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"24" and torture porn

By Tung Yin

(spoilers for the 5/10/10 episode of "24" . . . .)

Maybe I've become wussified after a relatively benign season 7 and season 8 in regards to torture, but I found Jack Bauer's interrogation of the Russian agent during this week's episode extremely revolting, and my wife was basically averting her eyes during much of it.  

To recap, Jack discovered that a Russian intelligence agent was part of the successful plot to assassinate IRK President Hassan (whom Jack had sworn to protect).  Moreover, this Russian agent Pavel was also the assassin who killed Jack's new lover, Renee Walker.  So it was not hard to predict pain and suffering in Pavel's future, once Jack captured him and sought to determine the identities of his superiors.

What ensued was extremely graphic torture, even by "24" standards.  (In fact, I'm going to describe it, so if you don't have a strong stomach, you may want to skip this paragraph, if not this entire blog entry.)  The detention site was some sort of workroom, so Jack had plenty of tools and building equipment.  Having secured the Russian agent, Jack first used a pair of pliers to grab hold of the suspect's lower belly (which is where Renee was shot), squeezing and then ripping out a chunk of flesh.  When Pavel then boasted that he had indeed killed Jack's "bitch," Jack went a bit nuts and headbutted Pavel, then kept punching him in the face repeatedly until he knocked Pavel unconscious.  That necessitated smelling salts, at which point Jack took out his switchblade and started cutting Pavel's chest.  Pavel continued to claim that he acted alone.  Jack then sprayed some kind of oil on the open wounds, which caused Pavel to scream in agony.  But Pavel still refused to talk.  So Jack lit a blowtorch and told Pavel, "You think you know about pain?  You don't know anything" and proceeded to roast Pavel's belly (and possibly his groin too!).  The burning took place below the TV screen, but there was visible smoke wafting upward.  When that still would not get Pavel to talk, Jack seemed lost . . . .  Then Jack noticed Pavel's cell phone was missing its SIM card, and Jack figured that Pavel must have swallowed it.  You can guess what happened next . . . .  Yes, disembowelment.

Sheesh.  I mean, we've seen Jack torture people before.  Lots of them.  But for me, this was the most disturbing torture scene in "24" history since season 2, when Jack was tortured (to death!) by bad guys.  (That involved tasers, knives, and a soldering iron.)

What made this scene so nasty?  For one thing, Jack really seemed out of control, whereas in past scenes, he's been intense but seemingly in control.  You never got the feeling that Jack enjoyed torturing before, it was just necessary.  Here, though, understandably upset about the murder of his lover, Jack was brutally sadistic.  (Kiefer Sutherland did a great job acting in this scene.)

Also, the stakes seemed quite different.  "24" has thrived on the ticking time bomb scenario, where Jack tortures bad guys to find out where a nuclear bomb is hidden.  In this season, though, it's about unraveling the conspiracy behind an already completed political assassination.  The imminence just isn't there.  That's not to say that torture is necessarily justified in the ticking time bomb scenario; maybe it's not.  But if it's not justified there, it certainly isn't justified here, for what is really retrospective law enforcement.

But as disturbing as this scene was, it made me realize that "24" has never had the courage to live up to its torture porn tendencies.  I suppose much of this is driven by broadcast network standards -- in other words, what Fox thinks it can get away with showing on regular over-the-air TV -- but it has the effect of minimizing the horrible nature of what Jack Bauer does.  What I mean is that Jack does these horrible things to people, but the visual impact of it is blunted, and since we're not the ones being tortured, our empathic sensation is largely limited to hearing the subjects scream in pain.  That's bad, but nowhere near as bad as what it would be if Jack were really as desperate as the scenes suggest.

Consider some notable torture scenes from the years:

Syed Ali (season 2) -- tied down to a chair, beaten in the face, fingers broken (breaks when he thinks Jack has ordered one of his kids murdered, and the other is next)

Marie Warner (season 2) -- denied painkillers after having been shot in the arm while being apprehended

Nina Myers (season 3) -- given neuroinflammatory drugs (not by Jack)

Michael Amador (season 3) -- held down by Jack's partner, palm slashed with knife

Paul Raines (season 4) -- zapped by Jack's homemade taser (electrical wires in power cord ripped from lamp)

Joe Prado (season 4) -- fingers broken

Graham Bauer (season 6) -- plastic bag over face, neuroinflammatory drugs

These are all vicious deeds, but they don't have much visual impact.  The neuroinflammatory drugs, for example, are simply some guy hooking up an IV and then fiddling with some dials, and then the suspect starts yelling in pain.

Now compare those acts to the torture that Jack threatens Walt Cummings with in season 5.  Cummings is the chief of staff who's been conspiring with the terrorists to bring VX gas into the U.S.; when he won't tell Jack where the VX gas is headed, Jack -- in front of the President, no less -- knocks Cummings down, gets him in a chokehold, and then pulls out a knife, threatening to gouge out Cummings' eyes if he won't talk.  Cummings quickly talks -- as would I!

Now, eye gouging is really nasty stuff, and it would have ghastly visual impact if Jack went through with it.  This is what I mean by saying the torture that he has inflicted doesn't have visual impact.  We see him do it, and then when he's done, the imagery recedes, because at most, there's a bloody nose and/or face, and most of us have seen something like that.  But eyes gouged out?!? Yikes!

Yet, if Jack is desperate enough to be using a blowtorch on someone (ugh), why wouldn't he be willing to threaten the eye gouging again?  He even had his switchblade handy!

I think the answer is that it would be too revolting to show on TV.  And while I'm glad that I wasn't revolted anymore than I already was, in a way, I feel like the show is taking an easy way out.  Jack Bauer does monstrous things, but he's not a monster (though it was pretty close the other night), even though maybe in his circumstances, he really should be.

For those interested in more on "24" and torture, I discuss this in more detail in the first part of this article: Jack Bauer Syndrome: Hollywood's Depiction of National Security.  (And as an added bonus, I have a new essay posted that looks at how Hollywood has depicted Arabs, Muslims, and Arab-Americans in terrorism movies and TV shows, both pre- and post-9/11: Through a Screen Darkly: Hollywood as a Measure of Discrimination Against Arabs and Muslims.)

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on May 12, 2010 (boomark / email).