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"Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda."

"Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda." I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience.

exarch 13y ago
"But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience." That, or it's purely coincidental that "24" debuted following disclosure of Bush's torture programs, and "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance. It may not be propaganda officially ordered and authored by some Ministry of Information, but it's the same thing no matter how many layers of abstraction it goes through: a way to shape the narrative and facts that inform the common person and allow them to form an understanding of an issue.
- rayiner 13y ago
  "24" premiered in November 2001, and capitalized on the anti-terrorist sentiment in America after the September 11, 2011 attacks. The groundwork for Bush's "torture programs" were laid in late 2002, and came to public attention in June 2004, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The interpretation that better reconciles the timeline is that both the show and the torture program are attempts to capitalize on the same public sentiment that led to this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_Blue_%28The_Angry_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_... (select lyrics: "Cause we'll put a boot in your ass; It's the American way"), peaking at #1 on Billboard's list of Hot Country Songs.
  - rsynnott 13y ago
    "24" only really turned into torture fetish material a few seasons in, though.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I don't know what happened in later seasons, I only watched the first few. There was torture in the show from Season 1. Jack violently interrogates two people in the first season, later executing one of them at the end of the season. Season 2 opens with a torture scene: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation, one of many such scenes in that season. I don't know how many people here really remember the mood back then. I was just starting college at Georgia Tech when Season 2 of "24" came on. It was hugely popular in my dorm. And the overall sentiment was pretty violent. In the run-up to the Iraq war the next year, it was less controversial to say that we should turn the middle east into a "glass parking lot" than to argue against going to war. And this is of course among people who were relatively liberal compared to the region as a whole.
      - maxerickson 13y ago
        They also have a torture page (edit: oops, I see now that it is just a redirect to Interrogation): http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture And an amputation page: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation (but a couple of those incidents don't involve torture; I remember being extremely put off by the scene in day 8 (I guess I switched it off before the scene was complete). Now I wonder how mainstream 24 really is, given how over the top it seems.
        rayiner 13y ago
        It won 20 Emmy's and was pretty well-rated in its time.
        maxerickson 13y ago
        I could/should have said something like "I wonder how prevalent approval for those depictions really is".
    - exarch 13y ago
      Yes. During season one, torture was a rare occurrence and was depicted in a rather morally ambiguous fashion. During the middle few seasons, heroic acts of torture featured on nearly every episode. Remember also that producers of these shows often do have contact with members of the intelligence and defense communities who serve as official or unofficial advisors, at least so long as the depictions are acceptable to the establishment. Through these advisors, entertainment producers learn about secret programs long before the public. Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a particularly prominent recent example of how this works, and why it is a bad thing that results in "entertainment" which is very much a form of propaganda.
- jbattle 13y ago
  I was surprised actually watching the show how ineffective the torture was. Once I started watching for it - in every single case using torture actually did get information out of the victim, but the information either came to late or was a red herring. I don't think they were trying to subtly undermine the justification for torture, but in that fictional world at least it was inevitably ultimately futile
  - vorg 13y ago
