January 12, 2005

24's' Latest Plot Twist Pains Some Muslims*
[WARNING: Use another browser beside IE when trying to access the article.
When I tried to view it on IE, rather than my usual Safari, it had been "wiped" at the LATimes online.]

The one TV show I absolutely do not miss is "24." Nor can I in good conscience speak ill of it.

The Fox drama with the ticking digital clock delivers crackling political intrigue, unpredictable plot twists and a bevy of memorable characters, both good and deliciously bad.

Season four premiered Sunday and Monday nights, and I'm hooked again.
[Me, too, and I hadn't really watched "24" until Sunday night.--Jen]

Premiering against the backdrop of post-Sept. 11 America, "24" has always been about figuring out terrorist plots, but this year it will test viewers in a different way.

The story line so far: A seemingly normal, upscale Muslim family is a sleeper terrorist cell. We've learned that Mom and Dad are knee-deep in a plot that has resulted in a train derailment and the kidnapping of the U.S. defense secretary. And that they've actively involved their teenage son. Not to mention that in Monday's episode, they ordered him to shoot his non-Muslim girlfriend because she stumbled onto information that could prove dangerous to them.
[If there was any reference to this family being Muslim, I must have missed it;
there was no Koran, no reference to "Allah," no prayers or prayer rugs.
The "Arabic" family was dark and swarthy and "Middle Eastern looking."
According to the script, they and the terrorists are "Turkish" which is as close as Hollywood comes to dealing with the fact that we are at war with IslamoFacism.
The treatment of the "Muslims" in this show remind me of our TSA security measures--and not in a good way.--Jen]

"24" comes through again. Can't wait till next week.

Then again, I'm not the Muslim living next door. I'm a blue-eyed boy from Nebraska, immune to cultural stereotypes.

Thus, the test. In an era where Americans are fearful of attack from Islamic fundamentalists, will a TV show depicting "normal" people as terrorists deepen our paranoia? Will it lead to violence against Muslims or Middle Easterners?
[The really frightening thing is that I could imagine Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 hijackers blending in and seeming to be "normal" to my fellow Americans just like the men in this show while they planned and plotted and prepared for their dark day of death.
I think the show should deepen our paranoia of those among us who fit the...racial profile (Gasp!) of our terrorist enemy.
Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.]

Or will we realize that "24" is just a TV show?

The show also tests Middle Easterners in America. After three seasons in which "24" terrorists have included Eastern Europeans, traitorous U.S. government agents and the blond-haired daughter of a CIA contractor, will they accept a Muslim family as a terrorist cell?

Will they realize that "24" is just a TV show?
[Is it??? Time will tell.
These IslamoNazi jihadis either are or are not are trying to kill us and some of them live among us, just as the 9/11 killers lived, worked and moved among us.--J.T.]

The easy answer is to say that of course, everyone realizes that. But it's not quite that simple, says Sabiha Khan, a spokeswoman for the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), headquartered in Anaheim.

She's not a "24" fan but has seen this year's episodes and is worried. Today, in fact, she and other CAIR officials will take their concerns to Fox in Los Angeles.

CAIR doesn't want to curtail Fox's creative license, Khan says. However, CAIR is concerned that the depiction "will contribute to an atmosphere that it's OK to harm and discriminate against Muslims. This could actually hurt real-life people."

CAIR doesn't expect Fox to dump the story line but might ask that it consider ways to mitigate it in future episodes. "We're realistic," Khan says. "We're not asking for something that can't be done."

It would be naive to dismiss Khan's concerns. At this point in American history, it's an unfortunate fact of life that some people harbor unfair suspicions of Muslims in our midst.
[The whining Libs at the LATimes should be glad we didn't put Middle Eastern Muslims into detention camps after 9/11, the way they did the Japanese--primarily in California, ironically-during WWII.]

So while I tout "24," how does my favorite show look like through Khan's eyes?

"It was almost like a heart-sinking, crashing feeling down to the floor," she says. "Just being attacked, seeing your religion attacked, which, if it is the essence of your being, is a very difficult thing to take. You feel mixed emotions — anger, disappointment, hurt."
[I didn't see or hear their religion attacked once on this show!
If I missed it, please email to let me know when it was.--Jen]

The "24" terrorist family, she says, "is not a family I've ever known. None of the 9/11 hijackers had that kind of family…. It's not really based on any reality of what we [in America] are going through."
[What does this mean, because it beats me!]

It's just TV. We all know that, right?

Khan can only hope that Americans won't stereotype Muslims any more than they typecast whites after Timothy McVeigh's terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City.
[As I said several times on this blog, there is reason to believe that McVeigh was working with Iraqi terrorists and that the OKC bombing was another IslamoFacist/Al Queda-linked attack on America, after the first WTC Center bombing in '93.
President Clinton used it as an opportunity to smear "Christian, white, right wing militia members" and Rush Limbaugh and Conservative talk radio.] "Unfortunately, there are only 7 million of us in America and not everyone knows one of us," she says. "That's the reality we're dealing with."

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, too, but to the best of my knowledge, there are nowhere close to 7 million Muslims in this country--Thank God.
There are only 1 million, but that's enough: if only 1% of them are jihadi murderers, that's 10,000.
This show was terrific!
On the first night, Kiefer Sutherland's character was forced to use "abuse" to get information out of the dark, swarthy, Turkish (Is he Muslim?) terrorist they got in custody;
"Jack Bower" has a file on this man's previous terrorist activities and knows that he's involved with a big attack that is already underway.
To try and stop it, he slaps around and then shoots the terrorist in the leg and threatens to shoot him in the other leg when the bad guy finally confesses that they're going to attack/kill/kidnap the Secretary of Defense.
Horrors!
Yep, using violence, pain and threats actually worked to get the guy to talk!
Given that this show came on the heels of the Senate hearings on Alberto Gonzalez's confirmation and a virtual Inquistion on him about his alleged legal sanction of "torture" and "abuse" of WOT detainees at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo for interrogation purposes, I thought it spoke volumes about what actually works and it also spoke truth to power that I want my government and its agents and troops to use whatever means they deem appropriate in interrogating and detaining WOT prisoners to save American (and especially my own!) lives.
I don't think that getting down and dirty with the IslamoNazis like that "says anything" about us and our culture except that we value ourselves and our lives and want to live, whereas these evildoers seem more than happy to die and take everyone with them.
(BTW, "Jack" doesn't get the info about the attack on the SecDef in time and the Islamist thugs shoot up a quiet, middle-class neighborhood in L.A. and leave lots of dead bodies in their wake.
Charming.)
I can't wait for next week's show and I can only hope that CAIR doesn't succeed in getting this show shut down--This is what Hollywood needs to be doing now that we're fully at war and so far, "24" is one of the few shows or movies dealing with the subject at all.