The Rise and Rise of Television Torture

http://www.interpretthis.org/2014/01/05/the-rise-and-rise-of-television-torture

by aychedee • 13 years ago

524 285 13 years ago

interpretthis.org

minikites• 13 years ago

A similar issue came up when 24 was popular:

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/06/scalia...

---

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

---

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

Interestingly, the creator of 24 (Joel Surnow) gave a much more nuanced treatment of torture in his earlier "La Femme Nikita". The protagonist agency regularly used torture to hunt down terrorists, but the people practicing it are portrayed as far less sympathetic than Jack Bauer.

Jare• 13 years ago

In 24 at first they tried to attach consequences in the form of the physical and emotional degradation of Jack Bauer, but after a few seasons of successes and redemption, it made no impact anymore. I can't recall instances of the good guys in Fringe using torture directly. I'm sure they are there, and I've just become numb to them.

mavhc2• 13 years ago

By season 6 of 24 they nuked a city in USA just to get Bauer to go back to work.

bluedino• 13 years ago

Didn't pressure make Keifer do little PSA's during the commercials of the last season or two of 24, saying that 'this is just a TV show torture shouldn't really ever be used'?

jasonlotito2• 13 years ago

In the 5th season, Peter tortures an observer. But this is displayed in a dark light, and the torture fails. It's not glorified. It's in fact the dark side, a counter-balance to Olivia's mourning.

Basically, it's portrayed as a horrific, shocking action, made all the more horrible because of who's doing it. It's the first steps down a darker road for Peter.

So, yeah, not at all propaganda supporting torture.

Yver• 13 years ago

24 is a much better example than Fringe. If Fringe depicts torture as a tool, it also depicts time travel as a tool and wacky science as a tool, but I don't see the author taking umbrage.

Fringe, like 24, is a work of fiction. The problem is not the series' content. The real problem is letting politicians and media use a work of fiction as an actual situation. Using "Jack Bauer" in the debate about torture is like using Planet of the Apes in the debate about space exploration.

gaius• 13 years ago

Sure but it happens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect

moron4hire3• 13 years ago

But unlike time travel and alternate dimensions, torture is a thing we have in our world of real things.

But the rest of your comment is completely correct.

aychedee6• 13 years ago

I'm the author... I pretty much figured that 24 was generally acknowledged to be torture full. I wrote that piece after spending the holidays binge watching X-Files and Fringe. Such similar subject matter but such hugely different treatments.

vacri3• 13 years ago

The problem with your hand-waving away of the issue is that torture is something that we as humans have a long, close history of, and time-travel is just a fantasy. To represent these as being essentially the same level of concept is utterly disingenuous.

mseebach• 13 years ago

Jack Bauer has the luxury of being right or mostly right when he tortures people.

In the movies, the good guys know with near-perfect certainty that the bad guy knows where the bomb is, and there is only just enough time to get the information - thus, torture. If real-world torture worked under similar certainty, few people would be against it.

If one person tortures one other person and as a result found the bomb, he probably wouldn't get a very hard sentence. But in reality (as I understand it, I'm not exactly a subject matter expert), you'd be trying a guy who tortured 50 guys, 49 of which didn't know anything (or didn't break) or fed you disinformation, and then one guy who told you something actionable, that you plausibly could (but perhaps not) have learnt through other channels.

rst• 13 years ago

You could say the same about "The Blacklist" right now; the FBI in that show uses violence at the drop of a hat. (And they're portrayed as the heroes even though it doesn't work for them at all --- the whole premise of the show is that it's brought them so little that they don't even know the identities of the Kingpins of Evil on the titular list.)

sentenza• 13 years ago

There are four lights!

It is a long time since I saw that TNG episode, but I remember it as a respectful treatment of the subject.

Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda.

There has been more of that lately.

glogla• 13 years ago

On the other hand Burn Notice is pretty good with torture.

TheCoelacanth2• 13 years ago

I think Burn Notice's treatment of the subject is good precisely because it doesn't glorify torture. An interrogation on Burn Notice is more likely to involve psychological manipulation instead of torture.

angersock2• 13 years ago

They continually point out that trickery gets you farther than torture.

yodsanklai• 13 years ago

"Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda."

I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience.

exarch6• 13 years ago

"But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience."

That, or it's purely coincidental that "24" debuted following disclosure of Bush's torture programs, and "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance.

It may not be propaganda officially ordered and authored by some Ministry of Information, but it's the same thing no matter how many layers of abstraction it goes through: a way to shape the narrative and facts that inform the common person and allow them to form an understanding of an issue.

Spooky23• 13 years ago

I lean towards propaganda, because it affects other types of shows as well, sometimes in subtle ways.

Cop shows are all about flailing around for a few minutes, followed by a hacker/database identifying the subject and dispatch of the SWAT team. If the computers are down, the good guy beats up the suspect. If the show is on CBS, they do some sort of amazing thing using their MS Surface while driving a Chevy-something. (Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers)

Talk to a real cop. Whiz bang technology is the exception, not the rule. Successful detectives usually use their connections with the community to put two and two together.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative...

It makes me think of something I recently read:

http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663

No torture in this one, but... well.

bashinator• 13 years ago

It's not very good propaganda if the audience doesn't enjoy it.

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience.

Violence in its ultimate form. A viewer who associates him/herself with the protagonist gets the feeling of being a righteous God exerting the punishment. An irresistible catnip for "good people with values".

lectrick• 13 years ago

"24" and "Boardwalk Empire" are 2 series I stopped watching due to torture scenes.

In "24" it was some scene where Jack Bauer had to shoot and kill one of his own guys in order to not blow his cover. I tapped out.

In "Boardwalk" I lasted all the way to some scene where some poor sap got buried up to his neck on a beach and then they took a shovel to his head. That was it for me, no thanks.

fatjokes• 13 years ago

I'm definitely inclined to say propaganda. If it were just on its own, then I'd give the benefit of the doubt and say entertainment. However, it just happens to coincide with the revelations of America's use of torture in Iraq, etc., and the media's use of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques", etc, at least when discussing America. (It's still torture if it's Iran or China). I know, citation needed, but I'm lazy right now.

jerf• 13 years ago

That episode of TNG was a work of art. I think it's a bit unpleasant to watch, and it's supposed to be. It should be. But knowing about this stuff is part of being a real adult. That sort of evil is still out there.

By contrast, what's the purpose of Fringe's torture? Am I actually supposed to find this entertaining? Honest, if leading, question.

Ntrails• 13 years ago

I don't remember a multitude traditional torture scenes in fringe? There were some "weird things up the nose mind reading" bits?

I remember a security guard near the finale, but that's about it. Was it more common than my memory tells? What does that say about how little it impacted upon me?

teddyh• 13 years ago

I also remember the Babylon 5 fourth season episode “Intersections in Real Time” as being particularly good.

exarch6• 13 years ago

What a great show, and so relevant to this day and age. In terms of cultural commentary, it's every bit the equal of Roddenberry's best.

