativity rarely fits comfortably with authoritarianism, so that isn’t surprising. They are going to have to find a better team than Nowrasteh and Cunningham if they hope to indoctrinate the public with wingnut propaganda through film and television. Perhaps they should stick to screaming Hiteresque ranting on talk radio. That they know how to do.

Update: the numbers are actually worse than CNN reported

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