Ginny

Today, Jonathan & Shannon discuss heroes and my daughter tells me that, visiting her oldest sister, she finds her tivoing Perry Mason, the series my family watched together in my youth. The cable news networks are obsessed with trials that seem no more real than Mason’s (for all that they are). So, I thought I’d rescue another one of the essays I did during that short year in which I was unemployed – had sold my business and hadn’t started teaching. So, below is a recycled essay, a tribute to Perry Mason and to James Rockford. Yes, I watch far too much television. And my tastes are not those, in general, of this blog’s audience. But, you know, tv isn’t all that bad if you don’t turn your mind off. (I put this under our division of Arts & Letters – surely that is too lofty for such series.) And thanks for letting me do this kind of thing.

And, of course, I am not profoundly moved by Perry Mason. He does not, as real heroes do, show us the tragic nature of life, the clay feet and because of that the even greater transcendence. He is not real. But as good fiction can, he brought me pleasure. And as the representation of character often can, the series helped me understand myself and what I value better.

Addendum (to myself, I assume no one is still drawing this up). Googling for an old teacher, I found him used as a reference in this “Perry Mason: The Authorship and Reproduction of a Popular Hero” by J. Dennis Bounds. I haven’t read it, but didn’t want to lose it. Nice epigraph; Mason observes “That’s what I like about the practice of law–it’s an adventure. You’re looking behind the scenes at human nature. The audience out front sees only the carefully rehearsed poses assumed by the actors. The lawyer sees the human nature with the shutters open.” from: Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat

Read more