Jach• 13 years ago

I think I loved that treatment even more than Star Trek's. (The Inquisitor episode was interesting too...) In more recent shows (not that I've seen that many) my favorite treatment of torture is probably Theon's in Game of Thrones. There's no higher purpose to it, it's just sadistic pleasure taken from the torturing. The methods are more brutal too -- it's not some magic machine that just stimulates pain centers of the brain, there's pain plus body parts being lost permanently. I think by engaging the victim's imagination of what will come next the torture may be more effective...

angersock2• 13 years ago

Probably one of my favorite quotes of all time is from that episode:

You just have to say "no, I won't" one more time than they can say "yes, you will".

alan_cx5• 13 years ago

For me, that is one of the best episodes of the best TV show ever made.

I say that because its not just the episodes its self, which is brilliant, its the fact that by the time you get to that episode it really means something. There is a hell of a lot riding on the torture of Sheridan. The TNG episode, while in itself brilliant, sort comes out of no where.

(Yes, Babylon 5 is my Linux/Mac. Of course there is opinion to the contrary, but Im openly deaf to them.)

lurkinggrue• 13 years ago

Funny, I just watched that last week. It really does feel like an episode of the Twilight Zone they way the paced it.

robocaptain• 13 years ago

For those of us who are interested but don't quite remember every TNG episode episode, it was "Chain of Command" from season 6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_Th...

peeters• 13 years ago

Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree.

This in turn seems to be directly inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four. When Winston is being tortured, O'Brien puts up four fingers and insists (under torture) that Winston sees five.

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

Thank you.

I was utterly baffled by the top comment's focus on Star Trek (I figured out what "TNG" meant) when there was no mention whatsoever in the article.

Slate's got a good discussion of the piece:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/05/there_...

tylerkahn• 13 years ago

Why do you think it's propaganda?

alan_cx5• 13 years ago

Timing, channel, and political back drop.

copx• 13 years ago

I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG and that episode is something to remember indeed. It makes a strong rational and moral case against torture. While modern American TV shows do indeed do the opposite.

I think I know the reason for this. Gene Roddenberry was a WW2 veteran i.e. the Geneva Conventions had a personal relevance to him. In the wars of the past you had to assume that many of your own guys would be captured by the enemy.. and that you might end up being one of them. In that scenario a strong international condemnation of torture suddenly looks way more appealing. In contrast, America's modern "wars" (I do not think these one-sided affairs deserve that name) do not lead to a noticeable number of American POWs. And you no longer have to worry about being drafted yourself either.

I think the foundation of the acceptance of torture in contemporary America is the firm conviction of the supporters that they will never be at the receiving end.

This type of thinking is unfortunately widespread among humans everywhere. It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it.

morganherlocker• 13 years ago

It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it.

Is this an intentional reference to John Rawls' concept of the 'veil of ignorance' laid out in Theory of Justice? If not, you would definitely enjoy the ideas in the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

rayiner11• 13 years ago

Your explanation is probably part of it, but there's are lots of social factors in play. Gene Roddenberry was a member of the greatest generation. It was in a lot of ways a much more idealistic time in American culture than today.

One of the empirically observable facts is that faith in public institutions is a lot lower today than it was back then. I think this phenomenon cuts in the opposite direction compared to what a lot of people on HN would suppose. When people have less faith in the system, they have less faith that the system will protect them, and are more willing to embrace characters that will act outside the system to get the job done. Hence the popularity of the Jack Bauer character: the guy who ignores taboos against torture or procedural limitations like warrants in order to get the job done and save the day.

That's starkly different to the world conceived of in Star Trek. Star Trek is a world where government (the Federation) is morally virtuous, and institutional rules like the "Prime Directive" are to be followed rather than broken.

w_t_payne• 13 years ago

Do unto others...

How quickly morality fades ....

salient• 13 years ago

In contrast, America's modern "wars" (I do not think these one-sided affairs deserve that name)

That's a great point. America doesn't do wars anymore. They do conquests. And the American public at large seems perfectly fine with it (or they wouldn't allow it).

dkuntz22• 13 years ago

Small note, but Roddenberry was dead before The Chain of Command went into preproduction. I'm also not sure that was an episode he would have let through considering he was against the militarization of Star Trek.

memracom2• 13 years ago

And the use of torture in America's modern wars has led to a great amount of lost goodwill in the world, not to mention the military failures on the ground.

xefer• 13 years ago

The TNG episode is a direct reference to Orwell's "1984" (but with lights instead of fingers)

https://archive.org/details/HowManyFingersWinston-NineteenEi...

JohnBooty3• 13 years ago

  Any television series in a modern setting in 
  which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" 
  use torture to achieve their goals is despicable
  propaganda.

Yes. Absolutely.

I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils?

The 1980s seemed to want to tell us that war was a melodramatic, often bloodless struggle between the white-hatted good guys and the black-hatted bad guys.

If there's a small silver lining to today's torture-promoting crap, at least it's that war is portrayed a bit closer to being the horrible, bloody, morally-confused hell where the "good guys" often look and act an awful lot like the "bad guys."

Doesn't take away from your point at all. Totally agree that when torture is portrayed as anything less than evil, there is a very serious problem.

exarch6• 13 years ago

"I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils?"

At least the heroes in those implausible stories behaved like heroes, rather than villains who you only identify with out of some jingoistic team spirit.

gbog2• 13 years ago

torture is portrayed

I think the root of the problem is more about torture being portrayed at all.

Even if you portray it a the evilest thing, you are still playing with the spectator's bowels and disgust thresholds in ways that cannot bring anything good.

There is room for torture depiction is some niche genres, like horror or sadism (e.g. Salo) but I can't understand how it should come to mainstream media as TV series and take such a big room.

Just like sex and pron: it is ok, but please let it be marginal.

stormbrew• 13 years ago

On the subject of SF portrayals of futuristic torture, there's an episode late in Babylon 5 where torture is being used for a more realistic purpose than is usual on American TV -- to elicit utterly and completely false confession and to name names. It's an intense, highly focused, episode and incredibly well done. One of my favourite hours of SF TV ever.

aaronbrethorst• 13 years ago

I thought BSG's treatment of insurgency and torture—especially given that it was contemporaneous with the second Iraq War—was very well done.

zhaphod4• 13 years ago

People who coined the term enhanced interrogation should be subjected to the said interrogation. Joking aside, I agree with the overall point the author is making. There is a torture creep in the culture and people are getting insensitive to what it means. Because it feels good to catch the bad guy and do unspeakable things unto him and get the location of the ticking time bomb. What most people don't realize is that torture doesn't work. The person being tortured will give what ever information the torturer is looking for to stop the pain. However, that is an inconvenient fact that people tend to ignore.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

Sometimes the subject does have the sought-after information, and the interrogator knows the subject has it, and people will die if that information is not extracted. Sometimes asking nicely doesn't work, and neither does saying "Tell me! or I'll say 'Tell me!' again!"

Another inconvenient fact is sometimes it does work, and is an alternative to actual harm.

