Jack Bauer freed himself from certain death in the season premiere by biting a terrorist in the carotid artery.
The only way this show could become more infused with torture porn is if he actually dropped his pants and thwarted terrorists with the power of his cock.
Wish fulfillment for fourteen-year-olds.
And fifty-something producers who are buddies with people in the administration.
Series 2 -- the only one I've watched -- began, if I recall, with Bauer decapitating a defenseless prisoner. The decapitation is then almost never referred to again and it's implicit that it's perfectly OK for him to do so.
This season really is getting ridiculous.
My Mormon in laws Tivo every episode of 24, but won't watch HBO shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm because of all the swearing.
Surnow "said of Reagan, "I can hardly think of him without breaking into tears. I just felt Ronald Reagan was the father that this country needed. . . . He made me feel good that I was in his family.""
These people have serious psychological problems.
Ah, these were the paragraphs that condensed my loathings:
Last March, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, joined Surnow and Howard Gordon for a private dinner at Rush Limbaugh's Florida home. The gathering inspired Virginia Thomas--who works at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank--to organize a panel discussion on "24." The symposium, sponsored by the foundation and held in June, was entitled " '24' and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?" Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who participated in the discussion, praised the show's depiction of the war on terrorism as "trying to make the best choice with a series of bad options." He went on, "Frankly, it reflects real life."
...
In a more sober tone, [Surnow] said, "We've had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, 'You don't realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.' They say torture doesn't work. But I don't believe that
Deposed wingers usually come to the US. They can do pretty well here if they're wealthy, as many are. John Yoo's parents are South Korean rightwingers, though they are not exiles. I've run into members of the Central American elite here too, and they were very hard right.
Frankly, it reflects real life. They say torture doesn't work. But I don't believe that.
John Yoo's parents are South Korean rightwingers
Oh man, that makes so much sense. Fucking immigrants.
Right, and if you talk to such people about human rights and that sort of thing, they'll always say something like, "You Americans are so soft. You do not understand ze world." Which makes me want to waterboard them.
It is, of course, wish fulfillment. It's hard and seemingly much less certain to work through the system. I'm not sure that's a purely right-wing phenomenon, though the specific matter of this specific wish-fulfillment is.
Try a resistant reading next time you watch the show and see if you can wrest some kind of positive communist lesson from it.
Or better, don't watch the show, ever, and scorn those who do.
I've never seen an episode of 24. I'm all pure and shit.
The Gilmore Girls could take Jack Bauer. They have moves they don't like to talk about.
oh man. When I heard that commentator on Fox bring up 24 as evidence that Americans support terrorism, I thought she was just being really stupid, and stupid in a basically isolated way. Now I see that she was being really stupid, but as part of a group idiocy. Damn.
A woman I know, a chronic liar, claims to have been Kiefer Sutherland's girlfriend for a week or so.
I'm not sure that's a purely right-wing phenomenon, though the specific matter of this specific wish-fulfillment is.
No, I don't think it's limited to the right-wing. The West Wing was wish-fulfillment for policy nerds; the world would run great if the government were run by hyperverbal people who walked quickly in hallways.
And many shows have some sort of maverick-against-the-system premise. Crimes/medical mysteries in the United States, according to television, are solved by the rogue cop/cranky MD willing to buck the rules
What makes 24 unwatchable isn't that it's so unrealistic, but that there's only one trick in the bag. Stopping a nuclear bomb? Break two of the guy's fingers. Service is slow at the diner? Only break one.
What makes it worrisome, obviously, is that I'm not so sure the guys in charge haven't figured out it isn't reality, and even if they have, it's doing very damaging things to the discourse about torture.
At a certain enemy-dependent frequency of banter, his brains will shoot out his ears into the waiting palms of Cary Grant, who then stuffs them right back in with his signature skullcrush technique.
a chronic liar, claims to have been Kiefer Sutherland's girlfriend for a week or so.
Dude, when I told you that, I expected you to respect the sanctity of off-blog communication.
That's not funny, SB. Cary Grant killed my uncle that way.
"Everyone wants to skullcrush like Cary Grant; even I want to skullcrush like Cary Grant."
Jesus, Ben, I didn't know.
