{"id":664943,"date":"2026-10-25T13:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T13:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664943\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T13:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T13:38:17","slug":"is-the-west-wing-why-a-few-good-men-feels-so-relevant-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664943\/","title":{"rendered":"Is \u2018The West Wing\u2019 why \u2018A Few Good Men\u2019 feels so relevant today?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The arc of Bradley Whitford\u2019s career makes for a grim report card on the state of the country. Whitford first became internationally famous as Josh Lyman, the pinup boy for competent and courageous liberalism over seven seasons of \u201cThe West Wing<\/a>,\u201d Aaron Sorkin\u2019s paragon of institutional optimism. But in recent years, the actor has drifted towards roles that paint a much darker picture of the US government: a Christofascist leader in \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale,\u201d a snarky grump of a senator in \u201cDeath by Lightning\u201d and the curmudgeonly first gentleman helping to cover up deadly government secrets in \u201cThe Diplomat.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n None of this is intentional, Whitford said in an interview, although he jokingly conceded there appears to be a theme in his career choices: \u201cYou\u2019re sort of tracing the fall of democracy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Whitford\u2019s latest role feels just as dire a diagnostic point. Appearing in the first Broadway revival of Sorkin\u2019s 1989 breakout play \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d (which became the 1992 movie), the 67-year-old actor is starring as Col. Nathan R. Jessep, the pugilistic, villainous Marine Corps leader overseeing a unit where one young member has been killed by two others during a punishing ritual. Whitford\u2019s casting is especially symbolic given he made his Broadway debut in the original production, first as an understudy and then eventually as Lt. Daniel A. Kaffee, the principled defense attorney, played in this production by British actor Tom Blyth.\n <\/p>\n

\"WHITFORD.jpg\"<\/p>\n

From ‘West Wing’ to East Wing: Bradley Whitford on his new role in “The Diplomat”\n <\/p>\n

\"WHITFORD.jpg\"<\/p>\n

From ‘West Wing’ to East Wing: Bradley Whitford on his new role in “The Diplomat”<\/p>\n

6:07<\/p>\n

\n Whitford\u2019s transformation from hero to villain in this new production, which runs at Lincoln Center\u2019s Vivian Beaumont Theater until Jan. 10, comes at an especially potent time given that the Pentagon under the leadership of Sec. Pete Hegseth has been marred by a series of scandals that feel almost drawn from \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d including accusations of sexism<\/a>, excessive focus on the so-called culture wars<\/a> and concerns that troops were being given illegal orders.<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s even more relevant than it ever was,\u201d Whitford said. \u201cIt\u2019s not only relevant in that sort of ripped-from-the-headlines way, but I really feel like there is a fundamental dangerous argument going on in this world. It\u2019s tilting to a dangerous side that I hope it pulls back from.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The reunion of Sorkin and Whitford here is an ironic one, though, given some have argued \u201cThe West Wing\u201d bears some responsibility for how we got to a moment where this new play is suddenly imbued with such renewed meaning. The show has frequently been derided as a liberal fantasy wherein entrenched problems and political footballs can be resolved via soaring speeches and attitude of \u201cWhen they go low, Democrats still go high-minded.\u201d<\/a> The show\u2019s Republicans feel like relics compared to leaders like President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Writing for the New York Times<\/a> in 2024, Gawker founding editor Elizabeth Spiers expressly pinned blame on Sorkin for infecting \u201ca whole generation of political professionals\u201d with \u201cTerminal \u2018West Wing\u2019 Brain,\u201d a liberal fantasy that Spiers argued favors rhetoric over ruthlessness and \u201cis preventing Democrats from functioning effectively\u201d in the Trump era. The socialist provocateur podcasters on \u201cChapo Trap House\u201d in 2022<\/a> similarly accused the show of being the \u201cRosetta Stone for everything stupid about what contemporary liberals currently believe\u201d and accused Sorkin of doing more damage to America\u2019s political imagination than anyone since \u201cThe Birth of a Nation\u201d director D. W. Griffith.\n <\/p>\n

\"Sorkin's<\/p>\n

\n Whitford conceded the show was always \u201caspirational storytelling,\u201d but he insisted that there were elements of realism in it, too. \u201cPeople would always say it was a fantasy, and it would always confuse me a little bit because if you look back at the Bartlet administration, which of course was fake, we didn\u2019t get much done,\u201d he said. \u201cThat show was about the difficult fight to move an inch forward without disappearing in the mud.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For Whitford, cynicism is far more dangerous to democracy than corniness. \u201cI\u2019m proud of being part of the show,\u201d he added. \u201cPublic service is very, very important, and we need a functioning government, we need a functioning diplomatic corps, and when we become cynical about it, we\u2019re jeopardizing our children\u2019s future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d is itself an aspirational quest for justice. The play, scribbled in early drafts on cocktail napkins<\/a> when Sorkin was working as a bartender, follows Kaffee and Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway (Krysta Rodriguez) as they represent two Marines charged in the death of a struggling member of their unit. Were they ordered by Jessep to assault the young Marine? And if so, what legal and ethical responsibility should they shoulder for his death? (In the movie, which Sorkin also wrote, the three leads were played by Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson.)\n <\/p>\n

\"Sorkin<\/p>\n

\n Dressed in fatigues on the play\u2019s cavernous, military hangar-like set and sporting a slight Southern accent, Whitford\u2019s Jessep feels a world away from Josh Lyman. It\u2019s also a notably different portrayal to Nicholson\u2019s, whose white-hot rage bubbled under each scene of the movie, creating a more menacing character. Whitford\u2019s turn is smarmier and more irksome, in line with some of his past films, from 2017\u2019s \u201cGet Out\u201d to 1995\u2019s \u201cBilly Madison.\u201d It\u2019s also hard not to see flashes of Hegseth in this Jessep\u2019s smugness and cockiness.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is a lot of fun in this,\u201d Whitford told reporters, recalling a conversation he said he had with \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d author Margaret Atwood. \u201cShe said a very disturbing thing: \u2018It\u2019s very hard for us to accept the fact that it was fun to be a fascist.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It was Michael Arden, the Tony-winning director helming the new production of \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d who suggested to Sorkin that they cast Whitford as Jessup. \u201cI don\u2019t think he got to the second name before I said yes,\u201d Sorkin told reporters. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a writer and you find an actor like Brad, you just handcuff them to the radiator. You want to work with them always.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Sorkin<\/p>\n

\n Arden said in an interview that his intention in casting Whitford as the villain was not to weaponize the audience\u2019s memories of the actor as a one-time liberal icon. The director also defended \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d crediting the show with making many people interested in government and its players to begin with.\n <\/p>\n

\n As for whether the triumph of justice in the play would play out in the America of today, Arden demurred. \u201cI don\u2019t know the answer to that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s the question we want the audience to ask.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The arc of Bradley Whitford\u2019s career makes for a grim report card on the state of the country.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-664943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}