ETA: I'm surprised at how many here adhere to the notion "you can't ever know if the subject knows". We justifiably incarcerate people in peacetime, and kill people in war, on less information. As another poster noted: if the subject possesses a computer clearly connected with the issue, admits it's his, admits he knows the password, refuses to give the password, reveals the password under enhanced interrogation (with no physical harm done), and the password decrypts life-saving information, far better that than letting innocents die (or killing him putatively after the fact) because "torture isn't nice". Unwavering equalization of torture with crime (and invariant punishment thereof) is just as absurd as invariably criminalizing use of deadly force in defense of self or others. I get that sometimes/often/usually it doesn't work, but this broad insistence it is always criminal is absurd.

eseehausen3• 13 years ago

Rather than legalizing torture as a result of these sorts of fantasies, one might argue that in such extraordinary cases, the interrogator should be willing to suffer the consequences of committing the crime of torture.

nabla9• 13 years ago

If by sometimes you mean hypothetically. Still, we don't need to make torture legal.

But I bite. Let's say that thing you describe happens. People who torture should still get hard sentences, say 20 to 25 years. If they are not willing to sacrifice their own life and break the law to get the information, the torture is not justified.

In other words: torture should always be big personal sacrifice for the torturer.

zhaphod4• 13 years ago

How is the determination made that the subject does have the sough-after information. Because the subject may give what ever information the interrogator is biased to receive.

The following pdf "http://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interro... makes the case much more eloquently than I can in this comment section. Reading the "Conclusion: Consequences and Alternatives" section is very instructive.

Also the guardian article "http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/no... is very instructive.

Furthermore, I feel using torture is inherently immoral and we should strive to achieve a better world even when we know that our adversaries are not playing by the rules.

wmeredith• 13 years ago

This is a popular fallacy for supporting torture, but there are a couple things wrong with it.

Firstly, the most likely outcome of torture is false information and multiple sources from the CIA to the FBI and various levels of rank[1] have said that one of the most problematic issues with torture based intel is the extreme amount of time it takes to verify anything because most of it is made up. So in a ticking time bomb scenario, torturing someone you think has information may make you FEEL better, but it is a waste of time (which, by default, is in short supply).

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly amongst this crowd, the logic doesn't work. Statistically speaking, ticking time bomb situations do not actually occur in real life and basing institutionalized acceptance of torture on a fantasy what if scenario is intellectual fraud. Georgetown law's David Luban has an excellent 2005 essay "Liberalism Torture and the Ticking Bomb"[2] that takes a deep dive into the psychology behind this argument as well as the real-world applications. It's linked further down in these comments by @elipsey[3].

[1] http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4498/does-tortur...

[2] http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7017729

jaimebuelta5• 13 years ago

Sometimes does work? You mean, like guessing? I mean, "sometimes" throwing a coin to decide if someone is a criminal will work.

The problem with torture (from a point of view of information) is that the information is NOT reliable AT ALL. Someone under torture will often not only imagine facts, it will actually believe that they are true, and will confess false crimes, especially if presented by the torturer. There is a famous case in Spain in 1910 (a movie was made about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_of_Cuenca) that two men were charged for a murder and tortured until they confess. 12 years later, the "murdered man" reappeared, having spent the time on a nearby town. There are more real life examples showing that people under torture says mainly what the torturer wants, not real life facts. Even in the presented case (the tortured subject truly has some critical information, which is somehow a "tricky case", real life is not that simple), the resulting information can be fake or inaccurate.

Information is more easily obtained in more reliable ways. Aborted terrorist attacks typically aborted in real life because someone will alert the authorities, or someone is being watched, not catching a "bad guy" and torturing it.

Xylakant• 13 years ago

There was a kidnapping case in germany where the police was absolutely certain that the suspect was the right one and that the only way to save the kidnapping victim (a bankers eleven year old son) was to torture the suspect. The suspect then admitted the kidnapping, but the victim had been killed shortly after the actual kidnapping.

One of the fundamentals of the german law systems was broken, by a well-meaning person for practically no gain. The kidnapper later sued the police for the torture and won.

Now germany doesn't have a fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine so the conviction for the kidnapping later was based partially on the information gained in that one interrogation, but what if the kidnapper would walk free because of such a breach of law?

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entf%C3%BChrung_von_Jakob_von_M... (sorry, german only)

glenra2• 13 years ago

It's easy to construct Jack Bauer scenarios in fiction, but they are exceedingly unlikely to come up in real life. Real life is a multithreaded narrative - there's never just ONE lead to follow and you can never be that certain the lead you're looking at is the right one.

What made torture "work" in 24 is that Jack Bauer can't trust anybody else and never has more than one lead to follow at a time. Even though he talks to dozens of people who know parts of the big conspiracy, these people all magically disappear but only do so moments after they tell him one key bit of info that will lead him to the next clue. Sometimes they disappear by escaping custody, sometimes they disappear by being killed by the bad guys (or a traitor among the good guys), and sometimes they kill themselves. Through repetition of this pattern, we come to expect that each person who becomes the focus of Jack's attention will have some key bit of info he just has to get out of them. And he has to get that info from them now because he if he doesn't he'll never see them again.

Real life doesn't work that way.

In real life you have dozens, hundreds, or thousands of possible leads at any given time. Because the bad guys aren't supernaturally good at their job, you can go back and ask followup questions. You can check one guy's testimony against the next guy's. And some of the people you think seem like pretty good leads don't know anything useful. Torturing those people will generate false leads which lead you to torture more people who generate more false leads until your entire organization is in the business of serially torturing innocent people until they tell you whatever you seem to want to hear rather than the business of finding out the actual truth.

Each person you torture into generating false leads makes it more likely people will die because it ties up your organizational resources. It also is likely to generate massive blowback - some of the people you torture become or inspire new enemies, whereas people you are nice to might become friends and voluntarily help the investigation.

backlava2• 13 years ago

Well, consensus seems to be that you're wrong, but I think you're obviously right. However, you left off one of the most important conditions: the interrogator has to be able to tell that you've told him the truth. The scenario where torture would best work is when you pick up someone with an encrypted laptop and want the password that they have. In that situation, it will work.

Zigurd4• 13 years ago

Sometimes the subject does have the sought-after information

As far as I know this has never been the case in the history of the use of torture in US interrogations. Before you make statements in favor of torture, you should probably have a specific case in mind or it's just being gratuitously in favor of torture.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

Sometimes the subject does have the sought-after information, and the interrogator knows the subject has it, and people will die if that information is not extracted.

And even then, it is not the most effective method of extracting it.

Another inconvenient fact is sometimes it does work

Sometimes it might, but there is no set of observable circumstances from which it can be concluded that torture will be expected to work better than other methods, so it is never a reasonable choice even excluding any negative moral considerations (or negative impact of more indirect effects of adopting such methods as policy) applicable to the method.

and is an alternative to actual harm.

"Enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for methods that involve actual harm, not an alternative to them.

aestra4• 13 years ago

(with no physical harm done)

You're going to subscribe to the idea mental torture is somehow less than physical torture? Nope, wrong. Ask anyone who has suffered from a mental illness and ask if their illness was less than a physical illness.

One example.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/five-forms-of-torture.htm#p...

Number 1 - Mock Executions

It's against international law and The U.S. Army Field Manual expressly prohibits soldiers from staging mock executions.

and the interrogator knows the subject has it

Oh really? How does this interrogator know? With 100% probability?

