Anti-Gun Bias on HBO's "The Newsroom" [View all]

[TPaine7]

I just finished watching "The Newsroom" on HBO (Season 1, Episode 4, I'll Try to Fix You).

McAvoy, the anchor, has a one-sided but at least mostly true on-air rant where he "proves" that Sarah Palin, the NRA and others have no basis for thinking Obama is anti-gun and wants to ban guns. After all, by carefully ignoring Obama's published and well known anti-gun positions before he became president, you can show that he is a gun rights champion. He is, according to McAvoy's analysis, "the best friend the NRA has ever had."

Later that night, McAvoy is on a date with a woman.

Beginning at about 28:00 minutes in (on HBO GO) is a scene that presents an embarrassing propaganda whopper, the kind of lie that is swallowed by decent folks all the time. After all, the show is smart, funny, intelligent and apparently well researched--and it is obviously intended as serious political commentary. Here's how it happened:

McAvoy's date, Carrie, walking away from him toward the bedroom to change (she's apparently gotten wet in the rain): "Sloan said you were fun, hey do you like to get high?"

McAvoy: "I used to, but I can't buy pot anymore without it showing up in a newspaper."

Carrie: "There's a joint in the side pocket of my purse; get it out."

McAvoy: "Alright."

McAvoy, Upon finding gun, obviously disturbed: "Carrie, can we talk about the gun that's in your purse?"

Carrie, walking back into room wearing robe: "I'm a southern liberal, dude. It's northern liberals who are afraid of sex and guns."

McAvoy: "Well, both at the same time, and I'm a Republican from Nebraska. But, you mind if I..." He unloads her gun, taking out the magazine, dropping a bullet on the floor and handing the unloaded gun to her.

Carrie (smiling and taking his presumptuous self-righteousness in stride--she never said he could do anything with her gun): "You're disarming--get it?"

McAvoy: "Here's the thing..."

Carrie: "Yeah, yeah, I saw the show tonight. I'm a liberal's liberal, I work for Hillary, you are dead wrong on guns."

McAvoy: "I didn't take a position on guns, I took a position on lying, I came out against it." (Naturally, he didn't mention his own lie by omission, by carefully ignoring many published Obama statements against guns and focusing exclusively on things like the bill Obama signed that incidentally helped gun rights, he made the idea that Obama opposes gun rights appear weaker than it actually is. He also made Palin and Wayne LaPierre seem sillier than they actually are--which is impressive, but unnecessary.)

Carrie: "Well, if I'm walking the streets of Manhattan at night and a guy your size wants to rape me, then this is going to happen." (She points gun at him.)

McAvoy: "Actually, statistics show that this is going to happen:" Then, in a move that would make a ninja proud--and I mean a B movie ninja who can levitate, disappear and walk through walls--he takes the gun from her by slapping the butt of the gun, catching it it when it pops out of her hand, and deftly turning it on her. (I wonder how many takes it took to record that move, even with a cooperative woman.)

Carrie: "Is it wrong that I'm turned on by that?"

McAvoy: "Yes."

I have no doubt that some otherwise intelligent people now believe that statistically --STATISTICALLY!--guns are taken from armed people--or maybe it's just armed women--easily, in less than a second. For those keeping score at home, that would imply that this happens in THE MAJORITY OF DEFENSIVE GUN USES.

Yes, it's fiction. But it's serious, smart, sophisticated, intellectual fiction--fiction that obviously wants to be take seriously when it cites "facts."