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Sadly this is a very common message in popular culture. In a race to be "gritty and realistic" there are so many cop and military shows where torture is used by
by InclinedPlane 11y ago
Sadly this is a very common message in popular culture. In a race to be "gritty and realistic" there are so many cop and military shows where torture is used by the "good guys" in service to the plot, with positive results. It's a shame how willingly and unthinkingly hollywood puts forth this torture propaganda, most of the time of their own volition.
- touristtam 11y agoI am pretty sure that is due to the medium and the target audience. We, in the west, have had a Manichean view of the world for quite a long time. No wonder Hollywood is reusing this common and almost confortable view of the world.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoIt's more than that. There's a deep-seated idea of the virtue of retributive violence. There is the idea of not just the value of vengeance but the rightness and necessity of it, and this is thoroughly involved in popular culture and the entire criminal justice system. This is the reason why people believe in the value of torture and why people laugh about the idea of sexual assault in prisons (because "bad guys" deserve to be hurt, even brutalized). It's the reason why we're ok with medieval conditions in our prison system even as those individuals end up back in society (because in so far as prison is hellish that makes it an even more effective punishment for wrong-doing). And so on. It's an incredibly barbaric value system which seems to be changing incredibly slowly.