I'm not familiar with interrogation techniques, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say we study them like we study most things, with DATA and FACTS, not just some comment on the internet saying "they say Tell me! or I'll say 'Tell me!' again!'" because there is a good incentive to get the technique right, and people know more than me.

vacri3• 13 years ago

Sometimes the subject does have the sought-after information, and the interrogator knows the subject has it, and people will die if that information is not extracted.

Given that professional interrogators have come out and said that the 'ticking time bomb' situation does not happen in real life, this argument is pointless. Argue about the kind of tortures that actually happen, don't construct a fantasy scenario to prove a philosophical ideal and then assume that covers the ordinary case.

baddox2• 13 years ago

It's the same way with other things, like the recent privacy revelations regarding the NSA. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing thriller films in the 80s or 90s where the completely over the top, unambiguously evil government plan was spying on citizen's telephone calls. A couple of decades later, that becomes reality, and a huge number of people have no problem with it.

Touche2• 13 years ago

Very interesting! I would look at the depiction of torture in Fringe in another light though. X-Files was a cult show that ran on Friday nights (first few seasons) with low expectations. Fringe had high-expectations from the start, had J.J Abrams named attached and (this part is a guess) a more expensive cast. It never did very well in the ratings and was on cancellation watch for most of its existence. It actually did follow the "Monster of the Week" formula more often the first couple of seasons but then started emphasizing the overarching plot more often in the later seasons. The threat of cancellation, I think, explains the use of eye-catching tactics like torture, and how they seemed to retcon the previous season, each season and start an entirely different plot. They never expected to keep going and didn't plan very far in advance.

X-Files had very different constraints which were only relaxed as the years went on and their budget increased. You can actually see the point in season 2 where the show is beginning to become popular enough that they start having better make-up and effects.

VLM2• 13 years ago

"It never did very well in the ratings and was on cancellation watch for most of its existence."

I did some research and "Fringe" pulled 3 million viewers. Awful.

"xfiles" pulled 10-30 million viewers. Not 1.0 to 3.0, 10 to 30. Never quite hit 30 but got close, like 27 million.

"Survivor" used to pull nearly as many as xfiles but now only pulls about ten million viewers in the USA (out of 314 million total population, according to google, so about 30 out of every 31 people do not watch Survivor)

The premise of the article is normalization of torture is a great way to become a blinding success like the x-files, because it mentioned the xfiles and that was a highly successful show. However, comparison of the numbers shows normalization of torture is a great way to repel around 97% of the viewers of a successful show, not to become successful.

MartinCron2• 13 years ago

You can't really compare viewership numbers between the X-Files era and the Finge era. The media landscape is totally different now. 3 million viewers isn't necessarily "awful" when you're competing against just about everything.

aychedee6• 13 years ago

I'm the OP. The torture that most jumped out at me was in the first season of Fringe...

Shivetya• 13 years ago

I seem to recall in X-Files people just disappeared. The same occurs in many police dramas and even movies with similar settings.

Whats worse, showing torture or off screen killing people? These are not shows about bunnies and unicorns, they are about dangerous, exaggerated or fictional at best, subjects, and will not necessarily portray characters in the best of light.

Crito• 13 years ago

I don't recall Mulder and Scully "disappearing" very many people. That tended to be the doing of other people in government. Other people in government acting nefariously was something of a common theme in that show.

securingsincity• 13 years ago

I think part of this is certainly the mystique of the cowboy cop trope [0]. They'll do anything to get their man, even if the man in the next room thinks they've gone to far. and they get results. And your rogue cop has to be bigger and badder than Harry Callahan and whomever came after.

And then a little of art imitating life, "real people are doing water boarding, the audience needs to see something worse than that"

[0] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowboyCop

nnethercote• 13 years ago

Yeah. When a good guy tortures, it shows he's how far he's willing to go to save the day. And when a good guy is tortured, it shows how tough he is when he resists (and he almost always resists).

rayiner11• 13 years ago

I think the article gets the causality backwards in saying that shows like this "are re-educating and changing attitudes towards this act." Major-network televisions shows are reactive. They're the product of focus groups and market surveys. They are much more likely to reflect trends in culture than to create those trends. They opportunistically take advantage of social trends that already exist.

This is clear if you look at how television lags society as a whole when it comes to other social trends. By the time CBS aired a show with two major gay characters (Will & Grace in 1998), more than a third of Americans already supported gay marriage. This year, "Modern Family" will feature a gay marriage proposal, now that 55% of Americans support marriage equality. Going back further, the networks didn't air an interracial kiss until Star Trek in 1968, a year after the Supreme Court (itself an extremely reactive institution), struck down bans on interracial marriage. As of 2010, more than 1 in 6 new marriages was interracial, but you'd hardly perceive that watching network TV, where interracial relationships are still highly unusual. The Brady Bunch, which ran from 1969-1974, pioneered portraying a blended family on TV, with two previously-divorced parents, but by 1969 divorce was already mainstream and divorce rates were comparable to what they are today (they peaked ~1980). In 1960, when TV was still idealizing stay-at-home mom June Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver, a third of the labor force was women.

Given the track-record of television when it comes to other social trends, I think it's incorrect to say that television is "changing attitudes" towards torture. More likely is that it's reflecting attitudes in society more condoning of torture than they have been in the past.

maxerickson7• 13 years ago

I think you are right about television being largely reactive, but I do wonder about feedback loops.

CSI is set in Las Vegas. They show multiple murders on a typical night shift, yet in reality there is "only" a murder every 2 or 3 days. Of course it makes sense that they would actually show things happening, but I wonder how that feeds into people's perceptions of the world (The "CSI effect" is apparently a real thing, so people have taken some lessons from it, right?).

Touche2• 13 years ago

It's reflective of a culture of cynicism. The hero cannot win without compromising his/her own morality and so must chose to sacrifice it to defeat the antagonist. The is perceived to be more "modern" and "realistic" way of story-telling. See Man of Steel as one of the prime examples of a cynical culture destroying one of our most optimistic characters.

scotty794• 13 years ago

Do you think we could get pink alleys in toys department without some positive force feedback loop going wild?

Influence goes both ways. Viewers influence decissions about tv content but that content influences viewers. If the loop is not broken somewhere it will spiral outof control.

theorique• 13 years ago

More likely is that it's reflecting attitudes in society more condoning of torture than they have been in the past.

Also, it could be depicting instances of torture more explicitly, without necessarily condoning them. At least in the "24" case, the "good guy" isn't a boy scout but a morally-ambiguous, gritty, hardened "any means necessary" warrior. As such, it's perhaps more realistic to depict him doing "bad guy" stuff to get things done.

elipsey2• 13 years ago

This recapitulates many arguments made by Georgetown law's David Luban in the excellent 2005 essay "Liberalism Torture and the Ticking Bomb" which we should all go read right now :)

http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...

zhaphod4• 13 years ago

I initially thought that this essay is taking on the advocacy of torture by liberals as in progressives. But then I did a quick read and found that the author uses liberal as in freely. I will be going through this in detail.

I think you may also like the essay {PDF warning} http://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interro....

elipsey2• 13 years ago

Thank you. It's nice to see an empirical discussion of this subject. I'll have a look at some of the cited sources too.

valarauca1• 13 years ago

The article is interesting, but what caught my eye more is the possibly spoofed DNSSEC cert.

atmosx2• 13 years ago

Oh, so I am not the only one :-)

atmosx2• 13 years ago

It's not just torture that's taking place on TV, it's violence in many forms.

