by Bill Tierney
The Emmys were last night, and I’d like to weigh in on one TV series. I do, after all, live in Los Angeles. I’ve been catching up on various programs over the last year (thank god for Tivo!) and currently the best show on television, hands-down, is HBO’s Treme. The writing is smart, the character development superb, and the story of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans gripping.
The fusion of the challenges that people face in getting their lives back together coupled with the cultural vibrancy of the city makes for superb TV. Jazz, naturally, is a centerpiece of Treme.
One of the characters, played by John Goodman, is Creighton Bernette, an English professor at Tulane. I have long bemoaned the stereotypes of academics in literature and film. We are generally portrayed as sex-crazed bumblers who seem obsessed with knifing one another in the back. To be sure, I have known my share of sex-crazed academics and bumblers and I have my share of scars on my back. I also have known many other kinds of academics, and Creighton Bernette is one of them.
There is certainly something to be said for the disengaged academic who knows and cares little about the events in the outside world. I admire my friends and colleagues who study issues from a distance and try to make sense of complex phenomena. There is also something to be said for the academics who become embroiled in university politics and stand up for faculty rights and privileges. I could not be a long-standing member of the AAUP and not have admiration for people speaking up for academic rights.
But I also resonate to the Creighton Bernettes of the academic world. Bernette loves New Orleans (and his family). He cares deeply about what has happened to his city. It’s hard to believe that YouTube only came onto the scene five years ago, but it did. Right after Katrina Bernette finds out about YouTube and he posts two messages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PcVDSz7-MM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hRCXTnC8pw&NR=1
Ok, so the language is a bit rough, but the moral outrage he has is what many of us feel when we walk into third rate schools that don’t give kids a chance.
This third video is a song by another character played to the hilt by the hilarious Steve Zahn. Again, anyone who has struggled with the issues of access and equity over the last several years could change this tune of “Shame, shame, shame” from Katrina to the state of our schools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKvCjO4JlM&NR=1
Are you listening Arne Duncan?
