I think I might be the only anti-violence liberal feminist on the planet who adores “24.” I can see how the TV drama could be characterized as a post-9/11 neo-con fantasy… but I’ve never really agreed with that interpretation. If, in the future, cultural historians look at the fact that “24” premiered two months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and ended a year into the Obama course-correction and conclude that “24” was nothing but Dick Cheney’s wettest dream, they’d be missing out on a lot.
For one thing, my neo-con friends (yes, I have them) got pissed about the Season Five plotline involving a presidential adviser basically manufacturing a terrorist threat in order to have a splendid little war (something a lot of anti-war progressives just assume happens already anyway). And remember that in Season One, we didn’t learn until very late that the assassination plot against then-Senator Palmer was related to his previous foreign policy moves. At least for a little while, CTU had to assume that it was racist wingnuts who were after the presidential candidate. So, years before our allegedly post-racial society (indicated by a real-life black senator-turned-president), you had a supposedly conservative TV show acknowledging that a) racists still exist, and b) a black man running for president would, in fact, be in danger of violence from said racists.
The New York Times credits “24” with convincing Hollywood that TV viewers would indeed stick with a show whose season-long dramatic arc required an attention span, and I think that’s fair. The same article also – sigh – once again drags out the torture thing. So, let’s get that out of the way right now.
Whenever Jack Bauer or someone else at CTU broke out the truth serum, electrodes, ass-kicking, etc., to get information on the ticking-time bomb terrorist plot of the moment, I didn’t work myself into a philosophical tizzy over the rightness or wrongness of it all. I just thought it was boring. For me, the enhanced interrogations were “24”’s least creative moments. Once you’ve crossed that line, where do you go from there, story-wise?
Years ago, my very first screenwriting teacher introduced me to what he called The Rule of 10. You’ve got a character in a situation where he or she needs to take action. Make a list of 10 ways this could happen, ranging from most conventional to the most out-there, even implausible. And then you go with one of the out-there ones. One example I can remember him using was the scene in “North by Northwest” where Cary Grant finds himself cornered and pulls a fire alarm to get away.
The problem with “24” was that, too often, its writers stuck with options one through about three on the list, and that’s assuming they made a list at all. Fans like to poke fun at Season One plot devices like Teri Bauer’s amnesia, but at the time that particular twist injected some suspense into the story for a few episodes. More suspense then “Is Jack going to torture this guy?” anyway. (Answer: yes.) (And, before you say anything – Kim and the cougar don’t count. Kim shouldn’t have even been involved in that season, which needed some serious Tim Gunn-style editing.)
But “24” made up for those times when the only suspense was how long it would take us to learn that there’s a mole in CTU with some kick-ass character writing. One of my favorite moments in any movie or TV show – ever – was the introduction of Jean Smart’s First Lady Martha Logan on Season Five. Early on in what might be the best “24” season, Martha’s getting dressed for an appearance with some foreign dignitaries. She looks at herself in the mirror, tells her assistant, “I look like a wedding cake,” then plunges her head into a sink of water. It was perfect. We’d met this character 10 seconds earlier and already we knew that Martha was a fruitloop who was capable of absolutely anything.
Yes, CTU and Los Angeles were put through the wringer too many times. That’s why the best thing the show ever did creatively – moving to another city – should’ve happened about two seasons earlier. I was always hopeful that Jack would lose his patience with the bureaucracy and go undercover or something with a patriot group. No hotline to the president, no assistance from Chloe and her unfreezeable conference call skills, no futuristic toys of any kind. Just Jack the Everyman thinking his way out of problems on the fly. See, that is a show I would watch.
Good-bye, “24.” You’ve got a few more hours in day nine left to go, and then maybe a feature film that may or may not be a bad idea. And then it’s the silent clock for you.
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