November 24, 2008
Review Corner
Keith wants to talk about '24.' [fourth comment] Sounds good to me!
His cynical take away from the long awaited return of agent "torture when necessary" Jack Bauer was that the plight of child soldiers in the develping world was intended to be the next cause celebre in the Hollywood activism community. Being the staid, fatalistic, heartless conservative that I am, I simply viewed the child soldier issue as a sympathetic plot device for foundational purposes to the story: Now that Jack (and CTU) have saved the nation and untold thousands of her citizens from death by terrorist acts, the panty wetters in our midst are free to question their tactics. "How many people did you torture Mister Bauer?" I look forward to a vigorous defense of such methods in defense of liberty and can only hope (there's that word again) not to be disappointed.
A positive sign was the repeated scenes involving the Frenchman who drove the U.N. supply truck. Feckless at every opportunity, when the brown stuff started hitting the fan and he sanctimoniously recited, "The U.N. remains neutral in this matter" Jack told him, "Why don't you go hide in the shelter with the other children."[3:37]
Jack's back, that's for sure. But so is (the supposedly killed) Tony Almeida! And they find a way to include Chloe as well.
I'll have to grudgingly concede Keith may be on to something though... the Coalition to stop the use of child soldiers, including the "red hand" campaign, is linked prominently from the official 24 website.
Review Corner Television Posted by JohnGalt at November 24, 2008 4:52 PM
Huh. I have never been 24's biggest fan, as I think it both lacks grounding in reality or a clear moral judgment, but each to their own.
As for the celebrity bit- Celebrity attention-grabbers don't do squat. Indeed, Charlie Carpenter, a prof. of political science at Amherst, posted an (unscientific) study to that effect over at the FP wonk blog, Duck of Minerva.
In the post, she noted that celebrities only start raising awareness projects like these once international organizations are well into solving the problem. (Case in point, Emma Thompson first brings attention to the issue in 2003 by adopting a former child soldier- a year after the UN Secretary general composed a list of offending countries to be dealt with by the UN.)
~T. Greer
Posted by: T. Greer at November 24, 2008 10:19 PMWelcome to ThreeSources, tg! I have historically been the only one to question the sanctity of his Jackness.
I watched the entirety of last season (I had to, less my blog brothers would use a masonry bit on my mandibular foramen) and came to the same conclusion. Be careful, friend, we're in a distinct minority around here. Immigration or Anarcho-capitalism debate has nowhere the severity of '24' debate.
Posted by: jk at November 25, 2008 10:53 AMI didn't mean to start this... my bringing the subject up was to simply point out the latest cause du jour, and how I expected Congress to hold hearings on the subject. Truth be told, I couldn't even sit all the way through this week's premiere. I walked out at the point where the French blue-helmet ratted out the children to the bad guys. Of course, I took some pleasure in seeing the role of cowardly collaborator given to a Frenchman, and seeing the UN work in this fictional country the same way they did at the Lebanon-Israel border.
T. Greer is right - the show lacks reality (let's see how many "in-real-time" episodes it takes for him to return to the States, for example). After the first or maybe the second season, the plot devices become annoyingly predictable (as soon as the President's son asks the kid if he has any evidence of the financial cover-up and the kid answers he's uploaded it to his hard drive, you know he's a Dead Man Walking). And there's always the Nefarious Criminal Mastermind high up in government - really, as if our government was competent to do this effectively.
As for the clear moral judgment issue, the show is hamfisted about it at a superficial level. In the first five minutes, we learn that the bad guys use children as soldiers in their planned coup and round them up against their will for that purpose (evil!), but Jack loves children so much, he'll let them steal the present he intends to give that petulant, willful daughter of his (saintly!). The writers certainly wielded that contrast like a blunt instrument, didn't they?
My feeling is that we've always needed heroes - we want there to be larger-than-life warriors to believe in. Jack Bauer, Jack Ryan, and Peter Parker are just the logical extension of Heracles and Apollo. We want there to be a Jack Bauer, because our government certainly won't do the job we want it to do against our enemies. We want a President like Jack Ryan, because neither the one we have, the one we're getting, or the one we voted for have the fortitude or the sense to do what Ryan would. Our need for heroes springs from our disappointment with what we're faced with in reality.
How's that for an amateur mass psychoanalysis of pop culture?
Posted by: Keith at November 25, 2008 12:04 PMGreat Googooly Moogooly, I clicked on Three Sources and got Oprah Winfrey. JK knows I hold him in high esteem and T.G.'s erudition and defense of Teddy Roosevelt make him tops in my book, but ya'll are starting to sound like a bunch of nancy boy David Schusters at a turkey killing. Simply put, you are violating Sugarchuck's Mighty Fine Rule #1, "Don't be cracking on Jack!" Grounded in reality? Maybe you want to watch a show about a bunch of Brie eating bureaucrats armed with Robert's Rules of Order and their own righteous indignation, slowly working their way through the perilous subsection C, paragraph 1 of a U.N. resolution, only to see it blocked by the French at the Security Counsel. (Oh the humanity!) You'd like, perhaps, a minute by minute rendering of Foggy Bottom types working their way through the grays and haze of diplomatic minutia, fiercely substituting this word for that? Not me! I'll take Jack and his "this sides Yin that sides Yang mother F'er" sense of moral judgement every time. It takes clarity, real moral clarity to defend the country with power tools and if you don't want to take my word for it, ask a woman. Do you think Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton are going to loose themselves in a debate over moral consequences when the fate of the free world and the safety of their children is in the hands of some lowlife terrorist with the codes to the launch sequence? No damn way. While Bill and Barak search for symbols and commonalities of mutual understanding and cooperative dialogue, Michelle is getting the Craftsman circular saw and Hillary is pulling a Diehard out of the SUV. That's moral judgement.
Posted by: sugarchuck at November 25, 2008 2:11 PMKeith, God Bless you, but that was a whole lot of words to say we like to see our guys kick some butt. We liked it when John Wayne did it and we like it when Jack does. And nobody does it better than Jack. Did you see the way he threw down the captured assault weapon last night? Even empty, Jack could have willed death and destruction out of that barrel and he didn't do it out of a refined sense of fair play. He knew he didn't have to kill everybody until they'd tortured him first. Then and only then did he drop everything that moved. And he saved those kids! Way to go Jack, way to go.
Sugarchuck: I don't want to see Jack kick some butt - I'd much rather see him shoot people in the thigh or or attack their throats with his bare teeth. My point is that we want to see Jack do it because we're getting the opposite in real life.
I want my country to protect its borders and go toe-to-toe with enemies foreign and domestic. Because we're not getting it in real life, though, we go to the television to get our dose of it.
I will, though, amend one thing about what I've previously written. 24 has certainly taught us at least one thing that is true to life - it's given us a series of presidents that are inept, corrupt, or testicularly challenged, or a combination of the three.
Posted by: Keith at November 25, 2008 3:21 PMExcept, that is, for President David Palmer. In his case it was the first lady who was some combination of those three.
Posted by: johngalt at November 25, 2008 4:01 PMExcept, that is, for President David Palmer. In his case it was the first lady who was some combination of those three.
Way to go Sugarchuck! I tagged out to you at just the right time.
Posted by: johngalt at November 25, 2008 4:04 PM | What do you think? [7]