Does 24 have witty banter? I rather doubt it. If there were a show in which Cary Grant crushed skulls on a regular basis, or even occasionally, I would watch that show.
The rules about off-blog communication are thus: one may talk about off-blog communication so long as one doesn't talk about off-blog communication.
"For the last time, I'm not Mr. Kaplan." CRUSH. It would be a shorter movie, but hey.
This is the part where someone facilitates my punchline: the relationship only technically lasted for one day, though she was able to draw it out into a year's worth of tedious episodes.
So "relationship" should be "drunken smooch" ?
So "relationship" should be "drunken smooch" ?
She facilitated his punchline.
What we need is more daring TV. like a three part mini-series realistically following someone filling out all the paperwork needed to get a ticking-bomb suspect transferred from NYPD's Third Precinct to the FBI. That would be real-life, and would no doubt get very high ratings.
I'll agree, 24 is just plain stupid but note that the argument that it's doing something bad to society is exactly the same one Quayle used about Murphy Brown.
Or a 24 where a bunch of obtuse people with little flags on their lapels torture other people to no discernable benefit, eventually uncovering a secret terrorist plot which turns out to be just a bit of viral advertising. And then, at the end of the day, their real wages decrease a tiny amount.
Analogies are banned, remember? In this case, it's an analogy we've dealt with before, and the response is that it seems reasonable to assume that the effects of television on everyday behavior for which we have many models is much smaller than its effect on how we think about and behave in unusual situations for which we'll grasp at any available guidance.
Cary Grant skullcrushes Ingrid Bergman
Cary Grant levitates
Cary Grant inserts his false eye with interior spy camera
analogies are how the torturers expect to get information from the various physicians, laborers, clerks, and cock joke afficionados they've herded up, and it never seems to work.
awesome. In the last one, Cary Grant ought to take his intergalactic dildo off the table before he gives himself away.
33 - Jim Henley has proposed an Office-style comedy about a bunch of inept paper-pushers in DHS. Played straight, isn't that basically the idea for the BBC's The Sandbaggers?
re: 39
Isn't British spy fiction (James Bond, aside) pretty much always about faceless bureaucrats working against foes who are also largely faceless bureaucrats? Le Carré, Len Deighton, Callan, and so on.
There may be violence in that sort of fiction, but it's always sordid, and reflects well on no-one. It's small nasty men stabbing other small nasty men in dark alleyways.
40: Sure, but not in a paper-pushing, cubicle-farm sort of way. There's plenty of spycraft and cover stories and lying to people and tossing the crumpled cigarette pack into the woods and going to the tiny garret to interview someone only to find that he's dead and that sort of thing in Le Carré.
re: 42
Yes, that's true. Although in the 'Smiley' trilogy a great deal of the action involves people poring over paper archives and following document trails rather than chasing about after flesh and blood people.
In other words, Le Carré is still about field work more than it is about paperwork, and even though everything is sordid, and there's an emphasis on the way that individual acts get subsumed into a quagmire of futility and political bureaucracy, the main players don't feel like faceless bureaucrats to you, the reader. Smiley is a dashing maverick who goes it alone, in his own, shabby, disheartening way. So too Leamas in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. (This is less true of The Looking Glass War, which I think is a good candidate for both his bleakest and his most bureaucracy-oriented book.)
True, but those bits are (surprisingly!) exciting and fun and about archives, research, and detective work, rather than about filling out forms. (Also, a lot of what is documented is rather exciting stuff.)
Looking Glass War: John le Carré has stated that this novel is his most realistic portrayal of the intelligence world as he knew it and that this was one reason for its relative lack of success.
35: In which case, pulling someone's testicles out their left nostril is probably as good a way as any in dealing with a ticking bomb scenario. Has there ever been a real TBS?
The problem is that the idiot-in-chief and his staff imagines various TBSs where none exists, not that torture is the only tool available.
Yes, I think I remember reading, perhaps in the intro to the edition I have, that Looking Glass War was an attempt to atone for the ways in which The Spy Who Came in From the Cold wound up romanticizing intelligence work.
33: I'll agree, 24 is just plain stupid but note that the argument that it's doing something bad to society is exactly the same one Quayle used about Murphy Brown.