    > or was a red herring As often in real life. There's this report from late 2006 (though I haven't checked any other sources)... "Last week Omar Nasiri, a Moroccan who spent seven years infiltrating al-Qaeda as a double agent working for the French and British intelligence services, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that al-Qaeda deliberately fed false information to the US government in order to encourage it to invade Iraq. According to Nasiri (a pseudonym), Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and was captured in the US invasion of that country five years ago, told his US interrogators that Saddam Hussein was cooperating with the terrorist organisation to plan attacks with chemical and biological weapons. [...] American forces had scooped up Ibn Sheikh al-Libi in Afghanistan in November, 2001, and sent him off to Egypt to be tortured (because the US itself doesn’t do torture) in the presence of American interrogators. And Libi told his lie about Saddam Hussein’s complicity with al-Qaeda, which Colin Powell seized on as justification for the US attack on Iraq." (http://gwynnedyer.com/2006/al-qaeda-and-iraq/ http://gwynnedyer.com/2006/al-qaeda-and-iraq/)
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  The show debuting right after the disclosure of torture programs is easily explainable. Writers frequently grab at whatever tasty bits of news or culture come along to provide themes and scenes for their works.
- Udo 13y ago
  > "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance By the way, I've got to hand it to Person of Interest for creating a show about technology and the singularity that isn't completely ridiculous with its use of computers and jargon. They're also not really pro-surveillance. To quote Finch: "...the machine is... wonderful and terrible..." It's also a show where bad guys (the government) are using torture, and it's horrific. On last night's episode they mutilated a main character just to make a point. In a sense, I think PoI is somehow the spiritual successor of the X Files in a sense that it alternates between "monster of the week" (in this case: criminal of the week) and the big storyline which is about a corrupt and power-hungry government at every level from local city politicians all the way up to vast and limitless government agencies, and about everyone's love-hate-and-exploitation relationship with a superior intelligence (which was the aliens in X-Files). It's a show that makes some powerful and ballsy statements, while at the same time keeping up the light entertainment of what's ostensibly a vigilante show.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Whatever it all is, I have to admit it scares the crap out of me how much "victory at all costs" seems to be the moral and cultural norm these days when most people aren't even soldiers.
Spooky23 13y ago
I lean towards propaganda, because it affects other types of shows as well, sometimes in subtle ways. Cop shows are all about flailing around for a few minutes, followed by a hacker/database identifying the subject and dispatch of the SWAT team. If the computers are down, the good guy beats up the suspect. If the show is on CBS, they do some sort of amazing thing using their MS Surface while driving a Chevy-something. (Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers) Talk to a real cop. Whiz bang technology is the exception, not the rule. Successful detectives usually use their connections with the community to put two and two together.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  > Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers I never suspected that I'm bad to the bone.
  - eru 13y ago
    No, you only thing you can infer, is that _not_ driving Fords and Chryslers means you are _not_ a bad guy.
saraid216 13y ago
I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative... It makes me think of something I recently read: http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 No torture in this one, but... well.
bashinator 13y ago
It's not very good propaganda if the audience doesn't enjoy it.
VladRussian2 13y ago
>I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience. Violence in its ultimate form. A viewer who associates him/herself with the protagonist gets the feeling of being a righteous God exerting the punishment. An irresistible catnip for "good people with values".
lectrick 13y ago
"24" and "Boardwalk Empire" are 2 series I stopped watching due to torture scenes. In "24" it was some scene where Jack Bauer had to shoot and kill one of his own guys in order to not blow his cover. I tapped out. In "Boardwalk" I lasted all the way to some scene where some poor sap got buried up to his neck on a beach and then they took a shovel to his head. That was it for me, no thanks.
fatjokes 13y ago
I'm definitely inclined to say propaganda. If it were just on its own, then I'd give the benefit of the doubt and say entertainment. However, it just happens to coincide with the revelations of America's use of torture in Iraq, etc., and the media's use of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques", etc, at least when discussing America. (It's still torture if it's Iran or China). I know, citation needed, but I'm lazy right now.

