Bloggers Unite: Torture and "24″
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- May
- 15
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states it simply:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Yet, every week during the run of 24 each season (until this season, when we got pre-empted by the writer’s strike, sniff), many people who otherwise abhor torture cheer on our man Jack Bauer as he shoots a suspect’s wife in the knee, uses a lamp cord to administer electric shocks to his girlfriend’s estranged husband, chops a bad guy’s finger off with a cigar cutter and otherwise tortures assorted bad people.
Problem is, sometimes the bad guys aren’t actually bad. Take Audrey Raines’ estranged husband: he hadn’t actually done anything wrong, it just appeared that he had a connection to the bad guys. Or how about when Jack held Audrey off the floor by her neck, thinking she was a mole? Only Jack’s love for her and disbelief that she could be involved with the bad guys stopped him from really hurting her.
I’ve read many articles by rabid fans of 24 who wonder how they can enjoy it so much when they feel so strongly that torture is wrong.
But the thing is, how often does Jack actually get decent intel out of the torture? Even when his brother, Graeme, confessed to being behind the assassination of David Palmer and other nefarious crimes, he still didn’t confess the whole truth, or give up his dad as the mastermind behind it all.
Sometimes, sure, Jack does get the information he needs. The case that gets cited the most is the Season 2 scene where he shows some bad guy on a closed-circuit television that American soldiers are executing his children and the guy gives up some intel.
But just as often, Chloe saves the day by cross-referencing 18 zillion databases she’s hacked into and figured out connections it would have taken years to otherwise determine.
And Jack himself spent 18 months in a Chinese prison, subject to torture, and never so much as said his own name.
Still, some bigwigs from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point visited the producers of 24 and some other TV shows to ask them to tone down the torture scenes. Torture doesn’t work, they said, but their soldiers were getting ideas on how to extract information from these shows.
And there’s this: if it’s OK for Americans to torture those we believe to be our enemies, it’s kind of hard to get on our high horse and tell our enemies they are evil for torturing Americans.
So here I am, no closer to an answer than I was at the beginning.
I do feel strongly that television is television and showing torture that works on 24 is no more realistic than showing Jack Bauer traveling across Los Angeles in 15 minutes or less and never hitting a traffic jam. Or a liquor store that’s still open after a nuclear attack on a nearby city. Or that Jack’s mobile phone can do just about everything except julienne bell peppers.
But I also feel strongly that if we, as a nation, continue to condone torture, we give up the right to object when our soldiers and residents are tortured by our enemies.
You can’t have it both ways.
Even Jack Bauer knows that.
Photo courtesy of Fox.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Amy Vernon.
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