When my sister asked me to described breaking bad series, knowing her so well, the first word that came out of my mind without seven thinking was: Violent.

mavhc2• 13 years ago

A man picks the side of violence, and is destroyed by it. Works better if you assume the final episode was a dream

scarmig• 13 years ago

It's not like picking the side of violence and being destroyed by it is some weird thing no one could expect...

sogen• 13 years ago

upvoted for the dream reference

scotty794• 13 years ago

I think Rambo was more violent.

Ygg22• 13 years ago

More violent than Saw, Dexter or Hannibal?

I'd say not.

vezzy-fnord3• 13 years ago

Breaking Bad actually had relatively little violence as far as contemporary TV shows go. Most of it was tame, with very few instances of grislier brutality. That and it all perfectly fit within the narrative, rather than being wanton and gratuitous for no reason.

radley2• 13 years ago

The previous articles are about 'Scandal', '24' and 'Homeland' which are torture-filled entertainment. Quite a (linkbait-ish) leap to focus vaguely and exclusively on Fringe.

aychedee6• 13 years ago

I binge watched Fringe and the X-Files over the holidays. The most stark difference to me was the torture. Fringe in some ways is delightful and gentle. Especially in the portrayal of Walter's mental illness. It's very much like the X-Files in that regards. But even in a show like that they still packed in the torture. What blog post SHOULD I have written? I know Scandal is full of torture. Does our Sci-fi need to be as well? Why is that? What changed since the X-Files were released? That's the point I was trying to make anyway.

radley2• 13 years ago

The difference for me was I turned off 24 & Homeland because it seemed to be nothing but torture over and over. Fringe - I really have to think about it because I don't recall any. I kind of recall weird bits of mad scientist-ish torture, but not long-extended anger scenes.

michaelochurch• 13 years ago

Here's why, in the real world, the "good guys" almost never use torture. At least, it's so rare that the likelihood of torture having a good use in one's lifetime can be rounded down to zero.

Torture isn't (despite what many say, wanting to believe that evil never works) completely ineffective at getting information. It gets some signal (and lots of noise) but it's inferior to, and also antagonistic to, more effective forms of interrogation. The world is morally murky, and it's rarely clear who the good and bad guys are, and it's a lot more effective to get someone to warm up to you and your cause. If you cause so much pain to inflict PTSD, you're never going to get someone on your side.

The "ticking time bomb" scenario is laughable when applied to real life. But it also makes one completely wrong assumption: that the torturer often wants the truth. Most who have used torture, throughout history, wanted the opposite.

Torture is very effective at "extracting" a completely distorted or just wrong account (false confessions and accusations) that can be used for political purposes, none good. If you want an exponential growth in the number of convicted witches, torture can do that, as world history has proven.

Dove• 13 years ago

I don't think it's propaganda. It's a result of the same feedback loop that gives you the morality of soap operas, the absurdity of reality television, the voyeurism of talk shows, historically the extremity of circuses and freak shows: the need to be more attention-grabbing, more extreme, more must-see shocking than the next guy.

It's hardly news that watching that kind of stuff gives you opinions that make you a worse person.

The way I see it, fiction has a dark side and a light side. The dark side normalizes and revels in darkness, to shock and allure the audience. The light side is shocked at the darkness and stands against it, to educate and enlighten the audience.

humanrebar3• 13 years ago

Good point, but I'd like to add some more context.

The average American male has access to all the porn he wants, UFC fights, FPSs, and so on. How is a network broadcaster going to shock and allure him in a way that will clear the censors? The list of options is short and torture is on it.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

Then we should take it off the list.

prawn• 13 years ago

I agree that it's not really intentional propaganda but more so a case of need to stimulate more than that which has come before. And maybe it's a short-cut for writers. We see it so frequently because it's a cheap way to build drama or disgust or reasons for revenge or suspense, etc. Doesn't require a difficult set (almost always happens in a simple room), easy to simulate and probably not especially hard to act (writhe around, please).

mcantelon• 13 years ago

Torture-as-a-tool became normalized in US media at about the time the US administration approved its use as a military tool. Until then this view of torture was taboo. So if the lifting of the taboo wasn't propaganda in the strict sense (recommended/directed by the authorities), it can be considered a type of voluntary propaganda in support of the decision making of the authorities (lessening opposition to the behavior of the authorities by explaining the same type of behavior from a sympathetic perspective).

r0s• 13 years ago

It's an interesting viewpoint but I respectfully disagree.

Fiction can only reflect or distort truth, because reality is neither positive and negative nor dark and light, the audience can only choose truth vs. fiction. Objective vs. subjective.

But really we're talking about memory. Lasting effects either conscious or below. The way to remember things is elaboration and repetition. In that way, distortion of truth can only exist when there's limited information, but far more effective is repetition over time AND limited information. You'll only remember the fake stuff.

Moral values are useless to us if we can't use them to decide things about hypothetical situations. In fact, the only way to build and solidify morality (which is memory) is elaboration, more novel experiences and information.

So with that context: Fiction isn't the problem, a stagnant homogenous diet of it is.

jaimebuelta5• 13 years ago

An interesting point in American fiction in particular, is that, generally it always has the lesson: "violence works" or "violence is the solution". Applying violence to a problem is a pretty common way of solving it. And, of course, a big enough nuclear bomb will fix any problem...

A line like Doctor Who's "everyone lives!" is very difficult to find in an american show.

(It's not that I have a problem with american fiction, I just find it curious)

MartinCron2• 13 years ago

Maybe Doctor Who's explosive popularity in the States will have a moderating effect? I mean, my 11-year-old son is part of a generation whose favorite fictional character uses a screwdriver and has two hearts.

cesarbs• 13 years ago

SONIC screwdriver! ;)

cgore• 13 years ago

America's vices of choice are greed and violence.

England's are sex and drugs.

squozzer2• 13 years ago

You may be a little off. Americans like porn and weed as much as anyone. And who regularly vies with Germany for having the most violent football (soccer) brawlers seemingly as a matter of national pride?

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

An interesting point in American fiction in particular, is that, generally it always has the lesson: "violence works" or "violence is the solution".

I think that taking that as a "lesson" is a mistake. Its true that American fiction is pretty prone to relying on physical violence as the central form of conflict, but I don't think that's so much a lesson as a lack of creativity.

jaimebuelta5• 13 years ago

I'm using "lesson" as "underlaying value of the story", not necessarily that I agree with that or it is used in a conscious way, but it's the way it is presented... "someone has problem, someone uses violence, the problem is fixed and everyone is happy!"

(Again, I don't think is a huge deal and I am not implying that people can't distinguish fiction of real life or something)

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

Every story is a lesson.

humanrebar3• 13 years ago

Are you saying American fiction overplays how effective violence is compared to other options?

Because it's clear (and you may be acknowledging) that violence is the best option in at least some circumstances. Otherwise, prisons, soldiers, and police officers wouldn't be necessary.

jaimebuelta5• 13 years ago

Yes, my perception is that, in general, in American fiction, the way to go is with a violent solution! (Again, that's makes great spectacular movies, don't get me wrong, and it's a general thing compared with movies from elsewhere, not something that happens all the time)

For example, if you want to stop a meteorite hitting Earth, do not use rockets attached to its surface, explode a huge nuclear bomb!

