My Father The Steamroller
Like Lileks, I've been catching up on 24, starting with the first season. It's amazing; my son practically pushes me out the door to get to the store for the next installment (I'm up to 4PM, the fourth of the six DVDs for the season).
The show, as noted all over the blogosphere, is of course brilliant; tautly-written, well-acted, and with a twitchy style that doesn't so much leave you with cliffhangers as it swings you around like you're hanging onto the back of a swerving car.
But I think there's more to it than that.
I've written for years about the perception of men in society; in too much popular entertainment, the model for men - fathers, especially - was set with "The Honeymooners" and "The Flintstones"; Hubby/Dad was a loveable incompetent. Even on the most "family-friendly" networks - I'm thinking the endless, benign, cookie-cutter assembly-line "Disney Channel Movies", especially - Dad is usually a well-meaning lunk (who'd be nothing without Mom), who might occasionally make the right call (with a lot of help from wife and kids, natch). Others are worse; the poor schlub in the Comcast commercial who has to beg his daughter and wife for the access code to his program echoes a zillion castrati in innumerable ads, doomed to an eternity of impotent humiliation. That, of course, is when he's present at all. Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin have a lot more fun than most of us do, at least.
School starts 'em out young, of course; the public school system is feminized to a fault, and trained (says Christina Hoff Summers noted in The War on Boys) to regard a boy's emerging masculinity not as a personality trait to be honed and polished, but a condition to be treated and, if possible, cured.
So today, too much of our popular culture - not to mention legal system, our educational establishment, and so many other institutions in our society - echoes Margaret Mead's infamous imprecation; "Men are a biological necessity and a social accident."
You have to dig way back in our primordial psychological ooze, it seems, to get back to the notion biology and/or God and/or blind luck had in mind for the various genders - especially the notion of Dad being, imperfect as he may be, the family's protector - at least, as far as popular culture is concerned.
But I have a hunch it's a little closer to the surface for a lot of us.
I have had a few moments in my life - the infamous drive-by, and the time my son saw people following him home from school - where the urge to find the perps and deal with them medievally was overwhelming (in fact, I'm happy to say, it did overwhelm me once; I did manage to find the group of vermin that shot at my house, prowling around my street, and chased them clean out of the neighborhood, never to be seen again. Yes, it was dumb. And I'd do it again tomorrow. I mean, it's a good thing I didn't catch them - all I had was a baseball bat in the bed of my pickup. But I suppose seeing a big, howlin' mad guy in a pickup racing up behind their little Tercel gave them pause. Good. Little bastards).
And at no time was the urge - sublimated, naturally - stronger than on and immediately after 9/11. The threat - to our nation and to our families - was not abstract in the least. I'd suspect quite a few guys yearned to barrellass over the Afghan border - or into Crips country, or wherever - in a decked out 'burban and dish a little medievalism.
The character of Jack Bauer is, naturally, incredibly imperfect; like most of us, he has standards and goals and beliefs - and occasionally has to fall well short of them to get the job done. He has a bratty daughter and (during Season 1, anyway) a wife whose agenda is more and more incongruent with his, both of whom he loves dearly, both of whom he realizes he badly serves in so many ways...sound familiar, anyone?
The difference is, when all of that is threatened - by the same things that, abstractly, threaten all of us and our families, forces (be they a violent world or institutional perfidy or whatever) beyond our control, Jack Bauer gets to fix things. Now. His daughter may not mind him, his bosses may be a variety of institutional vipers, the problems facing him may not be readily apparent - but at the end of the day, with the help of his wits and training and raw computing power and the good folks at SIG, he pulls the situation - and his family - back from the brink.
I think that's a big part of the reason 24 is so popular; beyond the production values, it echoes the deep-seated (and maybe deeply-hidden) desire in the hearts of lots of men - fathers, I bet, especially - to fill that biological, promordial drive to keep what's yours safe from the saber tooth tiger or the burglar or the multinational terrorist cell; to be able to tell the world "don't f*ck with me or mine" and make it stick.
Posted by Mitch at
April 11, 2006 12:22 PM
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I know that's why I love 24.
Posted by: MLP at April 11, 2006 02:13 PMWe've watched it since season 1. It seems to break all the rules of shark-jumping. Just when you think it can't get more over the top (Jack holds his nose and manages not to be instantly killed by poison gas that kills everybody else on contact) it goes further. And you still love it. It's also how we knew the Democrats would get nowhere on torture. Jack Bauer tortures someone every episode, always justifibly because they are always running out of time.
Posted by: Margaret at April 11, 2006 02:35 PMWe've watched it since season 1. It seems to break all the rules of shark-jumping. Just when you think it can't get more over the top (Jack holds his nose and manages not to be instantly killed by poison gas that kills everybody else on contact) it goes further. And you still love it. It's also how we knew the Democrats would get nowhere on torture. Jack Bauer tortures someone every episode, always justifibly because they are always running out of time.
