Brian Lowry, Variety - Those seeking to defend the Bush administration in light of the recent Torture Report — and that’s mostly conservatives — could hardly have had a better ally than the images of torture in TV and movies, particularly in the face of “ticking-bomb scenarios.”
Fox’s “24,” naturally comes to mind, and the movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” which was criticized for its depiction of torture as a likely asset in locating Osama Bin Laden...
The practice has been employed in other series as well – such as “Sons of Anarchy,” “Scandal” and “Homeland” – and countless movies, with the bad guys using it (see various Quentin Tarantino films) as well as the ostensible good guys...
While the latest report called into question the efficacy of torture, as the Washington Post’s Terrence McCoy put it, “That’s not how it looks on TV. Harsh interrogation, as an effective means of eliciting crucial information, has become firmly entrenched in popular culture.”
Not only has torture become more frequent since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, but the acceptance of those depictions in entertainment has been cited as a point of reference – and even an endorsement of the tactics.
A lengthy 2007 New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer about the politics of “24” emphasized a declaration by conservative talkradio host Laura Ingraham that its hero’s popularity was “as close to a national referendum that it’s O.K. to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.”
Mayer also noted that an advisory panel to the U.S. intelligence community studied the issue and concluded “most observers, even those within professional circles, have unfortunately been influenced by the media’s colorful (and artificial) view of interrogation as almost always involving hostility.”...
Given all of that, it seems reasonable to ask whether pop culture — along with news operations whose “News Alert” headlines stoked post-Sept. 11 fears – has been partially complicit in cultivating the conditions that allowed torture to be deemed a viable option.
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