Obama Will Make Adults 'Cool' on TV

60 Minutes is killing the competition, Mad Men is grittier by the episode, and even Gossip Girl's bimbos are growing up—thanks mostly to the adult air of Barack Obama, Mary McNamara writes in the Los Angeles Times. After 8 years of President Bush, whose folksiness and privilege inspired reality TV's "clique-navigating competitions," McNamara believes Obama is making it "hip to be grown up again.”

Shows like All In The Family, Maude, and M*A*S*H once managed to reflect real life and political issues. Now, Obama represents a “shift away from the insulated individual toward the cooperative community, away from competitive consumerism toward political idealism." McNamara doesn't see “a new age of geezer TV,” but "there is always the possibility of change—that's the point of growing up." (More television stories.)