Mark Watches ‘The West Wing’: S03E08 – The Women of Qumar

In the eighth episode of the third season of The West Wing, C.J. struggles with her own objection to the renewal of an air base lease, while the rest of the staff deals with their own problems and the threat of Mad Cow Disease. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch The West Wing.

Holy shit, that was uncomfortable, not just in content, but a few times in execution. This is not one of the more enjoyable episodes of the show, in part because of – oh, hell, I’ll get to that in the end.

Toby

You know, I thought this would be yet another episode showing us Toby’s life in the White House. (That’s related to one complaint I have about season three so far, which you’ll have to wait for.) I do genuinely enjoy this show giving Richard Schiff scene after scene in which he can beautifully disappear into the anger and fury that is Toby. He’s one of the most consistent characters on this show, and that’s why the end of “The Woman of Qumar” is so fascinating to me. Given what I’ve seen of him on the show thus far, it seemed pretty easy to guess that he’d fall on the side of the Smithsonian regarding the possible boycott by certain World War II veterans. For the most part, he did, but this episode presented us with a subtle change in Toby, one that Bartlet points out at the end. Toby is changing, ever so slightly, and his attempt to find a more comfortable middle ground between the two groups is indicative of this new willingness of his for compromise. Granted, that compromise is achieved with a whole lot of his own anger because this wouldn’t be Toby without it. But how much has Bruno’s presence changed his mentality? Is he gearing up for a rough battle in the re-election campaign? That’s my guess.

Sam

He doesn’t do much here, does he? Actually, he hasn’t done that much in the show at all this season. I haven’t really noticed any major storylines attached to him. Hmmm. Anyway, he runs about the White House in panic mode, convinced that a frivolous lawsuit that can’t even go to trial (because you can’t sue the President) will become big news, so he must pursue a national seat belt law! Instead, he’s just knocked down. A lot. I really don’t think we’ll see this plot come up again, honestly.

Josh

Okay, so did anyone get this really unsettling vibe from Josh during the scene with Abigail? I don’t think the script itself ever addressed it, but for real, I honestly felt like Josh saw himself as being punished by having to talk to a women’s advocacy group. I fully admit that I may be seeing something in this that is not there, but what the hell? That rubbed me the wrong way because the show, while it does poke fun at fringe political groups, seems to be saying that a women’s caucus is a thing that’s worth our humor, as if this wasn’t an important issue.

And then, this all just turns into… well, a nightmare. Have you ever sat in a room full of white people trying to talk about racism? That’s about what this experience is like. Amy and Josh, two people who appear to have not the slightest experience with being sex workers of any sort, have these really intense and ~super serious~ discussions about the validity of sex work, how consent plays into sex work, and whether or not sex work in and of itself is degrading. And this is all shit we should be discussing as a nation instead of just outright criminalizing it!

Which is my complete and utter problem with Amy here. Holy god, what are you doing? You want to keep all sex work illegal period because that’s supposed to empower women? Look, there are all kinds of white savior/imperialist themes to what Amy wants out of this that are a mess in and of themselves, and I, as a dude, am not going to waste a second trying to tell any woman how best to empower themselves or other women. That is not my job. But one particular line of Amy’s really irked me. She said that (and I’m paraphrasing here, since I can’t remember the line verbatim) economic hardship was a form of coercion as far as she was concerned. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna need you to take about a thousand seats here, because I cannot imagine you have spent a day in your life experiencing the kind of economic hardship that creates “coercion.” If you had, you most likely wouldn’t make a comment that’s so inherently classist and ridiculous. The problem here is that Amy lacks any notion of how race, class, and gender intersect when it comes to sex work, and instead, she paints all sex workers and all sex work with a brush. All sex workers are oppressed, all of them are forced into their jobs, none of them like it, none of them chose it, and it’s her job to liberate them all. Okay. CAN YOU NOT. CAN YOU NOT DO THAT. I’m not going to sit here and say that sex work in this country or in other countries is a pile of puppies, but this whole thing was just… no.

C.J.

Which brings me to C.J.’s reaction. The writers took her characterization when faced with the Qumar lease in an entirely different direction than Amy. Primarily, C.J.’s behavior is a personal struggle with guilt, complicity, and sympathy. (I hesitate to use empathy just because I don’t know if C.J. has a history of abuse, though that would explain her extremely emotional reaction to the case. Of course, it’s entirely possible for a person to have empathy without having lived through the same thing!) We haven’t really had a story on The West Wing where someone disagrees with what the government has done on a fundamental level. The performance that Allison Janney gives is absolutely stunning, and it is the saving grace of this episode. Of course, there are going to be white savior undertones to this type of story because it’s sort of unavoidable when you’re talking about American foreign policy and the oppression of a marginalized population in another country. When Arab countries only appear in your stories as the vilified “other” that exists for people in America to get mad about, that’s a problem.

Still, I don’t want to ignore what a huge deal this is for C.J. and how it affects her character throughout “The Woman of Qumar.” What we get from Janney is a portrait of a woman so horrified by what her government has inherently validated that she acts desperate to get anyone to see things from her sad. It’s sad to watch because unfortunately, I know what it feels like when some horrible injustice has been wrought upon a people, and no one else seems to care about it. C.J. cares, and she has a right to care about this. The air base lease was renewed because it was convenient!!! Oh my god, I love Nancy, I seriously do, but when she admitted that, I just wanted to put my head down on the desk and cry. If you’re not aware, the very deal that the DoD made in this episode is remarkably and frighteningly common in the history of American politics. We have supplied so many nations with guns, ammunition, and the means to fight whatever battles they want, and those countries have certainly turned against us at a later date. (The story of Saddam Hussein and the United States’ support of him is fascinating and infuriating.)

And at the end of all this, after breaking down multiple times, after saying inappropriate things to Toby and those veterans and to the President, after Nancy condescendingly tells her that this is how the world works, C.J. is forced to… well, give up. She has to go into the Press Room, announce the renewal of the lease, and crack a shitty joke in the process. It’s so fucking heartbreaking, y’all.

Mad Cow Disease

Okay, so is this going to be an actual plot on the show? I’d actually be interested to see how the staff deals with an essential, massive industry in the country being forced to deal with a catastrophic setback. Of course, then I’m just stressed out because it would be yet another thing for this team to deal with, and they already have a lot, don’t they?

Which brings me to that point I said I’d make. Does anyone else feel like this season is at a bit of a standstill? We’ve got the campaign and the MS depositions hanging over our head the whole time, but I don’t feel like any progress is being made on either front. We’re just… here. Existing day by day. It feels weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving this show and appreciating the chance to talk about so many things we don’t normally get to talk about on the site. But I’d also love if things could pick up just a bit, you know?

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