If you have to start the nucleus rotation, do not make any chemical reaction or engineering project, just explode a huge nuclear bomb!

If you are a multibillionaire that wants to solve crime, just personally punch criminals in the face!

And we're talking about fiction, not real life. I'm ok with spectacular, but I can't help noticing it :-P

supersystem• 13 years ago

There are significantly less prisons, soldiers and police officers in countries which to a lesser degree favor violence as a solution.

alan_cx5• 13 years ago

Well, that whats you have been taught to believe, sure.

See, how do you know you dont think that because of decades of the media tell you to think that? Not just that but American culture is gun culture rooted in the Wild West way of things. Look at how the gun nuts can even consider life without guns. Something weird, amusing and scary to many civilized countries.

vacri3• 13 years ago

Those two comments don't disagree. "overplay" and "works in some situations" are concepts that agree quite readily.

maxerickson7• 13 years ago

There is an awful lot of programming/etc that doesn't ever really even touch on violence (while still being fictional). A good portion of adolescent dramas do 'violence is bad' episodes (where some character feels bad for punching someone or something).

Action/adventure stuff definitely reaches for the gun pretty quickly.

neves• 13 years ago

And the other site is that sex is evil. Even little breast used to be more difficult to display in a movie than a decapitation. Oral in a woman? Better torture someone.

indrax• 13 years ago

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/cpt/article_060823wink.sht...

manachar• 13 years ago

Relevant quote from the current Doctor Who show-runner, Steven Moffat:

“Heroes are important. Heroes tell us who we want to be but when they made this particular hero they didn’t give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help and they didn’t give him a superpower or a heat-ray, they gave him an extra heart. And that’s extraordinary. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like The Doctor.”

The Doctor is a wonderful call back to a science fiction time when humans could be rational. Sometimes violence was needed, but always when all other options have been exhausted. Since then, science fiction tends to dwell in the darker and dystopian aspects of humanity.

grecy• 13 years ago

Have you ever lived in America?

This idea that violence can be used to solve stuff is not limited to fiction, people use it in their everyday lives in America.

I'm always fascinated by how quickly situations in America will degrade to physical violence, or the threat thereof.

carsongross• 13 years ago

Yes, but who are we to judge?

Who, indeed.

n2j3• 13 years ago

Considering the effectiveness of torturing (and whether "they" lie about it) kind of blunts the argument against torture tout court. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the article.

amagumori• 13 years ago

it's important to realize that our popular TV shows are full of propaganda. it's subtle stuff, not out-and-out endorsements of political or social positions, but more along the lines of assumptions that are reinforced and left unopened. the purpose of the stuff isn't to change people's minds, but to solidify norms. i can't even count how many times i've seen "set 'em up to knock 'em down" characters - usually in the bad guy role.

there will be a character, usually a bad guy, with a certain ideology that will be delegitimized (usually some sort of anti-status-quo or anti-power thing). sometimes they will portray the character's ideology as good-intentioned, to give an effect of objectivity in the storytelling. but ultimately this character will be shown to be misguided, emotional, immature, or otherwise ideologically inferior to the "good" character. i see this shit a lot in crime and law enforcement-focused shows. i'm sure some people would argue that i'm being hypersensitive and that there's no ulterior motive behind these portrayals, but i can't remember a single time that i've seen an anti-government or "rebellious" character not delegitimized in one of these shows.

yes, it's just a character, but our ideological positions are weighted quite a bit on these "stories" - for many people, more so than facts. many hard-line conservatives would get angry at being called a "liberal", not because of their political differences, but because on some level they embrace a story where liberals are milquetoasty, limp-wristed, privileged turtleneck wearers, and conservatives are hard-working everymen trying to do right by their family. many liberals, for their part, embrace similar but reversed stories about conservatives. sure, maybe if you read hacker news you don't base your political views on stereotypes like this, but these stereotypes do their work by remaining in the back of everyone's mind. for average americans that don't explicitly try to be objective in their political and social positions, these stories actually hold a lot of sway. our TV storytelling enforces and solidifies these sort of stereotypes.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

the purpose of the stuff isn't to change people's minds, but to solidify norms.

Well, no. The purpose is usually to resonate with norms that the intended target audience is presumed to already have, so that that target audience will feel comfortable with the show, come back to it, and show good stats so that the network showing the show will be able sell ads targeting that audience, so that they will continue to pay the producers of the show, who will continue to pay the writers of the show.

Occasionally shows have propaganda that is inteded to shape opinions, but mostly they are written to make money, which means selling advertising space, which means appealing to the existing views of a target demographic above and beyond all other considerations.

maxerickson7• 13 years ago

I think there is an obvious motive; individual writers are portraying what they believe.

At the very least, there are lots and lots of anti-institutional characters in U.S. television. Maybe it is unfortunate that lots of them are presented as being held back by a system gone soft.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

"24" is one of the most brilliant (in its use, if not its composition) and effective pieces of modern/contemporary propaganda that I've seen.

I think it played a significant role in U.S. society's development over during the first decade of this century. Hell, I observed this, first hand, in my friends. When your erstwhile quite liberal and at least mildly "flower child" longtime friend -- who "can't" miss an episode of "24" -- starts telling you that maybe torture is necessary...

I hope Kiefer Sutherland has sleepless nights...

gojomo• 13 years ago

I see it as a variant of the 'hedonic treadmill'. So many scenes of extreme behavior, by 'bad guys' and 'good guys', have already been done in filmed/televised entertainment, that audiences are habituated to all the usual situations and nastiness. New works must keep going more extreme, in both what happens and what's shown on-screen (as opposed to suggested), to hold attention.

RankingMember• 13 years ago

The GTA5 torture scene with Trevor and the car battery, pliers, etc. was difficult to participate in. If I recall correctly, he at least didn't get anything useful out of him, which would've implied that the ends justified the means.

was_hellbanned• 13 years ago

I came here to mention that Grand Theft Auto did a fantastic job satirizing (if you can call it that) the theme of torture and assassination.

In the game, you are forced to participate in torture of a guy for absolutely no reason. You have to select torture methods, then manipulate the controls to adequately complete the mission.

In another mission, as another character, you're forced to perform an assassination for a government organization. As the scene unfolds, it becomes clear that they have no idea what they're doing, and they're just reacting immediately to low-quality intel.

thenomad• 13 years ago

I'm not that sure it's a new trope: '70s British cop shows (The Sweeney, et al) tended to show information being extracted by force, too.

However, it may say some things about the society where it's popular - '70s Britain wasn't a very happy place in some ways.

donpdonp• 13 years ago

The treatment of torture on TV is important for the reasons OP states. I disagree that torture is becoming more prevalent on TV, though perhaps because I watch less of it. Here are the scenes I can remember from childhood onward.

1. Knight Rider - not exactly torture but Michael was in a contest with someone else to tolerate pain, afterwards it was revealed the other person was not connected to the machine.

2. Star Trek - I can remember Kirk in a reclined chair on the Enterprise, looking up at something that was causing great pain.

