A few initial reactions to the 24 premiere

By Heraclitus

I'm sure at least one or two readers watch 24, the television show about a counter-terrorist unit led -- in action if not in name -- by "Jack Bauer" (Kiefer Sutherland) and told in real-time. Since the show deals with terrorism and questions of executive authority, I thought it might be worthwhile to write out some of my initial thoughts or reactions to it.

The episode/season begins with a series of deadly suicide bombings sweeping the nation. None of the attacks are anywhere near the scope of September 11th, but the cumulative effect, and the fact that no end is in sight, make the consequences worse.

The President has thus negotiated Bauer's return from the Chinese, who had (rather improbably and annoyingly) kidnapped him at the end of last season, so the US government can hand him over to be tortured to death by a terrorist, Abu Fayed, whose brother Jack had tortured to death in a previous season (but the show doesn't feel quite as gory or sadistic as this summary sounds). When Jack gets off the plane with a huge beard, he looks more like Jebidiah Springfield than Our Lord and Savior, but the beard and the scars all over his back put one in mind of The Passion of the Christ. Much of the detail, for instance that Bauer did not speak a single word during twenty months' captivity in China, as well as the shots of his scars, seem needless. The point seems to be to underscore Bauer's heroism, but that heroism is presented in distinctly masochistic tones (this emphasis on masochism is familiar to anyone who has seen a Bruce Willis movie, though Bauer lacks Willis's sardonic streak, his everyman's reluctance to become a hero). The ethos is one in which nobility is understood as masochistic self-sacrifice, and the viewer will soon be witnessing Bauer being tortured again.

Lauren at Faux Real Tho recently wrote an interesting post on a species of action hero called "Save the Day Guy," who embodies a cheap, thin, and meretricious version of masculinity. Save the Day guy has much in common with what Orwell, surveying boys' magazines in the late '30s, described as the "American ideal, the 'he-man,' the 'tough guy,' the gorilla who puts everything right by socking everybody else on the jaw" (this is from his essay "Boys' Weeklies" -- on this theme see also his brilliant essay, "Raffles and Miss Blandish"). It is this version of masculinity as crude mastery basking in its well-deserved admiration that, it seems to me, dominates the minds of Bush and Cheney and their ardent supporters (see again the Glenn Greenwald post I linked to earlier today).

I think that the version of masculinity driving 24, one centered on masochism and self-sacrifice (remember that, for all his bluster about the "infinite justice" of our "crusade," W just couldn't bring himself to utter the word "sacrifice") is both more interesting and more admirable than the masculinity of Save the Day Guy. But if it is deeper and more complex, it can also be much darker. Later, when the terrorist masterminding the bombing campaign (Abu Fayed) addresses a teenage suicide bomber, he says something like, "When you overcome your fear, you prove your worth." His comments, and the resolve they inspire, come from the same place as Jack's willingness to sacrifice his own life, and indeed his ability to stand up under torture.

More on torture in a moment, but let me return to the dilemma with which the episode opens. When Bauer is handed over to be killed, one of his long-time friends and colleagues in the Counter-Terrorism Unit, a computer specialist, is very unhappy. Her beau, a sarcastic Brit who is constantly skirmishing with authority figures, and who was apparently previously fired from CTU and had to work selling women's shoes for a while, tries to use a satellite to find Jack, but the terrorist finds out, and threatens not to keep his end of the deal (telling them where they can find and kill the allegedd mastermind behind the bombings). The deal seems jeopardized, and the sequence reads like a fairly hackneyed exercise in reinforcing cliches about realpolitik and gender stereotypes. The woman and the woman's shoe salesman and inveterate fuck-up can't stomach the hard reality, and almost ruin everything by being overly emotional, nay, irrational.

Except, of course, what's irrational is to make a deal with a known terrorist and except him to help you. Iran-Contra, anyone? Abu Fayed, in the course of torturing Jack, reveals that the terrorist whose location he is giving to CTU is in fact a peacemaker, and it is he, Abu Fayed, who is waging war on the United States (yes, he reveals his secret master plan when his nemesis seems helpless, but it feels less ridiculous and trite here, since it makes Jack's torture that much worse by making it meaningless). Later, when Jack has a choice between stopping a suicide bomber from killing a couple dozen people and following someone back to Fayed, he makes a similar choice, refusing to sacrifice a relatively few innocent lives in order to improve his chances of catching the arch-villian (although someone else does follow the other agent).

In other words, although Bauer exemplifies a masculine form of heroism, it is not one based on "hard-boiled realism." It is, however, one which must prove itself through enduring physical suffering, thus the ubiquity of torture in the show. In the second episode, there is scene where Jack and his new partner, the former super-terrorist-turned-peacemaker, Assad (imaginative name for a Middle Eastern bad guy), try to get information out of one of Assad's men who has betrayed him to Fayed. Jack tortures him very briefly, then concludes, "I can see it in his eyes -- he's not going to tell us anything." Assad, however, takes a knife and drives it into his knee cap. The man, of course, screams and writhes in agony. He also gives them more information. All of this takes place in front of an American flag draped over a window; the flag is the backdrop, and the scene is lit with the light coming through the flag. It's probably a mistake to read this as some kind of allegory for special rendition. The point seems rather to be that, after have been locked in a windowless Chinese dungeon and tortured daily for nigh on two years, Jack no longer has the stomach to torture others. He tells Assad, "I don't know how to do this anymore," but he seems to be referring to a change in his character, not being out of practice or having forgotten his training.

24 is a very popular show, and although it can be violent (already this season Jack has killed a man by biting him in the throat), it has a clear moral code, and one superior, I think, to that animating the White House. Although I don't think the show will revolutionize people's attitudes towards torture terror suspects or anything else, I think it will be interesting to see how all of this develops. As always, I'd like to come up with a snappier ending (and perhaps revise this post to make it a little more focused), but I really have to go.