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24
24....So I watched the 24 premiere last night, and it's obvious that the show is going to deal head on with the subject of torture this season. Episode 1 opens with Jack testifying before a Senate committee about his past transgressions, which he wearily but defiantly confesses to, and then rolls through two hours of FBI agents wondering "how far he'll go" — because, you see, Jack's exploits with the dark arts are apparently the thing of legend in the hallways of the Bureau.
Is there any way for this end other than badly? After all, here in the blogosphere we opponents of torture like to argue that we don't live in the world of 24, guys. And we don't. But Jack Bauer, needless to say, does live in the world of 24. And in that world, there are well-heeled terrorists around every corner, ticking time bombs aplenty, and torture routinely saves thousands of lives. What are the odds that it won't do so again this season — except this time after lots of talk about the rule of law blah blah liberals blah blah it's your call blah blah? Pretty low, I'd guess. Hopefully the writers will surprise me.
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I decided to watch 24 for the first time ever. Loved it! But then, again I like the hour-drama format. Anything to get away from my under-employed world.
I know that there are goobers who think the show does or should make a definitive moral statement to the real world, like?ah?Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Barnaby Jones. Come on! It's interesting, though not intellectually stimulating, escapism. About like the NFL at play off time and needs to be taken as seriously.
This show is now unwatchable, really. It is propaganda in its lowest form, and frankly its boring as hell now. 1st couple seasons were great, this show shark jumped a long time ago though.
I decided to watch 24 for the first time ever. Loved it! But then, again I like the hour-drama format. Anything to get away from my under-employed world.
I know that there are goobers who think the show does or should make a definitive moral statement to the real world, like ah Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Barnaby Jones. Come on! It's interesting, though not intellectually stimulating, escapism. About like the NFL at play off time and needs to be taken as seriously.
I came today hoping you'd write about this. The show started on a hopeful note, as you say, and I thought maybe we'd get a little more subtle consideration of torture with the FBI acting properly. But, sure enough, as soon as we get to a guy's office from whom information is needed, in an instant it's "Do whatever it takes" and there's Jack with the ball-point pen to the bad guy's neck. Palooza kind of has a point.
There are 2 co-creators of 24, Joel Surnow and Howard Gordon. I thought I've read that Surnow is very conservative and un-apologetic about the pro-torture themes, while Gordon is moderate and has some (relatively recent) qualms. But Surnow has left the show this season, so it'll be interesting to see it the slant of the show changes too.
I've thought for some time that 24 was getting a bum rap, torture-wise. It's cited as "evidence" that torture can work under proper circumstances, and excoriated as implying that torture is a viable option. And I admit, there have been moments - horrifying, disturbing scenes - where the show depicts evil people disgorging nefarious plots because of hideous tortures. However, my viewing of the series has revealed many more episodes in which torture fails, and in which soft persuasion is more effective. Jack's negotiation is superior to his torturing as a tactical tool, and he has frequently been shown to resort to torture in error and with wrenching post-hoc regret (shooting a dude in the leg to make him give up a secret he could not possibly have known, for example - and feeling pretty crappy about it afterwards). Also, Jack has been subjected to tortures and never succumbed to them, implying that it's a limited or even a weak tool, and not the right way to go. Also, Jack's frequently been forced to work against his own government, even when that government was a bellicose neocon reflection of our own recent leadership - hardly an endorsement of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib practices, in my opinion.
I really think 24 has developed into a rather sophisticated analysis of the limits and merits of various strategic options, including torture and deception (making someone think his family's been killed or a nuclear bomb's been dropped on his country - mendacious and maybe evil, but not torture, by my measure) - rather than a monotone paean in support of hurting others to achieve political or informational goals. I have not yet seen the new season pilot but I plan to watch for the season. It's decent escapism at the least, and at the most, it has the power to stimulate real conversations about the intersection - or lack of same - of politics and morality. Really, I think torture is just as prevalent in "Lost," but it's not maligned on that score to nearly the same extent.
I just watched the first hour with the rest waiting for me on DVR. I found the whole premise of the hearing to be very discomfiting--but then the whole format of this show is the idea that the events transpire in one 24 hour period--so any terrorist actions have to be a ticking bomb scenario and any interrogation of bad guys has to provide actionable information in a very short time. Other than a Vulcan mind meld, I can't think of any way this can be pulled off without recourse to torture and a portrayal of torture or threat of torture as an effective way to get information. The argument against torture doesn't work as well with the ticking time bomb scenario, the problem is that scenario is fiction, just as 24 is.
I'm just waiting to see Jack transverse DC in under 10 mins anytime day or night the way he does LA. That's how I know it's really fiction;>
"Also, Jack has been subjected to tortures and never succumbed to them, implying that it's a limited or even a weak tool, and not the right way to go."
If 24 really were half as smart as you think it is, it would have shown Jack succumbing to torture and saying anything he could to stop it.
Mike
But the ticking time bomb is an awful justification for torture since that's the circumstance wherein torture is most easily rendered ineffective.
