That’s Entertainment

Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella editorial.



Timing is everything. In his article titled “What Would Jack Bauer Do?” Michael Brendan Dougherty points out that the first season of television show 24 debuted shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. The producers of the show couldn’t have asked for a better advertisement than the one delivered on the night of September 11 by President Bush. I happen to think that his 9/11 speech, followed by his 9/20 presidential address in front of Congress and the American people, were President Bush’s finest moments in his 8-year presidency. (To read the transcript, please visit http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/) He told the nation what it needed to hear. His messages were strong, calm, and comforting. He took great pains to point out that we are not at war with a religion, race, or nationality: “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.” Our president then attempted to rally united support from the world community: “This is not, however, just America’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.” Our president in both venues was Gary Cooper in High Noon. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive much more support than did Cooper’s High Noon character, Will Cain.

In the words of the legendary rock band The Who “How many friends do I really have?” “Not many” was the unfortunate answer. How ironic is this? Our best, most loyal friend in the world community is Great Britain. They sent us to colonize America, and we basically kicked them off our lawn at gun point. Ever since, as my 16-year old daughter would say, we’ve been “besties.” Go figure!

Back to President Bush…

He truly rose to the occasion. But, there was also specific language that served as foreshadowing for not only our acceptance for vicarious retribution through the hit television show 24, but also for the events that followed at Abu Ghraib prison. On 9/11, President Bush assured us that we would take “every precaution to protect our citizens from further attacks.” For the first time, we were at war not with another country, but rather an organization. We were ready for a fight, but unsure who it was exactly we were fighting. Our President initially gave us an abstract answer. We were fighting evil; evil doers who hate our freedoms.

During his 9/20 address, President Bush told us, “Our grief has turned to anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” We were then given something a little more concrete and learned about the terrorist organization, al Qaeda. We learned about the Taliban, ready to imprison or kill all those that went against the perceived will of their God. The show 24 has lasted 8 seasons, but the Talibans of the world have lasted millennia. We still needed more. Everything was still a little abstract for us. Then we got what we thirsted for: A name, a face… Osama bin Laden. Let’s get him! This is where I personally became disappointed with our leadership. When our president, my president, assured us that we would find bin Laden and bring him to justice, he went from Gary Cooper to Gary Busey. That is to say, a little hard to understand. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. President Bush needs to be credited with making sure that we didn’t adopt a lynch mob mentality following the events of 9/11. I’ve voted for more Republicans than Democrats. I bought the “weapons of mass destruction” hysteria hook, line, and sinker. But we were told to be patient, and then given a goal that set us up for failure. Our nation needed a win. We can’t bring bin Laden to justice, so we’ll just have to settle for a little payback Jack Bauer style. Bauer is just the right cowboy for the job. The following quote was written as part of a study of Western film, but is certainly applicable to Bauer's character in 24.

“One major focus of the Western….is on the justification of acts of violent aggression. In other words, one of the major organizing principles of the Western is to so characterize the villains that the hero is both intellectually and emotionally justified in destroying them.”
"Ten Gallon Hero" by David Brion Davis

Television is a business. If a show gives us more violence than we want, we’ll simply change the channel. If enough people turn the channel, the show will be replaced with a sitcom. The sitcom will undoubtedly contain language and images too sexually graphic in nature. Eventually, it will be replaced by either another cop show or lawyer show. I think there are only 4 or 5 hospital shows right now. There must be room for another. If the gratuitous violence in 24 turns your stomach, you may want to skip the film, “Reservoir Dogs.” You may also want to skip a few pages of the Bible. The point is, the show 24 hit a nice juicy fastball delivered right over the heart of the plate. If they swung a season earlier, or a couple of seasons later, it probably wouldn’t have reached its current level of success. I enjoyed the first season of 24 immensely. I ate it up with a spoon. It was fast paced, well written, and superbly acted. I sort of enjoyed the next couple of seasons, but felt like I was watching slightly edited versions of the first season. Watching a fourth would have been…..well, torture.