The Tao of Jack Bauer

24 has made its mark on the national news scene. In 2005, USA Today reported that “Outsiders have drawn connections between the real world and the fictional 24. The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized the depiction of Muslim terrorists; a New York Times column compared 24's focus on domestic terror threats to the Bush administration's focus on Iraq; and Karen Greenberg, co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, mentioned the series in a Baltimore Sun column about U.S. torture policy.” These examples represent just a sampling of the many examples of “24 in the news.” Although 24 is a fictional television show, the series has a palpable impact on global politics. Some have argued that the show has a close connection with the ideology and politics of the Bush White House. Jack Bauer’s name was also invoked during a Presidential candidate during the 2007 Republican party debate when questioned about the use of torture. And Canada’s The Globe and Mail recently reported that United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia supports the actions of Bauer. In front of a gathering of judges in Ottowa, Scalia stated the following: “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.” “So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.” The show’s writers deny any connection or affiliation with a particular political party, and, as we shall see, the show’s relationship to politics is complicated and not subject to broad generalizations regarding affiliation with a particular political party. Indeed, Jack Bauer’s name was invoked by both 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo (during a national debate) and President Bill Clinton (on NBC’s Meet the Press). And Michael Chertoff, the Director of the Department of Homeland Security, along with 15 federal agents, made a special visit to meet Kiefer Sutherland while the cast was filming scenes in Washington, D.C. The fact that some politicians and policy makers invoke 24 in serious debates, however, is enlightening and speaks volumes about the impact of the show on important national dialogues. The show’s influence on global politics is also evidenced by the serious attention that it has received by those in the United States Armed Forces. In 2007, for example, newspapers received confirmation from the United States Military Academy at West Point that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently traveled to California to meet producers of 24. He reportedly informed the producers that the scenes of torture depicted on 24 were influencing United States soldiers to mistreat (and potentially torture) soldiers. Brigadier General Finnegan requested that the writers air fewer scenes of torture in the future. It was also reported that Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who plays the role of Jack Bauer on 24, spoke to a class of West Point students in order to influence them not to torture or mistreat prisoners. It was further reported that soldiers’ 24 DVDs were blown up in a recent attack on U.S. soliders stationed in Iraq . During June 2006, in recognizing 24’s influence on global politics, the Conservative Heritage Foundation held a forum on terrorism entitled “24 and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction or Does it Matter?,” and moderator Rush Limbaugh kissed Mary Lynn Rajskub (the actress who plays CTU agent and computer expert Chloe O’Brien) on the lips. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff praised 24 for its “reflect[ion] of real life.” Radio host Laura Ingraham recently noted that “The average American out there loves the show 24. OK? They love Jack Bauer. They love 24. In my mind that’s close to a national referendum that it’s OK to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.” While Ingraham’s point that Americans love Jack Bauer is on target, it is possible–and perhaps, some might argue, probable–that we love Jack despite the fact that he tortures prisoners. Indeed, Jack Bauer’s use of torture on terrorist suspects creates a demonstrable shift in the ways in which Americans had previously been introduced to torture. In The Weekly Standard, Martha Bayles, while speaking highly of Jack Bauer (she praised, for example, Jack’s “alertness, courage, and cunning”), wrote that “it is harder to swallow his readiness to torture. For most of its history, American entertainment has depicted torture as pure evil. So it is jarring to see it routinely ordered, even inflicted, by the good guys.” Indeed, even if we agree with Jack’s utilization of torture in select instances, we are thrown back by both the frequency of its occurrence on 24 as well as the fact that the show’s protagonist (and the show’s hero), Jack Bauer, is the one that performs many of the horrible and gruesome acts of torture. 24 has played a prominent role in the recent upsurge of torture scenes on television. The Parents Television Council , a television watchdog group, counted 102 scenes of torture on prime time television during the five years prior to September 11, 2001. In the following three years, that number increased to 624, with 24 leading the way with such depictions. 67 scenes depicting torture were broadcast during the first five seasons of 24. This figure translates roughly to one torture scene per every two hours. The New York Times noted that “Very little public scrutiny-much less protest-of violent interrogation is depicted” on the show . It is also worth noting that the degree of intensity of interrogation techniques used on 24 has increased since the show’s inception. In “Reading 24,” Douglas L. Howard notes that during the earlier seasons of 24, Jack Bauer more frequently spoke about torture as opposed to actually resorting to its use against suspects. One such example comes in season one when Jack described, in gross detail, the Gulag torture process (a techinque used to pull out a suspect’s stomach lining and make him die a slow and painful death) to a suspect but failed to actually perform the torture. In more recent seasons, however, Jack can more frequently be seen actually employing torture methods on suspects. Howard points out that although season 2 “is the most brutal in terms of the graphic nature of the tortures involved, season 4 is more violent in terms of the number of tortures that take place. In more than half of the episodes, the plot revolves around some form of torture.” In fact, Jack has even physically harmed innocent persons in order to to get suspects to speak: during season 5, for example, Jack shot the (innocent) wife of Christopher Henderson in the knee in order to urge Henderson to reveal critical information. Commenting on the show’s frequent depictions of torture, Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks, in her article “America Tortures (yawn)” surmises that these images of torture have influenced the contemporary American citizen’s viewpoint on torture. Brooks writes that “If you need any more evidence that the American public has gotten blasé about torture, consider the hit Fox action drama 24. The show featured 67 torture scenes during its first five seasons, and most of those depicted torture being used by 'heroic' U.S. counter-terror agents.”