Fucking 24
I know a lot of people love this show, but I personally think it's a racist piece of shit that is part of a genre designed to intentionally exploit a demographic of viewers who enjoy watching white people torturing, violating the civil rights of and killing people of color.
The argument, "but these are big, bad terrible people of color" doesn't fly at all--the demographics are so unreal on the show that it can't hide behind that justification. The latest episode, in which there was an evil Chinese nuclear scientist helping the terrorists holds some distastful similarities to the real life story of Wen Ho Lee. (Based on angryasianman's discriptions of the episode). Except of course for the minor detail of Wen Ho Lee being held forever without actually having done anything simply because racist institutions of law enforcement wanted to believe that this guy, Chinese, must be guilty of the crime. Of course, in this show, all of those people who wanted to assume that this innocent man was guilty in large part because he was Chinese get to see their fantasy come true to the point that Jack Bauer is shooting up Chinese officials to get him back.
I'm sorry, this isn't the "fault" of the evil Chinese scientist who is allied with terrorists. That scientist doesn't exist. The evil that does exist are racist screenwriters and media creators who promote a societal atmosphere that encourages marginalization, persecution, imprisonment and killing of minority groups. Don't think that media is that powerful? Tell it to the 800,000 Rwandans killed in that media induced hate frenzy...
In the case of this show, the evil colored people didn't decide to blow up stuff--the show's creators and writers did. They built a fantasy world where there is a rainbow coalition of non-white terrorists opposed to a can-do-no-wrong glamorous white boy as if that could ever actually happen. The message is not that white America is saddened that in some fictional world, there might be some terrorists who happen to be evil colored people who we might have to do something unspeakable to, in order to save real Americans.
The message is clear--white Americans like to enjoy a very realistic world where people of color are tortured by good, law-breaking white American heroes with a flimsy justification conjured up via fictional writing. If you don't believe me, just look at the fact that there is a DEMOGRAPHIC for it, not just one show--what's the name of that ridiculous Homeland Security show with the sexist, racist main character?
That's why people of color are tortured by law enforcement, immigration and other bullshit government organizations everyday and the country does nothing about it. Because we fucking like the fact that people of color are being tortured. .
The fact that it is a well-shot, cleverly written racist piece of shit is some consolation, but only a little one. In the end, it can make up for the what the show really illuminates--the maliciousness and sadism of white America.
The argument, "but these are big, bad terrible people of color" doesn't fly at all--the demographics are so unreal on the show that it can't hide behind that justification. The latest episode, in which there was an evil Chinese nuclear scientist helping the terrorists holds some distastful similarities to the real life story of Wen Ho Lee. (Based on angryasianman's discriptions of the episode). Except of course for the minor detail of Wen Ho Lee being held forever without actually having done anything simply because racist institutions of law enforcement wanted to believe that this guy, Chinese, must be guilty of the crime. Of course, in this show, all of those people who wanted to assume that this innocent man was guilty in large part because he was Chinese get to see their fantasy come true to the point that Jack Bauer is shooting up Chinese officials to get him back.
I'm sorry, this isn't the "fault" of the evil Chinese scientist who is allied with terrorists. That scientist doesn't exist. The evil that does exist are racist screenwriters and media creators who promote a societal atmosphere that encourages marginalization, persecution, imprisonment and killing of minority groups. Don't think that media is that powerful? Tell it to the 800,000 Rwandans killed in that media induced hate frenzy...
In the case of this show, the evil colored people didn't decide to blow up stuff--the show's creators and writers did. They built a fantasy world where there is a rainbow coalition of non-white terrorists opposed to a can-do-no-wrong glamorous white boy as if that could ever actually happen. The message is not that white America is saddened that in some fictional world, there might be some terrorists who happen to be evil colored people who we might have to do something unspeakable to, in order to save real Americans.
The message is clear--white Americans like to enjoy a very realistic world where people of color are tortured by good, law-breaking white American heroes with a flimsy justification conjured up via fictional writing. If you don't believe me, just look at the fact that there is a DEMOGRAPHIC for it, not just one show--what's the name of that ridiculous Homeland Security show with the sexist, racist main character?
That's why people of color are tortured by law enforcement, immigration and other bullshit government organizations everyday and the country does nothing about it. Because we fucking like the fact that people of color are being tortured. .
The fact that it is a well-shot, cleverly written racist piece of shit is some consolation, but only a little one. In the end, it can make up for the what the show really illuminates--the maliciousness and sadism of white America.
posted by Xian Franzinger Barrett at 4:15 PM
1 Comments:
I will also do a comprehensive 24 rant when the season is finished... but a few points
1) they DID torture Heller's hippie son (Hmmm.. LIberals betraying America anybody)? well, I heard on Primer that he's on the OC now, so he IS helping the terrorists.
2) The low part of this season must be when teh 2 gun-store owners helped Jack. The 2 guys were Brown and were CLEARLY made to throw a bone at the PC people to say "we're not racist, we have Brown good guys!" And they gave them a "moral dilemma too". They should have 2 Redneck Gung-ho guys help Jack instead, would have been funnier too. (Have you seen that movie with Eugene Levy and John Candy where they drive security trucks? I'm constantly reminded of the scene where John Candy gets the help of this redneck tanker driver.)
3) Minority women on the show are all evil. Sherry Palmer, Carrie the annoying biatch, Marianne Taylor, the terrorists woman this episode... yuck.
4) Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth) is 1 quarter Asian. Yum.
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