4 ms·

Really? I'm the OP. I just binge watched all of Fringe and it's jam packed full of torture. The very fact that you don't remember it is perhaps part of the poin

Really? I'm the OP. I just binge watched all of Fringe and it's jam packed full of torture. The very fact that you don't remember it is perhaps part of the point I was making. It's very much just the done thing. Torture doesn't have to be conducted in a dungeon with hot irons. It's any situation where you cause serious distress to a helpless person you control. I would argue that fans not being able to remember torture scenes is my point precisely. Oh, it's so blase and mundane that you don't even remember? Oh the government's torturing people you say? So what? I see that shit every day. It's not that bad... etc.

wmgries 13y ago
I'm interested now. Not enough to rewatch the entire show front to back, but how about you give some examples of the protagonists using torture (like episode numbers)? When the bad guys use torture in a tv show or movie, that shouldn't count towards what you are claiming - only when the good guys uses it.
- owenmarshall 13y ago
  >When the bad guys use torture in a tv show or movie, that shouldn't count towards what you are claiming - only when the good guys uses it. What an odd view. Whenever anyone uses torture to successfully extract information - bad guy or good guy - we are getting the not-so-subtle message that "torture works". Torture doesn't work. And if you're so habituated to the message that "torture is effective" to the point that you don't even notice torture, well...
  - wmgries 13y ago
    When a bad guy uses torture, we get the message that he's a bad guy. It doesn't really matter if the information the bad guy gets is good or not because the viewer is not sympathetic to the bad guy. Others have made this point upstream, but essentially, you have a great case for torture being legitimized IF the good guys are using it and are portrayed as heroes for doing so.
    - owenmarshall 13y ago
      >When a bad guy uses torture, we get the message that he's a bad guy. It doesn't really matter if the information the bad guy gets is good or not because the viewer is not sympathetic to the bad guy. But if the bad guy gets good information from torturing the good guy, the viewer thinks "hey, he's an asshole, but torture sure is a thing that works! Maybe the good guy should use it on him!" >you have a great case for torture being legitimized IF the good guys are using it and are portrayed as heroes for doing so. You're applying too strict a standard. The article isn't talking about legitimizing torture. It's talking about normalizing it. In other words, TV isn't necessarily telling us that torture is good. It tells us that it works, and leaves us to fill in the gaps (if it WORKS, we should use it on BAD PEOPLE!)

wmgries 13y ago

I'm interested now. Not enough to rewatch the entire show front to back, but how about you give some examples of the protagonists using torture (like episode numbers)? When the bad guys use torture in a tv show or movie, that shouldn't count towards what you are claiming - only when the good guys uses it.

owenmarshall 13y ago
>When the bad guys use torture in a tv show or movie, that shouldn't count towards what you are claiming - only when the good guys uses it. What an odd view. Whenever anyone uses torture to successfully extract information - bad guy or good guy - we are getting the not-so-subtle message that "torture works". Torture doesn't work. And if you're so habituated to the message that "torture is effective" to the point that you don't even notice torture, well...
- wmgries 13y ago
  When a bad guy uses torture, we get the message that he's a bad guy. It doesn't really matter if the information the bad guy gets is good or not because the viewer is not sympathetic to the bad guy. Others have made this point upstream, but essentially, you have a great case for torture being legitimized IF the good guys are using it and are portrayed as heroes for doing so.
  - owenmarshall 13y ago
    >When a bad guy uses torture, we get the message that he's a bad guy. It doesn't really matter if the information the bad guy gets is good or not because the viewer is not sympathetic to the bad guy. But if the bad guy gets good information from torturing the good guy, the viewer thinks "hey, he's an asshole, but torture sure is a thing that works! Maybe the good guy should use it on him!" >you have a great case for torture being legitimized IF the good guys are using it and are portrayed as heroes for doing so. You're applying too strict a standard. The article isn't talking about legitimizing torture. It's talking about normalizing it. In other words, TV isn't necessarily telling us that torture is good. It tells us that it works, and leaves us to fill in the gaps (if it WORKS, we should use it on BAD PEOPLE!)