‘24′ is a freaking tv show. period.
Apparently I’m confused. Now I’ll grant you, I’m old enough to remember when ‘reality’ and ‘tv’ were two different things. But apparently, congressional leaders investigating abuses in the war on terror believe that the Fox series ‘24′ may have led to actual human rights violations. Well, stop it. I have had enough of commentators, analysts, critics and other talking heads commenting, analyzing, criticizing and talking about the show ‘24′ as if the show (and that’s gonna be a key word here, people–’show’) should be held responsible for actual incidents of torture from Abu Graib to Guantanamo.
Understand–I believe torture is unequivocally wrong. I also believe that if military or law enforcement people representing the United States are engaging in torture because they saw it on a goddam tv show, then the fault is not with the tv show but in fact is with the real world humans committing the torture. If our agents are so stupidly malleable that they are watching Kiefer Sutherland and thinking “that’s what we need to do–watch this guy–he must know what he’s doing–he was in ‘The Lost Boys’!”, then we need to take a good long look at how we’re training our agents.
It’s all made up, people. And, it’s on Fox–anyone whose worldview is shaped by Fox is already a lost cause. The whole thing is circular–the show ‘24′ has been given WAY more cultural significance than it deserves precisely because everyone’s worried about its cultural significance. This hand-wringing over Jack Bauer’s tactics (oh, by the way–he’s fictional) is like every other nontroversy regarding art’s influence on behavior. Like when thousands of dollars were spent to prove there’s more smoking in movies than in real life (duh–there’s also more spaceships–they’re fucking movies!) .
Just because I find ‘24′ to be a well-acted, tautly written, compelling action story does not mean I believe the best way to get information from bad guys is to cut off their fingers. Any more than watching infomercials when I’m drunk at 3 am means I believe that I can solve all my financial problems buying foreclosed properties for three hundred dollars.
If the amount of violent acts on television witnessed by children is causing children to be more violent, maybe–just maybe–it’s because parents are letting their kids watch too much television! I have an idea–try parenting! Keep track of what your kids watch and…I don’t know, talk to them about what they see and hey–if you’re not too busy, give them some parental guidance if they see bad things!
And why doesn’t this Svengali-like influence work both ways? It’s not like when tv shows good things and laudable examples of behavior, millions of people started…being good. I haven’t done the research on this, but I doubt that when there’s a new Hallmark Hall of Fame movie about an orphanage, donations to orphanages skyrocket.