Except, you know, that widespread national approval of Murphy Brown's lifestyle is a hell of a lot less detrimental in every conceivable way than widespread national approval of Jack Bauer's lifestyle.
Suspect you all are right about 24, to my great disappointment. I read the first season as an allegory of how we feel in North America; pressed for time, at the mercy of cell phones and computers, working crazy mandatory workweeks and alienated from our children and lovers. I thought it was really good that way, and I liked how it catered to the fantasy of days without traffic jams or being put on hold. Also was giving Kieffer big benefit of the doubt because he hires Canuck actors and up here his Grandfather is like a national saint for bringing in Health Care. I thought the 'terrorism' thing was just a superficial plot layer. I am the naive-est schmuck I know.
Hey, some of my best friends are naive schmucks.
First season was a lot different. For one, it was a good show. For two, the plot was a lot smaller. Here is Jack Bauer. He tracks terrorists. Some of the bad guys have figured out who he is and have kidnapped his family. Watch Jack bust his ass to get them back.
It was compelling. And while it wasn't always realistic, it was plausible to believe that this agent would break the rules and do whatever it took (short of torture, oddly) to get his family back. It didn't feel nearly as contrived with every second episode having yet another ticking bomb where we have to torture people.. you'd think CTU doesn't do anything except wait for bombs to start ticking.
Do you remember Dennis Hopper's accent in the first season?
54: Whew, thanks, Cala. I was so confused . ..
See, I never watched 24. ( I don't really watch TV.) And my second-hand impression of it had been from a bunch of smart, single women who all apparently have crushes on Jack Bauer/Kiefer Sutherland, view their nightly TV doses as nice, fake-guilty pleasures, and are all fairly liberal, anti-War, disdainful-of-GWOT types. This was a while ago.
And then I read Ogged's post, and hear other people say things like that, and I'm like whoah. . .all my ladies are getting off on *torture*?!?So I guess I'm just out of date.
35: Yeah, seriously. Having dealt with many people whose major reserves of Indology are entirely Simpsons-derived, I can believe that. Also, it's the only explanation for the resentful disappointment I have frequently felt towards ERs over the years.
10 and 11 remind me of my conversation with the Kuwaiti grandfather who's granddaughter is in PK's first-grade class. Apparently we're paying taxes for all these illegal Mexican immigrants, and that's why there's not enough money for schools. Also, the Palestinians have it made in the Middle East. Asking him if he himself would emigrate, the law be damned, if he wasn't making enough money to send his family to school and knew there were better-paying jobs across the border merely got me a "oh, you bleeding-heart liberals" wave.
Sigh.
Some Mexican grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where, like Surnow, he was alienated by the radicalism around him?
Was it the ritual readings of Bookchin at the Oscar Mayer plant? Emma Goldman Day at State Farm Insurance? The Maoist self-criticism meetings at Ray-O-Vac? I know, it was the chants of "Go Big Red" at the Badgers games.
Criminy.
But I can guess what happened to young Cyrus in the Mad City: rejected by hippie chicks => father thing => neo-conservativism. I'd bet money on it.
Incidentally, all the Iranians I knew in Madison were fanatic bowlers.
53 is exactly right. After the first season they've gone for the ultra-epic approach instead of the local, personal approach; the repetition of that kind of plot and the degree to which their once-interesting camera work has worn thin have degraded the show a lot. That's even before you get into the whole torture thing.
The tangent to that is perhaps that there's no reward for producing a good show for one season and quitting while you're ahead.
I have seen precisely two episodes of 24.
In one, a bunch of Russian separatist terrorists set off some sort of nerve gas bomb in LA. Why LA and not Moscow? Well, they were prevented from getting their bomb to Moscow, and, uh, they were pissed about that, and decided to wreak havok on LA instead. Or something like that.
In the other episode, Jack tortures his brother for about twenty minutes out of the hour because, uh, there are 4 nuclear weapons about to go off somewhere. Awful. Awful!
And that strange-looking Chloe woman in the CTU? If she's going to play a schlub, her stylists need to stop ironing and hairspraying her hair.
57: I don't think that Ogged wants people to know about the bowling.