Posted by: Margaret at April 11, 2006 02:35 PMYou said more eloquently than I ever could. In my own words, I like it because the good guy does what he has to get the job done without remorse. Unlike so many other Hollywood attempts at this where the conclusion is that if we respond with violence than we’re no better than the terrorists; or, the good guy responds but regards that he must use violence. Jack has no regrets because he’s on the moral high ground and we’re there with him: evil men should pay for their deeds.
Posted by: rrd at April 11, 2006 02:45 PMThe scary thing about this show, to me, is that the f*cked-upness of the interim results of Jack's and CTU's actions are nearly indistinguishable from the f*cked-upness that would have resulted if they had done the exact opposite. Murder, death, tragedy - all part of the package, no matter how hard they try to do the right thing. Of course, the final judgement is at the end of the day. In the meantime, the best you can hope for is that it touches you less personally than all the rest of those poor suckers. Jack is a one-man bubble of preventative mayhem, ensuring the safety of those near him--and woe betide those just outside that perimeter. And it's a game of millimeters.
But as a great man once said, if you don't like it - consider the alternatives. Who should decide the fate of those you love or who depend on you? You and a .9mm? Or some terrorist with a canister of nerve gas? I know where my vote goes.
Posted by: Brian Jones at April 11, 2006 03:00 PMIt's always better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
Posted by: Tracy at April 11, 2006 04:34 PMHey, all you Walter Mittys sporting hardons while watching 24: you do know it's pretend, right? Cause the opportunity for taking out terrorists weilding nerve-gas cannisters in your little suburban enclaves is kinda limited.
Posted by: angryclown at April 11, 2006 05:09 PM24 shows the things that change when you step off the edge of civilization and have to fight real evil. That's what makes it so exciting. Most people in the First World, the developed world, never have to enter that uncivilized place where pain and death are the only currency, but the rules of that place are deep in our genes and in our minds. Besides, it has cool spy satellites and stuff. :-)
Posted by: RBMN at April 11, 2006 05:18 PMYeah, AC!
And where WAS it that they copped Zacarias Moussaoui, anyway...
...er...oops...
Besides, you missed the point (or ignored it). Go back and see if you can find it, mkay?
Posted by: mitchBe at April 11, 2006 05:22 PMM'no thanks! Wasn't responding to you, MitchBe, but to various commenters!
Posted by: angryclown at April 11, 2006 05:58 PMHey, Beanpole, you just better hope I never need to get information from you. I know *exactly* what my first gambit will be. Well...second gambit, actually, after asking politely and counting to 0.0238.
Posted by: Brian Jones at April 11, 2006 07:25 PMI watched season two, and gave up on it. Too many people doing plainly, incredibly, stupid things, especially the idiot daughter. To each their own, however, and to prove I'm no snob, I did like "Firefly" somewhat.
Now, when I want some hyper-masculinity on t.v., in all it's furiously righteous, or, sometimes, immorally destructive forms, I look forward to HBO's "Deadwood", which is simply brilliant on every level. Can't watch it with the kids, though, unless one wants to explain to the progeny's teacher how the poetic, obscene, and profane language of a late 19th century mining camp, in it's social, political, and economic infancy, came to be used in your local classroom. Sure would make the c***suckers who pass for advanced vulgarians in our current popular culture look like a bunch of pikers, though.
If you ever get a chance to see season one on DVD, Mitch, pick it up. The early story arc of Wild Bill Hickock's time in Deadwood, brilliantly portrayed by Keith Carradine, is worth the price alone.
Posted by: Will Allen at April 11, 2006 08:54 PMHave watched "24" off and on over the last few years-I think we skipped last season, and maybe even the one before, completely....I got sick of the asinine, bratty daughter as well and never thought I'd watch again. I had heard that this season would be a blockbuster, so we watched from hour 1....holy moly! So far dumb daughter has shown up only once (and that was more than enough), but the action and twists are something else. You sit back at the end of every show and go "whew"! I find that as soon as the personal stories intrude it gets stupid or annoying...if they can keep that stuff to a minimum it can't be beat.
Posted by: Colleen at April 11, 2006 09:22 PMAngryclown wrote: " . . [i]n your little suburban enclaves . . ."
Posted by: Terry at April 11, 2006 09:51 PMI live less than two miles from the caldera of the most active Volcano in the world. Where do you live? A townhouse or a condo somewhere civilized?
Coward.
OK, Mitch, and while you're at Blockbuster, pick up Season 1 of HBO's "The Wire." It's a toss-up for me between that and "Deadwood," which is the best of HBO's shows.
Posted by: Brian Jones at April 11, 2006 10:47 PMI certainly hope Margaret and Colleen aren't "sporting hardons" whil watching 24.
Posted by: Kermit at April 12, 2006 07:48 AMThe only hardon I sport in re 24 is associated with Elisha Cuthbert.
Posted by: DG at April 12, 2006 08:34 AMYeah, and we need a distaff version of "Walter Mitty." I'd tell you what I came up with, but it probably wouldn't pass the filter.
B "Walter T*tty"-ily" J
Posted by: Brian Jones at April 12, 2006 09:01 AMNope, no hard-ons here! I don't even think Keifer Sutherland is attractive (look at the ears!). But the show is fun to watch and keeps you wondering what's next.
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