Never go to war with a popular TV program
Way back in the early nineties, there was a popular sitcom called “Murphy Brown” set in a TV newsroom. The plot device of the lead character’s single motherhood offended then vice president Dan Quayle1, and he gave a speech in which he criticized the character by name, almost as if she were a real person.
Delighted by the gift they had been handed, the writers duly wrote the remarks into the next season opener and nuked the vice president from orbit. Weeks later, America elected Bill Clinton2 president.
Look, there are lots of reasons why the Bush/Quayle ticket went down. Among them were that Bill Clinton radiated white-hot sex (too much for his own good, tbh) while George H.W. Bush radiated Yalie barbershop quartet and surplus initials. But Quayle linking the recent LA riots to a sitcom didn’t help, and it enshrined a truism of modern public relations: don’t go to war with a TV show.
We live in a different media era. Network sitcoms aren’t the vanguard of culture they were back in the nineties (the era of Seinfeld, Friends3, etc.), and the modern equivalent of that truism might be, “don’t go to war with a meme.”
And, whatever you do, don’t go to war with a meme based on a popular TV show!
Anyway, here is a New York Times story with the headline, “Duke University Wants No Part of ‘The White Lotus’”
Imagethief 