Come on, I'm from Chicago. 211 high game, baby.
Was Mia Kirschner in season 1 or season two, or both, or 3? I have lost track.
She parachuted off a crashing airplane in black leather motorcycle jumper. She also poisoned the Pres.
The only series TV I watch is 24 and Rome. For comic relief, or something.
I was trying so hard to avoid admitting to watching 24 but I can't take it.
What kills me about the show, besides the torture porn, is the high-school social interactions of the characters. Crispy christ, there's a fucking nuke in the city, and the ANTI-TERRORISM professionals are all, "So-and-so is such a bitch!! Nyah!"
What's particularly appalling about it is that it's the real cue to who their audience is, people who think this is actually how adults relate to each other. Who in turn are the people who think, "torture is hella rad! America!" I don't like being reminded of who I share demographic space with.
I watch Rome. Brutus is a wonderful prat.
There's a (human) nuke predicted to destroy New York in Heroes, and yet so far nobody's tortured anybody that I can recall. Seems like fuzzy-headed liberal escapism to me.
In the other episode, Jack tortures his brother for about twenty minutes out of the hour
He tortures his brother? What, there wasn't anyone else around?
I've never watched 24, but I remember back in the seventies there was a drug store in Ann Arbor, Stefan's, whose owner was supposed to have been a secret policeman for the Shah. He was a very scary looking guy.
In the other episode, Jack tortures his brother for about twenty minutes out of the hour because, uh, there are 4 nuclear weapons about to go off somewhere.
Considering nearly everyone Jack knows turns out to be in cahoots with terrorists or a terrorist, it's not surprising that this brother whom we never met before it was time to torture him is also a terrorist. One suspects CTU could avoid these ticking time bomb scenarios by just arresting anyone with whom Jack has ever had a beer.
Cahoots!
I'm to lazy to do this right. Here's a game where you too can defeat the terrists: http://www.dyewell.com/saveboston/
In the movie theater, when the bad guy gets an comeuppance, God help me you may not yell "Woo". Or at any other time for that matter. Christ.
Rules for watching a movie:
1. Silence. It's not about you.
2. Silence. You'll probably find out what it means later.
3. Silence. It's not real. (Do your parents know you're in here?)
4. Zip it.
That is all.
Anyway, your disdain for black culture aside, what kind of bloodless movie-going experience do you want, anyway? No audience reaction?
My disdain for black culture aside, shouldn't you be belching the alphabet in the library? I thought the erstwhile Mr. Propriety would have my back on this one, but no.
Don't try to pigeonhole me, Archie Bunker. Who goes to, say, Die Hard, and expects audience silence? Eh?
6. Silence. I need quiet if I am to remove the pole up my ass.
More seriously, I don't mind if people applaud when bad guys get their due, or yelp at scary parts or go woo! at appropriate woo! moments, but people should *not* talk to the characters.
Not Die Hard, ogged. Schindler's List.
SB gets it exactly right. Lorelai Gilmore could do unspeakable things to Jack Bauer, then feed him pie. He'd be forced to retire on full disability.
I saw Kiefer Sutherland at a bar once. He was playing pool very badly and all the fingers in the world couldn't help him.
"I just felt Ronald Reagan was the father that this country needed."
Schindler's List.
Maybe it was sophisticated mocking of Spielberg's emotional manipulativeness.
mocking of Spielberg's emotional manipulativeness.
Holocaust denier.
Schindler's List is just a stand-in. I'm trying not to spoil anything here.
Holocaust denier.
I fully believe that Leia appeared to Obi-Wan.
No one want credit for the ass-pole comment?
SB, you are No Fun.
I keep my fun in an archival-safe box marked "Fun".
I for one stand firm with SB on the need for people to shut the fuck up during movies.
You people are failing to distinguish between "shut up" movie noise and "deal with it, you're at a public performance" movie noise. The former is noise that's unrelated to the movie itself, and some commentary. The latter is emotional reactions to the film and commentary that adds to the enjoyment of those who hear it; these last usually happen at fluffy action films, anyway, and if you're going to get in a snit about missing the dialogue you shouldn't be at those movies anyway.
Crappy movies excepted, of course. Audience participation at a crappy movie is like clapping after a jazz solo.