If the terrorist knows that at a certain point an event will end his/her suffering, they're much more likely to be able to resist the torture than if they don't know that the torture is ever going to have an end. So those targets with information are the most likely to resist while the ones with information are most likely to give up false confessions since they can't know when or if the torture will end.
Notwithstanding that all of these discussions are completely moot as anyone attempting to justify torture for any reason, under and circumstance, is evil.
Whoo! Bad DC Geography hits another show. Will we have the same recycled outdoor establishment shots that have become venerable staples of FOX TV with the X-Files, Bones, and now 24 (1 - DC aerial, 2 - DC Landmark/ appropriate building [e.g., fbi, etc], 3 - Bang! LA!)?
I think that Jack has enough awareness to understand that by doing all that "breaking", he's become broken in another way. He seems to be resigned to his fate at this point. "Send me to prison, send me back to work, either way is fine...just pick one." At least, this is what I think the writers have in mind.
But, Kevin, I wouldn't get too hopeful for the future. Having been through the tortuous end of Nikita, produced by the same crew, I can't promise much. Here's hoping they have learned since then.
that is an excellent point - the show shows torture not working because people (impossibly) withstand it, but fails to show torture producing false data, as it almost always does. But that's an error of scope, failing to show just how weak a tool torture is. I still don't think the show endorses torture, since it typically seems to show failures rather than successes, and people are usually shown being wrong about who's "evil" and "properly" subject to such treatment. I guess my point is that I think it's a more nuanced program than most people seem to say it is, and has many examples of behavior any civilized person would consider reprehensible - and depicts it as such.
I do think that 24 sometimes fools the very people who prop it up as an example of the way we should operate and deal with terrorists, as a commentator above notes. One thing that no one's mentioned so far is that Jack is perfectly fine with taking responsibility for the choices he makes. In a conversation with an FBI agent, he makes the point that the hearings were good and probably necessary. The people should know exactly what's been going on - that there's been 2 worlds created by all this secrecy: the one most people believe to be true and the one that has been created by these shadowy classified operations. He said he felt the people should not only know what's going on but should also get to decide how far they should be allowed to go. In other words, he endorses accountability for those who engaged in torture and secret operations. Pretty subversive stuff, if you ask me. He acts as if he endorses the neo-con framework but then accepts the current liberal position of transparency and accountability.
that is an excellent point - the show shows torture not working because people (impossibly) withstand it, but fails to show torture producing false data, as it almost always does.
I'm pretty sure that a bunch of the tortured baddies on the show have successfully lied to their interrogators, leading them to a trap or time-wasting diversion on a number of occasions.
There may be some overly subtle "reading against the grain" going on here. I just don't see how this premiere could be seen as anything but defiantly pro-torture. It could have been scripted by Dick Cheney. The senator questioning Jack, the show's hero, was held up as an enemy of America for deploring, and wishing to punish, techniques that had allegedly saved American lives.
In the second (Monday night) half, the FBI agent goes from disapproving of Jack's torture techniques to using them herself on a man in a hospital bed, all under the rubric of the "ticking bomb" defense.
And of course "regular" people, like the FBI driver, are on Jack's side against those nasty liberal senators. The point of Jack's little speech to that guy about how the hearings are probably necessary, etc., is clearly that the American people need to know just what terrible things (e.g., torture) a good patriot like Jack is required to do to keep them safe.
I like the action and suspense of 24 as much as anybody, but in these two episodes the sneering portrayal of anti-torture advocates as unwitting accomplices of terrorists has been truly disgusting. This show offers as unambiguously Cheneyesque a defense of torture as a necessary instrument of American policy as we have ever seen on TV--except, of course, on Fox News.
cuttle -
i'm not seeing that at all. one of the main narrative devices of 24 - in plot development and theme - is irony. (SPOILER ALERT) i know as soon as i saw the first thirty minutes of the first episode that tony wasn't evil, simply because they were overplaying the villain card with him. just like i knew the grumpy analyst was not the FBI mole.
look at the FBI agent's expressions when she is trying to get information out of the terrorist. she's horrified by what she's doing. it's too early to tell but i think that 24 is setting up the following theme - if you think torture is okay, you have to answer for it. not quite the "torture is evil" theme most of us wish they'd adopt but i think a more pragmatic one, given the way many conservatives, media figures, and congressmen have swallowed the rationale for torture in real life.
stop taking 24 so seriously. It is entertainment, not public policy. Some people can't tell the difference. Don't make it harder for them.
Why are the bad guys being tortured on 24 so dumb? They somehow bought into the idea that they'll hold-out as long as they can until they finally divulge the truth....uh, if I'm a dedicated terrorist and I know that a bomb is going to go off in less than an hour, and I'm being tortured, maybe instead of telling them where the bomb actually is, I lie and tell them where the bomb isn't. By the time they figure out the bomb wasn't where I told them it'll be too late. Yet, no terrorist on 24 has seemed to realize that lying is an option.