Hmmmm
What's with the liberals being up in arms with "24"?
We (or I in this case as some of my co-Obey Outers love this show) don't even like "24." Yet, with the State of the Union coming up and the Democrats unleashing an offensive on Bush to try and damage his credibility so he gets no bump from the speech, liberals are working in concert with their friends in Congress by saying that "24" is right wing neo-con propaganda.
First, "24" is one of the most popular shows on TV and TV execs are about making money. They are making "24" into the type of show they believe will make them a lot of money.
Second, let's remember that culturally, politically, and philosophically, Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal.
To us, it's classic liberal mania - defined as liberals are all for letting everyone have an opinion unless they disagree with it, then whatever you have to say is simply part of a vast right wing conspiracy to ruin America. Welcome to the club "24".
We (or I in this case as some of my co-Obey Outers love this show) don't even like "24." Yet, with the State of the Union coming up and the Democrats unleashing an offensive on Bush to try and damage his credibility so he gets no bump from the speech, liberals are working in concert with their friends in Congress by saying that "24" is right wing neo-con propaganda.
First, "24" is one of the most popular shows on TV and TV execs are about making money. They are making "24" into the type of show they believe will make them a lot of money.
Second, let's remember that culturally, politically, and philosophically, Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal.
To us, it's classic liberal mania - defined as liberals are all for letting everyone have an opinion unless they disagree with it, then whatever you have to say is simply part of a vast right wing conspiracy to ruin America. Welcome to the club "24".
posted by ObeyOut2006 at 12:47 PM
1 Comments:
Online at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1576853,00.html
The Evolution of Jack Bauer
Sunday, Jan. 14, 2007
By JAMES PONIEWOZIK
Last June in Washington, the conservative Heritage Foundation held a forum on terrorism with a panel of august authorities. There was Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. There was a pair of think-tank terrorism experts. And naturally, there were Chloe, Tony and the evil President from 24.
The panel--"24 and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction or Does It Matter?"--was not exactly Foreign Affairs journal material. Moderator Rush Limbaugh planted a full-on mouth kiss on actress Mary Lynn Rajskub (a.k.a. tech geek Chloe), and actors and producers took softball questions as audience members cheered what Limbaugh called the show's "pro-America" stance. (Among the crowd were pundit Laura Ingraham and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.)
The weird spectacle put a point on a raging question in pop culture: Is 24 just a TV show or right-wing propaganda? Or, to turn Jack Bauer's frequent refrain on him: Who are you working for?
Certainly 24, which debuted just weeks after 9/11 and returns Jan. 14, comes as close as anything has to being the Official Cultural Product of the War on Terrorism. Co-creator Joel Surnow is a rare Hollywood Republican, and John McCain has done a cameo. Dick Cheney is a big fan too, and you can understand the Administration's wanting to associate itself with Bauer's badass competence. (He nabs nuclear masterminds; we get Jose Padilla.) Most damningly to critics on the left, Bauer's means of gathering intel (grab terrorist's finger, snap, repeat) make 24 a weekly rationalization of the "ticking time bomb" defense of torture.
So is 24 a conservative show? Yes, in the sense that the thriller is a conservative genre. Ticking time bombs and pure-evil bad guys make for exciting TV. Working patiently to improve America's image in the Muslim world--not so much. (Maybe Aaron Sorkin could spice it up with an office romance and lots of walk-and-talks.) Muddy a terrorism thriller with liberal concern over root causes and you get Syriana, whose plot audiences couldn't follow with a GPS device. "The politics of the show," says executive producer Howard Gordon (a registered Democrat), "are narrative politics."
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