Oh, that was me. I figured it was obvious. But I love you, Standpipe, your bepipéd affliction and all. People may woo! at movies, but woo!ing at Schindler's List is really grounds for a justifiable standpiping.
these last usually happen at fluffy action films, anyway, and if you're going to get in a snit about missing the dialogue you shouldn't be at those movies anyway.
This is apropos to nothing anyone has said in this thread.
No, it's exactly the same thing you said in 91.
I once had a man behind me tell me after one of those films--I think it was The Long Kiss Goodnight, which is a favorite of mine--that he had immensely enjoyed my commentary, which had made the film worth watching after all.
À propos, defintion: in agreement with, apparently.
I once had a man behind me tell me after one of those films...that he had immensely enjoyed my commentary
For the millionth time ladies, guys don't actually want to open animal shelters, and they don't actually enjoy your movie commentary. They want to fuck you.
96: Funny; I was with my husband, and he was with a woman.
Shivbunny wants to open a restaurant where we'd make lots of fresh pasta.
He just wants sex, doesn't he.
"He" being the guy who talked to me, obviously. Not my husband. Who was obviously with a woman. And who didn't talk to me. Or at least, his talking to me isn't part of the story.
Owning restaurants are a proper manly pursuit. It allows for an endless stream of hot waitresses for you to hit on.
I'm about to finish watching it, and none of you, including the one who wrote a post criticizing The Onion review of it, made it clear how good Brick is.
Is part of the story that sometimes people say the opposite of what they mean, for a desired effect?
I really liked Brick, but I don't think I said anything about it here. Nevertheless, I take credit.
B, I feel like we keep having arguments where we're superficially at odds, but, underneath the oath-taking and the eye-rolling, mostly kind of agree.
I blame you, of course.
As you should. I like oath-taking, eye-rolling play arguments a lot.
Plus, it's fun to disagree with you, b/c you get so shrill.
It's not the arguments per se that annoy. Woo arguments. It's that we're so bad at reading each other. And with that, I retreat to my glorious spiral-staircase-having side of the blog.
Funny, I don't think we're bad at reading each other.
Which just shows how right I am.
110: Yes, that was rather the point. Though actually I don't feel like there's this gap, on my part, with either of you. I can't help it if you're both oversensitive weenies.
107: You misspelled "strident".
Yes, that was rather the point.
So you say, ex post.
I don't feel like there's this gap, on my part, with either of you.
Forgive me if I don't follow. Who's my comrade-in-weens?
113: At least I know that a period goes inside quotation marks, you pawn of w-lfs-n.
Jeebus. Standpipe's right: if you want to make noises during the movie, wait for the DVD.
114: Ogged. And yes, I said it ex post; if I'd said it at the time, it would have belonged on your joke-explaining blog, not this one. I swear. This is 90% of the whole "B not funny" nonsense. No one appreciates a talented straight woman.
(And if you don't recognize that I'm feeding y'all a line with *that* one, there's no justice in the world.)
118 was supposed to be to 116, but 117 can have it if it wants.
You say that ex post, but we all know that every insult you fling is meant for me, and me alone.
118: How can you bitch about the inappropriate use of cell phones if you're fine with the disruption of a movie that others have paid to see? How coherent can that world view be? Madness.
This is 90% of the whole "B not funny" nonsense.
Sure, and the other 10% is that you're not funny. It's not the end of the world; I'm not funny, either. (See ogged, supra/ibid/et seq.)
It's a strange worldview that would classify audience reaction to movies -- sobs, laughter, sighs of relief, boos, applause -- as disruptive.
Now that we have all these hookers here, do y'all think I can get some service, or what?
An obvious response to 116 is, "If you want to watch the movie in silene, wait for the DVD." (Oddly given my last post, this is what I do and at least part of why I do it.)
126: Given that you think clouds look like tits, and teeth make for a good blowjob, I'd say you're sorely in need.
They're hookers, -gg-d, not tennis players.
But seriously, folks, talking during a movie is difficult to justify, but other reactions, depending on the movie, might be totally appropriate.
Clown, the last thing we need in this thread is someone arguing with himself.
Hi, Labs, we're all drunk. Care to join us?
