What I find fascinating about the show are the seemingly political analogy that underlies the program. From using “devotion” as a weapon, to marketing for favor via selling “universal health care” to a large demographic of youth getting involved in promoting the “visitors” doing what they call “spreading hope” the show seems to have taken it's plays straight out of the 2008 presidential election.
Some might say there is nothing new about those political ploys, but there is an interesting twist only more recently found in the 2008 presidential election: courting of the fan-boy press by the visitors to gain influence over the masses through “news” media.
People are very aware of the influence of the press. And, of course, as “news” in the 21st century has become a commodity like shampoo brands, people behind the news desk think about their careers more often than not. It is understandable as everyone who works likely thinks about their careers. But promoting someone at a news desk in “media” today is far different than merit-promotions of old. Look at the rise of previously unknowns like Katy Curric, who was formerly lost in small offices as a lowly pentagon reporter who “caught her break” during dessert storm in the early 1990s and was later promoted because of her demographicly-tested trustworthiness. Through the years weather forecasters have gone from scientists/climatologists to up-and-coming wanna be actors who said their first lines in front of green-screens reading scripts about the coming day's weather before heading to Hollywood. Every news job is a stepping stone today. And it isn't about telling the truth or breaking some news. It is about effective polling and degrees of perceived trustworthiness and influence.
I digress. Here is an exchange between two characters from “V.” In episode #2 a news reporter was asked to give an exclusive interview of the “V” high commander, when just before going on-air the “V” high commander instructed the reporter to not ask any questions that could portray the visitors in a bad light. When the reporter asked what she meant by that, the response was to appeal to the reporters rocketing career and the highly visible nature of the interview. Said another way, make us look good and we will do exclusives with you that rocket your career to the top. So, now in episode #3, the reporter is struggling with having sold out his conscience for an advancing career move:
Other news person, “Poll numbers. The country is split about the visitors.”
Lamenting reporter, “50 percent are still undecided.”
Other news person, “Yeah, I mean, people don't have enough info.”
Lamenting reporter, “That's my fault. I didn't ask any of the hard questions. I got played”
Before you think this is just pure entertainment fiction, check out this news article from the Orlando Sentinel:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/10/obama-campaign.html
When Barbara West asked a few tough questions that Joe Biden could have answered in a manner that laid such questions to rest, instead his response was “I don't know who's is writing your questions” and the Obama team canceled scheduled interviews and cut off that news outlet. In recent days the White House has given the same cold shoulder to any news group willing to continue to ask tough questions, attacking those news groups and questioning if they can even be qualified as news because they are thinking about questions that the White House would rather people not think about.
Spoiler alert:
The show “V” is a remake. In the original the alien “visitors” come to earth to consume humans as a food source. And how do they make their ulterior motives happen? They mislead and lie about their intentions attempting to persuade the masses to support them while they quietly work out their actual plan.
In general, the show is maintaining it's basic plot. What is different would be a modernization of tactics and efforts to fool people in order to gain their devotion and support. The makers of the show admit, they are drawing these modernizations from our contemporary life.
It is interesting how palatable the idea of people feeling undecided because they don't have enough questions is in a TV plot, or how obvious it is for the news reporter to claim the blame because he wasn't asking any hard questions. It is just interesting to me that TV shows can expose this problem in the form of allegory, but if a news outlets or common people call the press on such stuff then (in the 2008 presidential election) they are labeled “enemies of hope.”
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