The Wizards of Quiz Essay Example For Students

The Wizards of Quiz Essay They were a perfect pair of antagonists for the television public: Columbia University English professor Charles Van Doren, the tall, handsome scion of Americas WASP cultural elite, and Herb Stempel, the short, schlumpy little Jew from Queens, working his way through the City College of New York. The two young men, different in so many ways, met on a battleground where they could fight as equals: the NBC quiz show Twenty-One. There on the studio set, where each man stood in a soundproof glass booth to respond to questions from emcee Jack Barry in front of millions of viewers, disparities in class, culture and looks became irrelevant. Only the contestants minds mattered. We will write a custom essay on The Wizards of Quiz specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Or so it seemed until a couple of years after Stempel, Twenty-Ones first champion, was bested by Van Doren in 1956. Following revelations that another game show called Dotto had been rigged, Stempel came forward to claim that Twenty-One was also a hoax that Van Doren had only won because Stempel had taken a dive. Stempel had set out to expose the sham earlier, but Twenty-Ones producer, Daniel Enright, made it appear that Stempel was a mentally unstable blackmailer, overreacting to his on-screen defeat. Not until Nov. 2, 1959, did Van Doren whose stint on Twenty-One had made him a national celebrity confess in a congressional hearing that he had participated in quiz-show rigging. Van Doren was exposed as a liar, and Stempel was vindicated. Yet somehow Van Doren emerged the heroa quintessential prodigal son whose soul-searching confession served as both personal cleansing and public catharsis. (God bless you, pronounced Congressman Oren Harris as he congratulated the penitent Van Doren.) Stempel, meanwhile, was sneered at as a sore loser and quickly became a forgotten man. In the public eye, Van Doren was a sacrificial scapegoat on a grand scale; Stempel was a schmuck. In The Wizards of Quiz, playwright Steve Feffer airs his own ideas on the scandal. Having sought to put forth an objective account of the affair in a 1988 docudrama that he wrote as part of his masters-degree studies at the University of Iowas Playwrights Workshop, Feffer turned his focus to more personal questions in this play, presented in December and January at the National Jewish Theater in the Chicago suburb of Skokie. (The production, directed by NJTs co-artistic director Jeff Ginsberg, reflected significant revisions from its 1991 world premiere at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays.) A fool-hero brought low The most sweeping question the play asks is: Why? Why did Stempel take part in the fraud, and why did he try to expose it? In attempting to arrive at some answers, Feffers bitterly witty play paints Stempel as a hero-fool brought low by personal flawspride, greed, gullibility, arrogance born out of insecurity as well as by a cruel, gigantic force that shapes our lives as much as the Olympian gods did the Greeks: the television industry. Using a TV studio as its principal location, and employing a pair of glass booths as both quiz-show settings and congressional witness stands, The Wizards of Quiz recalls an era in which people trusted television. The astounding popularity of the big-money quiz shows, beginning with The $64,000 Question, reflected the publics belief in TVs integrity: If a schlemiel like Herb Stempel could win $49,500, people thought, at least he did it honestly. In reality, the games were scripted for entertainment value (the air conditioning in the glass booth was even turned off so Stempel would sweat more dramatically). Packaged as the penniless ex-G.I. working his way through college, Stempelplayed with a compelling blend of cockiness, grubbiness, sarcasm and pathos by Edward Jemison in the NJT productionquickly won the audiences sympathy with his astounding photographic memory. But when Stempels novelty faded and audience interest reached a plateau, the script had to change and Stempel had to lo se. .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .postImageUrl , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:hover , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:visited , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:active { border:0!important; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:active , .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5 .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u67e3d2e423479b14a5c829e7ea5307f5:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Jane Greenwood: the making of a mentor EssayThus, when Stempel is told the public is tired of him and that its time for him to lose which means he must cheat, since his vast knowledge guarantees him almost certain victory in an honest game hes sure anti-Semitism is a key factor. The viewers dont like to see Jews keep winning or the marketing specialists who chart popularity ratings think they dont. (Institutionalized anti-Semitism in the TV industry, though real enough, has always been tacit: In a TV Guide interview published during Wizards NJT run, Carl Reiner revealed that he originally intended to star in the situation comedy that became The Dick Van Dyke Show until he was deemed too Jewish for public consumption, though no one ever told him that to his face. In those days, there were just a lot of important network and agency people who thought that way, Reiner told TV Guide.) A visit from Marty Whether hes a victim of prejudice or just paranoia, Stempels fixation on being a Jewish icon is twisted into overwhelming guilt when he agrees to throw the game; he becomes possessed by a sense of cultural as well as personal dishonor. Ill be banished to the wilderness, he cries to his wife. Herb, youre in Forest Hills, she responds, but her practicality is no use. Unable to tolerate losing to the echt-goy Van Doren, he pursues a self-destructive vendetta that drives him to a breakdown. Set in various locations during the period 1956-59, Feffers script shifts fluidly between past and presentand reality and fantasyas it charts the unraveling of Stempels illusions and the temporary unhinging of his mind. (The NJT production employed a unit set that represented various locations; a Geritol sign promoting the sponsor of Twenty-One dominated the set throughout the show, an ironic reminder of the corporate commercialism behind the scandal.) At one point, Stempel receives an other-worldly visit from the title character of the film Marty the Bronx butcher played by Ernest Borgnine. Like Stempels appearance on Twenty-One, Borgnines character was a tribute to the nobility of the common man. (It was a question about whether Marty won the 1955 best-film Oscar that Stempel was ordered to forfeit to Van Doren.) Near the plays climax, Stempel dreams of tracking down Van Doren who has gone into hiding to avoid questions about the scandaland enjoying a brotherly reconciliation with him. Why would you want everyone to know you cheated? Van Doren asks Stempel. I wanted everyone to know you cheated, Stempel sheepishly responds. In the dream, Stempel convinces Van Doren to confess but in the next scene, when Van Doren appears before Congress, he gives credit for his change of heart to an unknown fan who wrote him a letter, ignoring Stempel completely. Weakest in its efforts at domestic dramathe character of Stempels wife Toby is functional at bestWizards is most interesting when it focuses on the weird triangular relationship between Stempel, Van Doren and the medium that brought them together. For both men, TV represented not only fame and fortune but an avenue to the American mainstream, a channel to transmit ideals of honor and intellectual aspiration. Instead they were sucked in by a medium whose unparalleled power has expanded many times over in the years since the Twenty-One scandala medium concerned almost entirely with selling the most products to the most viewers for the most profit possible. In a day when crucial activities of public life are increasingly shaped by, slanted for, and conducted on this medium, The Wizards of Quiz is a cautionary history lesson worth heeding.