FL, they've been drinking the crazy juice.
you think clouds look like tits
Educate yourself, woman.
Then we're all going to the movies to have personal, non-vocal, totally appropriate reactions.
Dude, I don't care what they're called, they don't look like boobies.
No matter how many times you tell a person, it still hurts.
You all know I disapprove of drunkenness.
No, because they look like fucking cottage cheese. Or maybe a tumor.
141: That's cool. I'm sure someone around here has some meth, instead.
I'm so misunderstood.
Labs, also, is misunderstood.
Look, you can't blame the poor cloudologists for not knowing what boobs look like. They decided to study and name clouds! How well does that go over with the women? Poor guys gotta get boobies where he can.
you're just a soul whose intentions are good.
Oh, agreed. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just saying, that is not how tits look.
Not everyone can be an exploder-upper.
71, 88: No "woo" even when the aliens blow up Houston? That's not a world I want to live in.
I said crappy movies were exempt, didn't I?
Until you made me I was nothing.
bitchphd banned: 3/18/05.
My first comment: 3/22/05.
Iiiiiiiiinteresting.
This blog isn't big enough for the both of us. Pistols at dawn.
What, by having your dog spin a spinner or something?
115: That's a lot like knowing the earth is flat.
158: Ban me for the analogy here.
You think he wants us to buy ph3ntermine?
163: Might help if I knew what the ph3k it was (don't tell).
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I don't think so!
Sometimes I worry that Emerson paints too romantic a picture of what it means to be a Crazy Old Man.
I was really saddened to learn how much of a shit heap 24 is. I tried to watch it when the guy who played Leland Palmer was on it as the Veep but I couldn't muster enough fortitude to make it through an episode to see him. On the other hand, haven't they repeatedly made the villains be or control the people at the highest levels of elected office? It's an impression I have from the talk of friends who watch it. If that's accurate, how do they square that with the woo! America! angle? Or is that, itself, just some recycled "politics are the opposite of rugged individualism, rules are used to inhibit the truly free and thus the rule makers are the greatest enemies of all" sort of bullshit?
People who talk during movies need to die. I have confronted people in the theatre to get them to shut the fuck up before.
This does not mean we must all be cocooned, however. Natural audience reaction is OK. Running one's yap, however? No, thank you, but I did not pay $8.00 to hear your opinions on the film-in-progress or what the doctor had to say to your Uncle Ron.
"People who talk during movies need to die. I have confronted people in the theatre to get them to shut the fuck up before."
I second this. I've also confronted people, in a fairly mild way, when they've been yapping.
167: People who talk during movies need to die.
I give you Harlan Ellison on the Three Most Important Things in Life. Scroll down to Chapter 2, "Violence."
I should clarify: mainly I have confronted them after the fact because causing a scene during the movie would be worse, y'know? During the film itself I've no desire to get up in someone's face. Sometimes I've just had to say something, but I try to contain myself.
I've actually been trying to relax about this but am a miserable failure at it.
The most I've ever done is ask people to be quiet, somewhat forcefully.
However, my friend F once punched a guy when were in the cinema.
Three teenage blokes behind us, drinking and being loud. F asks them to be quiet, then when it doesn't stop, he says "Gonnae shut the fuck up?", then a few seconds later one of them theatrically hocks up a big loogie and ostentatiously spits on the back of F.'s jacket, clearly thinking that there were three of them and they were all the badass and there was no way he'd call their bluff.
F. just turns round, grabs the guy by the neck, punches him full in the face, drops the guy's limp body back into his seat [he wasn't unconscious, just completely in shock] and goes back to watching the film. Without saying a word. Not as extreme as the Harlan Ellison story, but justice was served.
From the Ellison:
I warn you, it's terrible.
Too bad it sounds totally awesome.
I would never have it in me to do that but a part of me does kind of believe that your friend F has done a favor for all of us.
Yeah, F was a part-time night-club bouncer and also did security at rock festivals [and also, somewhat incongruously, an accountant]. He, rather than I, was definitely the guy to take the assertive route to cinema etiquette enforcement.
Also I'm pretty sure I would have screamed if I'd been there at the Ellison, um, thing and thus been Victim #2.