2. ST:TNG - The Picard scene is memorable because it affected so many people due to the show's popularity.

3. Firefly - This was particularly well done / graphic because I think Nathan Fillion is very good physical actor.

One of the ways torture affects the lives of ordinary americans is through the Taser. Youtube has some eye-opening examples of tasers being used for the wrong reasons. Its a near impossible line to walk between non-lethal force and pain as coercion.

saraid2163• 13 years ago

It's worth noting that the Firefly torture scene was not an information-gathering operation. It was torture for the sake of torture.

I haven't watched enough pop culture (basically none of 24, for instance) to know how uncommon that is in comparison with torture for the sake of "Where is the bomb!?", but it is probably significant.

lightbritefight• 13 years ago

There are all good classic torture scenes, but realize that in none of them is the interrogator looking for information. Each scene was to break the subject, or to cause pain/death. Those instances of torture have no moral component past sadism.

The issue is when you depict torture as a morally good, effective method of protecting people. Thats when people begin to believe that its an agreeable act.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Casual, unthinking propaganda. And worse, unthinking rationalization for real-world torture.

So often you see the "good guys" being badasses by using torture, brutality, or simply ignoring the rights of suspects. And frequently they are rewarded for it, lauded for it, and there aren't any downsides. The good guys never screw up, the suspected bad guys turn out to be the real bad guys, and so on. All of this has become cliche as storytelling elements in police procedurals, but they give people a very dangerous idea about the value of torture and the non-value of the rights of the accused.

It's so bad that the vast majority of people doing it don't even realize what they're doing, don't realize how much they are propagandizing torture and police brutality.

mvaliente2001• 13 years ago

Ah, do you remember the old good times when Terry Gilliam's Brazil came out, and the idea of a SWAT team destroying your house, imprisoning and killing your husband, all due to a bureaucratic mistake, was a bizarre fantasy of a dystopian and dictatorial future?

vezzy-fnord3• 13 years ago

No. It has always been plausible.

Just perhaps not a SWAT team, specifically.

dobbsbob• 13 years ago

Torture is pointless since the counter-interrogation method while being tortured is to never admit to anything. Giving any information just invites more torture because if there is a bit of info then there must be more and they will keep torturing you, at least according to the IRA green book. The French wrote about how useless torture is for intel as well when they decided to use it wholesale in the Algerian war. It produced nothing, yet in 2014 this fallacy is still around and we are still doing it.

k2enemy• 13 years ago

See here for a mathematical treatment of this: http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jel292/torture.pdf

tzs2• 13 years ago

The IRA green book may not be a reliable source of information on this. Wouldn't it give the same advice even if giving up information in reality usually made the torture stop? The book's goal there is to get prisoners to not talk, not to help prisoners have the least unpleasant experience in captivity.

I'd expect that the captor's expectation is that prisoners have a non-zero finite amount of useful information, and that in many cases the captor has some idea of how much and what kind of information the prisoner has. If the prisoner does not give up information, wouldn't the incentive for the captors to be to keep torturing because they are sure that there is something to get?

Strategically, it should be best for the prisoner to give up information that matches what the torturers were looking for, so that it is plausible that when the prisoner says he has no more that he is telling the truth.

elwell• 13 years ago

I think every episode of "24" has at least one instance of torture.

zavulon• 13 years ago

I wrote a blog post about this back in 2005, when Hostel was coming out. It seems that's right about our fascination with torture on TV has started. While I cringe at my writing from 9 years ago, it seems like things have only gotten worse since then.

With seemingly inevitable theatrical success of 'Hostel' and recent mainstream movies such as 'Passion of the Christ' and 'Sin City' reveling in accurately depicting violence and torture, I started thinking what does that say about our society and what horrors are next in line for the viewers, hungry for more blood and suffering. And then it dawned on me - almost this exact situation was already predicted, in a dystopian 1966 sci-fi story by Robert Silverberg called 'The Pain Peddlers'.
'The Pain Peddlers' depicts a scary, bleak and sarcastic view of the future - in the early 00's, television is king. And what brings most money to TV networks is live surgery. In the story, the main character is a TV producer who got a very promising prospect - an old man suffering from gangrene and a family, too broke to take care of the hospital bill. The old man needs to have his leg amputated, and the family agreed to do it on live TV. It's the producer's job to convince the family to have the amputation without anesthesia - for more money, of course. Nothing brings in the viewers quite like real human agony.
Remembering this story, which I read long time ago, was a very scary experience for me, because... in 1966, when it was written, it was pure fantasy - the notion of something like that actually happening never occurred to Silverberg or his contemporaries. But does it sound that incredible now? With TV viewers getting tired of same-old reality shows and public's growing hunger for violence, how long until a new reality show depicting real surgery appears on, say, HBO? Probably not right away. But I can definitely see something like that happening, not too far away in the future.

mathattack• 13 years ago

I viewed Lethal Weapon as one of the early movies to glorify torture to get what you want out of bad guys. On TV the Shield took it to a much higher level.

maxerickson7• 13 years ago

At least on the Shield the lead characters are pretty morally ambiguous (at best).

mercer• 13 years ago

I felt The Shield dealt with it very well though, especially the developments in the final episodes. We're supposed to hate all the people in the story that torture, and the 'wrong' of empathizing with them is spelled out in the end (in a much better way, I feel, than The Sopranos did).

In fact, I remember being somewhat shocked by Ryan's follow-up, "The Unit", which seemed much more pro-violence and torture (perhaps through some influence of David Mamet).

nickthemagicman2• 13 years ago

I've been noticing television and media getting more and more brutal over the years.

Batman and Robin have transformed from tights wearing guy's saying holy rusted metal to driving military hum-Vs with gatling guns.

The joker has transformed from a goofy prankster makeup wearing guy to a all out sociopath who slices happy faces into people with knives.

pirateking• 13 years ago

I am not sure if I would call Jack Nicholson's Joker a goofy prankster. Well he was, but... he was just a different flavor "all out sociopath" than Ledger's Joker. I say this as a huge fan of both Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight (2008).

I am assuming you must have been talking about the Adam West TV series Joker.

I do observe the same trend as you however in general. I think the rise of of video games has a big role. People can play action movies now. If they are going to be reduced to spectators, the movies need to one up the games on other metrics like storyline and acting (rare), or effects and violence (more common).

jaimebuelta5• 13 years ago

The first appearance of the Joker (Batman #1 1940) was incredibly scary and grim. He's a murderer, killing 3 or 4 people with poison that make them smile, and the general style is quite dark. [1]

Sure, comic books move to a different ground later, and the Joker in particular moved to be more of a harmless clown until the 70s, when "The Joker's five way revenge" (Batman #251 1973) made him back to a scary killer again.

It depends on taste, but to me the idea of someone using a joke cigar that explodes blow away a whole floor is quite brutal. It is brutal because it takes something "funny/harmless" and moves it to actually killing someone. In one comic he throws a cartoon 10 tons weight to someone. And you can see the blood of the crushed guy on the floor. I find that pretty dark. And I think that the contrast of bright colours, smiles and silly jokes while being a mass murderer is what makes the Joker an special character...