exarch 13y ago

"But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience." That, or it's purely coincidental that "24" debuted following disclosure of Bush's torture programs, and "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance. It may not be propaganda officially ordered and authored by some Ministry of Information, but it's the same thing no matter how many layers of abstraction it goes through: a way to shape the narrative and facts that inform the common person and allow them to form an understanding of an issue.

rayiner 13y ago
"24" premiered in November 2001, and capitalized on the anti-terrorist sentiment in America after the September 11, 2011 attacks. The groundwork for Bush's "torture programs" were laid in late 2002, and came to public attention in June 2004, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The interpretation that better reconciles the timeline is that both the show and the torture program are attempts to capitalize on the same public sentiment that led to this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_Blue_%28The_Angry_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_... (select lyrics: "Cause we'll put a boot in your ass; It's the American way"), peaking at #1 on Billboard's list of Hot Country Songs.
- rsynnott 13y ago
  "24" only really turned into torture fetish material a few seasons in, though.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I don't know what happened in later seasons, I only watched the first few. There was torture in the show from Season 1. Jack violently interrogates two people in the first season, later executing one of them at the end of the season. Season 2 opens with a torture scene: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation, one of many such scenes in that season. I don't know how many people here really remember the mood back then. I was just starting college at Georgia Tech when Season 2 of "24" came on. It was hugely popular in my dorm. And the overall sentiment was pretty violent. In the run-up to the Iraq war the next year, it was less controversial to say that we should turn the middle east into a "glass parking lot" than to argue against going to war. And this is of course among people who were relatively liberal compared to the region as a whole.
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      They also have a torture page (edit: oops, I see now that it is just a redirect to Interrogation): http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture And an amputation page: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation (but a couple of those incidents don't involve torture; I remember being extremely put off by the scene in day 8 (I guess I switched it off before the scene was complete). Now I wonder how mainstream 24 really is, given how over the top it seems.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        It won 20 Emmy's and was pretty well-rated in its time.
        maxerickson 13y ago
        I could/should have said something like "I wonder how prevalent approval for those depictions really is".
  - exarch 13y ago
    Yes. During season one, torture was a rare occurrence and was depicted in a rather morally ambiguous fashion. During the middle few seasons, heroic acts of torture featured on nearly every episode. Remember also that producers of these shows often do have contact with members of the intelligence and defense communities who serve as official or unofficial advisors, at least so long as the depictions are acceptable to the establishment. Through these advisors, entertainment producers learn about secret programs long before the public. Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a particularly prominent recent example of how this works, and why it is a bad thing that results in "entertainment" which is very much a form of propaganda.
jbattle 13y ago
I was surprised actually watching the show how ineffective the torture was. Once I started watching for it - in every single case using torture actually did get information out of the victim, but the information either came to late or was a red herring. I don't think they were trying to subtly undermine the justification for torture, but in that fictional world at least it was inevitably ultimately futile
- vorg 13y ago
  > or was a red herring As often in real life. There's this report from late 2006 (though I haven't checked any other sources)... "Last week Omar Nasiri, a Moroccan who spent seven years infiltrating al-Qaeda as a double agent working for the French and British intelligence services, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that al-Qaeda deliberately fed false information to the US government in order to encourage it to invade Iraq. According to Nasiri (a pseudonym), Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and was captured in the US invasion of that country five years ago, told his US interrogators that Saddam Hussein was cooperating with the terrorist organisation to plan attacks with chemical and biological weapons. [...] American forces had scooped up Ibn Sheikh al-Libi in Afghanistan in November, 2001, and sent him off to Egypt to be tortured (because the US itself doesn’t do torture) in the presence of American interrogators. And Libi told his lie about Saddam Hussein’s complicity with al-Qaeda, which Colin Powell seized on as justification for the US attack on Iraq." (http://gwynnedyer.com/2006/al-qaeda-and-iraq/ http://gwynnedyer.com/2006/al-qaeda-and-iraq/)
andrewflnr 13y ago
The show debuting right after the disclosure of torture programs is easily explainable. Writers frequently grab at whatever tasty bits of news or culture come along to provide themes and scenes for their works.
Udo 13y ago
> "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance By the way, I've got to hand it to Person of Interest for creating a show about technology and the singularity that isn't completely ridiculous with its use of computers and jargon. They're also not really pro-surveillance. To quote Finch: "...the machine is... wonderful and terrible..." It's also a show where bad guys (the government) are using torture, and it's horrific. On last night's episode they mutilated a main character just to make a point. In a sense, I think PoI is somehow the spiritual successor of the X Files in a sense that it alternates between "monster of the week" (in this case: criminal of the week) and the big storyline which is about a corrupt and power-hungry government at every level from local city politicians all the way up to vast and limitless government agencies, and about everyone's love-hate-and-exploitation relationship with a superior intelligence (which was the aliens in X-Files). It's a show that makes some powerful and ballsy statements, while at the same time keeping up the light entertainment of what's ostensibly a vigilante show.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Whatever it all is, I have to admit it scares the crap out of me how much "victory at all costs" seems to be the moral and cultural norm these days when most people aren't even soldiers.

Spooky23 13y ago

I lean towards propaganda, because it affects other types of shows as well, sometimes in subtle ways. Cop shows are all about flailing around for a few minutes, followed by a hacker/database identifying the subject and dispatch of the SWAT team. If the computers are down, the good guy beats up the suspect. If the show is on CBS, they do some sort of amazing thing using their MS Surface while driving a Chevy-something. (Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers) Talk to a real cop. Whiz bang technology is the exception, not the rule. Successful detectives usually use their connections with the community to put two and two together.

WalterBright 13y ago
> Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers I never suspected that I'm bad to the bone.
- eru 13y ago
  No, you only thing you can infer, is that _not_ driving Fords and Chryslers means you are _not_ a bad guy.

saraid216 13y ago

I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative... It makes me think of something I recently read: http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 No torture in this one, but... well.

bashinator 13y ago

It's not very good propaganda if the audience doesn't enjoy it.

VladRussian2 13y ago

>I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience. Violence in its ultimate form. A viewer who associates him/herself with the protagonist gets the feeling of being a righteous God exerting the punishment. An irresistible catnip for "good people with values".

lectrick 13y ago

"24" and "Boardwalk Empire" are 2 series I stopped watching due to torture scenes. In "24" it was some scene where Jack Bauer had to shoot and kill one of his own guys in order to not blow his cover. I tapped out. In "Boardwalk" I lasted all the way to some scene where some poor sap got buried up to his neck on a beach and then they took a shovel to his head. That was it for me, no thanks.

fatjokes 13y ago

I'm definitely inclined to say propaganda. If it were just on its own, then I'd give the benefit of the doubt and say entertainment. However, it just happens to coincide with the revelations of America's use of torture in Iraq, etc., and the media's use of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques", etc, at least when discussing America. (It's still torture if it's Iran or China). I know, citation needed, but I'm lazy right now.