Nerve Endings Firing Away

To kick off, let me make it clear that I believe it is the latter although it definitely excites the neocon base. There was much hype around the sixth season of Jack Bauer’s worst day – 24. To those who are unaware, 24 is a drama series on Fox that unfolds in a timeframe of 24 hours and often involves American counter terrorism unit (CTU) along with the Administration fighting against an imminent terror threat by an unknown individual or organization. The protagonist, Jack Bauer leads the fight to uncover the sinister motives of the terrorists at a great personal cost. He loses his wife in the first season and was captured by the Chinese and tortured for 2 years in the last one.

Apart from being a fast-paced thrilling drama series, it is a refreshing break from the sad reality TV on channels these days. Action movies always boil down to the red-or-green wire and ultimately after much sweating and running around, the right wire is chosen and everyone goes home joyfully. Not so on 24, good guys die regularly and favorite guys are bumped off abruptly. The bomb often goes off, a nuclear one at that in the last episode, killing hundreds. The official casualty count has already been given up.

So you might think everyone watches it for an hour every week and switches off the TV satisfied, right? Nope, if a storm is brewing around a stupid Big Brother TV show, then 24 with its high-voltage drama cannot be far behind. The show feeds off the current climate of fear and uncertainty complete with use of contemporary talking points like torture and giving up civil liberties. Newsweek recently stirred a hornet’s nest by saying:

The show debuted just a few months after 9/11, and its watchful, paranoid visual language was forged in that moment. Depending on your perspective, “24″ is either a neocon sex fantasy or the collective id of our nation unleashed.

24 with its doomsday predictions and nation under attack theme is naturally a hot favorite with the neo-conservatives who are saying, see I told you so. Rush Limbaugh is a big fan and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank held a roundtable on 24 and America’s image in fighting terrorism (I am serious!) with Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff in attendance. And you think only Indians take TV shows seriously. Although conservatives use events on 24 to justify being scared of terror attacks, they forget that it is a mere show that exaggerates events for higher ratings.

Also, they conveniently forget that if 24 shows incessant attacks on America, it also shows dilemmas surrounding civil liberties and use of torture (torture has no effect on Jack although he uses it often to elicit information from suspects). In fact, Jack once tortured an innocent man, Defense Advisor’s estranged husband no less and ultimately was the cause of his death. The last season in a clear indication although highly exaggerated showed an American President turning traitor by colluding with terrorists to instigate attacks on foreign power. Why are these aspects forgotten by the neocons when they sing praises of the show’s ‘creativity’? Perhaps the danger of terror attacks justifies shaking the very foundation that this nation was built on.

A recent controversy involves the Muslim community protesting vehemently against depiction of their community. Well, considering a majority of terror attacks in the world today are rooted in fundamentalist Islamic conflicts, I don’t think the show’s writers were pulling it out of their ass. And again, the TV show has no responsibility toward assuaging concerns and they are merely going after the ratings. Don’t like it, turn it off. Muslims are already subjected to racial profiling (not necessarily justified) in the U.S. and showing that in a TV fiction drama is certainly not crossing any boundaries. In fact, responding to CAIR’s protest, the show creators pointed out that:

Over the course of the series, no ethnic group has been singled out for persecution or blame. The villains have included shadowy Anglo businessmen, Baltic Europeans, Germans, Russians, Islamic fundamentalists, and even the (Anglo-American) president of the United States.

True. In one case it was even a rogue MI5 agent. Borat made fun of heartland Americans and protests to ban/censor the movie rightly died. So leave out the so-called larger implications, enjoy the show, and base your policy decision on real-time events not fictional accounts of reality. If you have problem following the show, you might like to read these ‘tips for 24 newbies’.