Producing a plausible TV show about international terrorism without depicting Muslims is like producing a plausible TV Western without depicting cowboys.
– The indispensable Robert Bidinotto
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Samizdata quote of the dayJanuary 18th, 2007 |
 25 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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“Three wheels on my wagon
But I’m just rolling along
The Jihadi’s are after me…
Yeah, but it works with ‘implausible’, too. (See ten minutes of 24: I wouldn’t ask more of you.) It is what a certain audience expects.
But are there any cowboys in Deadwood, Unforgiven? Aren’t they miners? Little House on the Prairie? …Farmers. The Searchers? Homesteaders and soldiers.
Well Stuck Mojo certainly know who they think are terrorists and have no such PC qualms.
Well, “24” does also have a tendency to reveal in the second half of seasons that the Muslim/Chechen/Latin American naro/whatever terrorists have in fact been the pawns of mysterious white American males who are secretly running America/The UN/The world/whatever, and I will confess I don’t actually believe that. (The mysterious “Graham”, who was giving orders to the evil president last year, is in the cast list for this year, so he is presumably masterminding something).
The show is kind of enthralling, but it does get a bit repetitive after a while.
mysterious white American males
Well, that’s a break with tradition. It’s usually the Joooooooooos!!!!!
At least in the Mel Gibson version.
Which all completely misses the point. It is about the ‘shock’ of Muslim leaders in the USA at the notion Muslims should be depicted as terrorists and attempting to make that ‘beyond the pale’. Are you really saying showing Muslims anyone other than Muslims as foreign terrorists in the USA is plausible? When was the last time Irish or Hindu terrorists set off a bomb or hijacked an airplane in the USA? The fact a fictional show like 24 is ‘implausible’ may be true but how it is germane?
Yes, though they are mostly just ‘scenery’.
Nope, there are several folks who are obviously cowboys in the final bar scene. Seen that flick many times.
Not really a ‘western’, just ‘set in the west’.
Not sure, been too long since I’ve seen it.
I think I fall into the category of mysterious white American males and I assure you I’m not running much of anything.
Are you really saying showing Muslims anyone other than Muslims as foreign terrorists in the USA is plausible?
No, I’m saying that plausibility has nothing to do with it. Dramas about terrorism operate on a bunch of sick clichés for the most part. Before 9/11 the stock villains were frequently either neo-Nazis or inscrutable Europeans.
Little House on the Prairie?
Not really a ‘western’, just ‘set in the west’
Which sort of proves my point. If genre convention demands certain stock characters or plot elements, then plausibility is irrelevant. In fact relying on plausibility to justify the content of entertainment falls into the trap of agreeing it needs to be justified.
The answer to people who say TV shows shouldn’t present unedifying images of certain groups, is not to seek justification in either factual substantiation, moral purpose, or (as seemingly here) in reader response. It is to say, “Yes, maybe it is vulgar, slanderous propaganda, morally reprehensible, factually misleading, or pandering to public prejudice. But that’s the cost of freedom of speech. And maybe it isn’t. And that’s the benefit of freedom of speech. Maybe it is, but it doesn’t matter because it is obviously unreal. Free people are entitled to decide which for themselves.”
Quite the opposite actually. A ‘Western’ is an action/adventure genre with certain stock characters and a show is not plausible as a Western without them. Little House of the Prairie does not need cowboys because it is not a ‘Western’, it is just set in the old West (and that is not enough to plausibly make a show a ‘Western’. 24 is a genre of contemporary ‘American security services thriller’ and it is hard to see how it could plausibly be such without villains who seem contemporary and when it comes to terrorists, that pretty much means Islamic terrorists. Equally a show could not plausibly pass itself off as a ‘Cold War Thriller’ without referencing the Soviets in some way
“Little House of the Prairie … is just set in the old West”
If you mean the TV series, it’s set in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. That’s the Midwest. The “old West” is farther, erm, west. So no need for cowboys at all.
Are we really arguing the toss about “Little House on the Prairie”? I think we’ve lost connection with our meta-context.
24? “Plausible”?
In what universe?
You do know that THRUSH is still out there, plotting to control the world.
Thank God for U.N.C.L.E.!
Mysterious White American Males would be a good name for a blog.
Don’t you read the other comments? Plausible as in “fits the intended genre”. Plausible ≠ Realistic. Oh, I forgot, you are just a troll and so only react to trigger words.
The most ridiculous aspect to the new 24 is Jack Bauer being released from a Chinese jail looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway, immediately getting a shave and hair cut at the airport in a hangar and then setting about sorting out these Muslim terrorists.
I think Perry and TexMex are using “plausible” in a different way from me. “Plausible” is more akin to “believable” in normal usage, not “fitting” or “conventional”.
If theirs is a valid usage, and it is what Bidinotto also meant, then that difference of understanding is resolved.
However, the discussion initially focussed on the validity of censorship for sectional comfort. That isn’t affected, I submit, by the content of the drama. If you argue against censorship either on grounds of maintaining genre integrity – in some sense, whether or not you need actually need cowboys to have a western, or whether some more general evocation of the frontier spirit will do – or on grounds of believablility, it suggest that you think content is relevant. Which has the nasty implication that who complains is also, since different groups can be relied upon to complain about different content.
Well John Wayne and Robert Wagner certainly dressed like cowboys in The Searchers and I’ve seen men in the same sort of duds in Osoyoos, B.C. They definitely aren’t MBA suits and the topography in both the movie and Osoyoos doesn’t lend itself to farming as practised in the Kentish countryside.
The most ridiculous aspect to the new 24 is Jack Bauer being released from a Chinese jail looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway, …
After James Bond’s escape from captivity and extended torture in North Korea in Die Another Day looking unblemished, stronger, healthier and better-fed than anyone in the real North Korea, perhaps the producers thought it was plausible… (Choose your sense.)
Are we really arguing the toss about “Little House on the Prairie”? I think we’ve lost connection with our meta-context.
Yes, you are, of course, correct. I apologise for the diversion. In the future I will endeavour to ignore any contra-factual statements and not to respond unless my response is directly related to the meta-context of the thread and does not prevent the conversation from proceeding in a strictly linear direction. I will try harder.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch…
RobtE: your meta-contextual exegesis caused considerable mirth at Samizdata HQ 😀
Perry,
I’m not actually 100% sure that’s an appropriate use of “exegesis”. Having said that I’m basing my opinion on Philip K Dick’s VALIS (where I first encountered the word) so God knows… Dick being a cat A mentalist.
Talking of cat A mentalists, The Last King of Scotland is heartily recommended.
Then clearly you didn’t get the joke.
The adage”not all muslims are terrorists; but most terrorists are muslims” comes to mind,