[1] http://comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/27306/JOKER_f...

nickthemagicman2• 13 years ago

That's interesting. I guess what I'm noticing is not so much the sinister intentions but the sort of gruesome nature with which it's portrayed these days. The joker has always been a sinister agent of chaos that kills people indiscriminately. But the Heath Ledger joker surgically implanted a bomb inside of a guy. He sliced peoples faces into smiley faces. That's stuff straight out of the movie Saw. The most the Jack Nicholson joker did was squirt poison gas out of the flower on his jacket or explode people. They just die, and that's that, nothing that gruesome.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

Real torture has been policy for over a decade; no one has been prosecuted for it, and the evidence was intentionally and unashamedly destroyed.

Why shouldn't television reflect reality? Torture isn't wrong or illegal anymore in the US.

dded• 13 years ago

Why shouldn't television reflect reality?

Because there's a cycle. TV reflects reality, but it also shapes reality. It shapes us.

the evidence was [...] unashamedly destroyed

And without protest. I believe TV has made our society comfortable with torture, and thus we allow it to happen.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

Because there's a cycle. TV reflects reality, but it also shapes reality. It shapes us.

If you take the cultural studies view that our media is a reflection of our cultural unconscious, rather than a form of corporate speech from power.

And without protest. I believe TV has made our society comfortable with torture, and thus we allow it to happen.

There was a ton of protest, and it didn't matter. It was the subject of hundreds of articles, and congressional questioning, and it didn't matter.

There's an illusion of control here. If you are arrested, and US intelligence agencies feel that you may be a friend of a friend of a Muslim of interest, you may be tortured - largely dependent on whether anyone knows you were arrested, and on what soil you were arrested on.

We allow it to happen because we love it, are indifferent to the suffering of foreigners and minorities, or are afraid of being tortured ourselves. Same reason they allow it to happen in Egypt, Turkmenistan, or anywhere else. Blaming it on TV is like blaming gun violence on video games.

That being said, when something purports to be a depiction of a historical reality, such as in Zero Dark Thirty, it is a travesty - but it's always a travesty when history is rewritten to glorify the powerful.

blah32497• 13 years ago

The very best torture scene I've read or scene was the one in Day of The Jackal - where they torture the legionnaire to divulge the location of the OAS leadership. Putting myself in his shoes, there is no way - no matter the importance of the information - that I wouldn't break.

The main difference between that scene vs. say Babylon 5 or StarTrek is not only the violence (for instance Captain Picard doesn't have electrodes connected to the end of his penis) but the fact the the person being tortured knows for a fact he will be killed after it's all over. There is not psychological game going on: the reason he ultimately divulges information is so that the pain will stop. He wants and begs them to kill him.

I've never seen an equally powerful scene in any movie or book.

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

I can't help recalling Firefly, where (spoilers) only the worst, most sadistic bad guy (Adelai Niska) tortures people[1]. He does so using any method he can, not to get information but just because he loves to do it. It is obviously also a warning to other people not to annoy him, but this is almost a secondary purpose, at best equal with causing immense pain to his enemies.

This is a reasonably accurate depiction of torture, as far as I understand the science of it, and it's one of the few reasons torture might actually be used (i.e. at the orders of a complete psychopath.) - although Mal Reynolds seems unfeasibly good at resisting it (any evidence that this occasionally happens? I'd be interested to hear.)

[1] You can read about the character here: http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Adelai_Niska and you can buy the DVD of the original series here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Firefly-The-Complete-Series-DVD/dp/B... (check out, in similar items, the film Serenity, which rounds off the plotlines from the series nicely.)

maxerickson7• 13 years ago

Mal throws a henchman through an engine. The next guy talks without much bother.

aidenn0• 13 years ago

He was going for compliance to orders, not for information though.

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

Killing people is not the same as torture, and is not serving the same purpose.

The Firefly gang fight and kill all the time, the first episode forces a pacifist (Book) to confront his objections to violence in a nontrivial moral situation. What they don't do routinely as a tactic is torture people.

A better counterexample would be Jayne and the fed: "Damn, and I was gonna get me a ear, too..."

eli_gottlieb5• 13 years ago

Mind, the protagonists kill plenty and kill violently in that series, but they're outlaws. Literary convention allows them to do something morally ambiguous.

squozzer2• 13 years ago

The big lie about torture is that it's actually relevant to the matter under pursuit. The government really doesn't care that much about guilt or innocence, once it decides someone needs removing they go about doing it in the most politically expedient manner available.

memracom2• 13 years ago

The TV channels really should buy more Russian TV series and overdub them. The Russians have made tons of movies about the war with fascist Germany (and its aftermath because it did not really end on VE day) and there was a lot of torture used by both the Soviets and the Nazis. But it was often ineffective in that the victims either died without saying anything or they misled their torturers resulting in serious loss to the enemy who believed the info received from torture. And the folks who had real good info knew that they would be tortured, and when they realized that they were about to be captured, they either committed suicide or shouted to their friends to be shot to death.

In other words, anyone who follows the truth of torture use during a historical conflict will realize that it does not work well.

In fact, what worked better was to trick the person into revealing info. These were often set up as complex double and triple bluffs because the folks in charge knew that their prisoner would try to trick them back and therefore they had to outsmart the prisoner. In one case, the Nazis did a complex bluff where they booked up all the port time at three French ports, and all the rail shipping slots between France and Germany. They had two goals. To get a Soviet spy ring to report back with encoded messages containing the names of the three ports so that they could get a foothold in cracking their cipher, and convincing the English (and Soviets) that an invasion was imminent so that they would waste efforts. In fact the plan was to move additional forces to the Eastern front.

In that case the Soviet spies outfoxed the Germans when they learned that all the trains were empty and therefore did not report the port names in code. And this warned the Soviets of a German push coming up in the next few weeks so they were better prepared.

There are a lot of fascinating stories from the Eastern Front waiting for someone to take the trouble to overdub them in English.

sigzero• 13 years ago

"Are you not entertained!?" - That is what drives it. People need more and more.

Bulkington• 13 years ago

Police beatings have long been a staple of movies, theatre, literature. In reality, police beatings have been a staple of the exercise of authority since Kubrick's representative ape picked up that bone.

Selection bias: There's always been a generational slant, depending on whether revolutionaries or reactionaries were the more popolarly romantic at the time.

Truth: beatings hurt, and lead to more beatings. Pacificism always fails, except in art/fantasy.

Too lazy, depressed to cite the obvious. Wikipedia search quietly on your own.

(To those disappointed in the moral failings, hypocrisy of US, compared to grade-school patriotic version: Like Babe Ruth's boozing, FDR's disability, JFK's infidelity, polite media just didn't discuss certain unpleasantness. Guess what: it still doesn't. That's what worries me. And I'm the least conspiracy-minded malcontent I know.

smokey_the_bear• 13 years ago

Torture has become so common in tv shows it has become difficult for my husband and I to find anything to watch together anymore. The genres we used to both enjoy are so filled with torture that I can't stand to watch them. He is willing to, but doesn't enjoy those scenes. Are there really a lot of people who want to watch prolonged, gritty torture?

Grue3• 13 years ago

Yeah, and videogames cause people to murder. What a load of bullshit.

The Rise and Rise of Television Torture

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