Rick Deckard: Man or Machine?

Fans of Blade Runner have debated the human/synthetic identity of bounty hunter Rick Deckard for years. In some circles, the debate encompasses the novel on which the film is based, Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In Ridley Scott’s 1982 cinematic adaptation, Deckard is a hard-drinking bachelor whose mind seems influenced by his superiors in the L.A.P.D. This is made more evident in the 1992 Director’s Cut and 2007 Final Cut. Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, dreams of unicorns similar to the origami shapes crafted by his partner Inspector Gaff. These scenes combine with cryptic dialogue, like Gaff’s statement at the end of the film that Deckard ‘has done a man’s job,’ to suggest Deckard is synthetic. In various interviews, Scott has stated Deckard is, as per the lingo of the film, a replicant (android in the novel), albeit an unknowing one. Unfortunately, the film’s twist has over-shadowed Philip K. Dick’s one-hundred-percent human protagonist.

            In the 21^st century world, androids are physically identical to humans. Although similar models can be made, as Deckard discovers with the Rachael Rosen/Pris Stratton model, facial features and overall atheistic can be altered to change an android’s entire appearance. Even Deckard, a hardened bounty hunter, finds it hard to see the difference. His encounters with Rachel make him aware of how difficult it is to distinguish between man and machine.

            As realistic as androids appear, they lack one human quality: empathy. The Voigt Empathy Test ultimately decides who/what is human. This test registers reaction times to questions of 21^st century ethics. While androids can pick up these norms and adapt to the environment, their reaction times to these questions are slow. Their inability to express sympathy for other life forms gives them away. As Deckard puts it, “Empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found throughout every phylum and order.”

Deckard has passed the Voigt Test. Medical checkups confirm he’s a man “who could reproduce within the tolerances set by law.” During Luba Luft’s interrogation, she asks Deckard to test himself. He tells her the police department tested him long ago. She persists, saying they gave him false memories. Phil Relsch, a fellow bounty hunter, tests Deckard to prove that he’s human. Deckard passes.

Yet, what complex human emotions does Deckard display that set him apart from his mechanical quarry?

            First, Deckard feels remorse for the androids he hunts, unlike his prey, who are solely concerned with their own survival. Though empathetic, Deckard is selfish, greedy, confused, and ponderous. Although he performs his joyless job as a bounty hunter with precision, he does not believe in the value of his work. For him, it serves only to fulfill monetary needs. Greed for wealth and prestige is a purely human emotion. If Deckard were an android he would not care about these things. To androids, money is just means of self-preservation (very human, too, you could say).

            In the novel, Deckard wants to replace his electrical sheep with a live one. “He thought, too, about his need for a real animal; within him an actual hatred once more manifested itself toward his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived” (Dick 42). Deckard dislikes his sheep because it has no capacity to love him. He looks for reciprocity, a relationship. Androids, however, are apathetic toward life. This is exemplified at the novel’s end in John Isidore’s apartment where Pris Stratton nonchalantly tears the legs off a spider to the horror of Isidore. The questions that trip up Rachael during Deckard’s administration of the Voigt Empathy Test are ones directed to the care of animal life. A final example of Deckard’s empathy for animals is his sense of wonder when he picks up a toad and his disappointment when he discovers it is a robot.

            Other factors contribute to Deckard’s humanity: his concern for his wife, use of “mood organs,” and sexual attraction to Rachel. Deckard discusses sexual relations with androids with Phil Relsch and is disgusted when Relsch claims he’s used them for physical gratification. “It’s just sex. Wake up and face yourself, Deckard. You wanted to go to bed with a female type android—nothing more, nothing less. Don’t let it get you down.” Deckard tries to justify his feelings for Rachael as being grounded in actual love. He foolishly tells her, “If you weren’t an android, if I could legally marry you, I would.” Rachael, however, takes no joy in their coupling. She simply has sex with him to save the other androids. When Deckard finds out she has also slept with Phil Relsch, he’s jealous. These emotions—lust, love, anger—are emotions androids cannot experience.

            Or can they? 

To be or not to be...human?

This question encompasses the central question of Deckard’s 21^st century existence, “Am I human? Or am I programmed to believe I am human?” Although empathy may only be a human characteristic, why does the android Roy Batty cry when his wife is shot? Why is Rachael so hateful when she finds out she is an android? Why does Pris Stratton tear the legs off a spider but spare Isidore? Can empathy be developed (current studies point to yes)? If so, in experiencing human life, can androids become human?

The important thing is Blade Runner takes a minor plot device from the novel, the ability to implant false memories, and alters Deckard’s humanity. Philip K. Dick’s Rick Deckard is definitely human. And that’s Dick’s intent—who is the android? the unfeeling human who already possesses empathy by his very nature? or the “cold” machine who nevertheless strives to identify with the thoughts and feelings of other sentient beings?

Big, Bad Muslims: Part Three—24: Season Six

Bus bombing--morning commutes in L.A. are dangerous.

The action begins at 6am. Islamic terrorist groups have ‘victimized’ the United States for eleven weeks. At a Los Angeles bus station, a Middle Eastern man, late for work and distracted by news broadcasts of the latest bombing, chases a bus. The driver refuses to let him on, prompting the man to shout, “I have as much right to be on the bus as you!” Inside the bus, a wild-eyed man fingers an electronic device and the bus explodes.

            Minutes later in the White House Oval Office, President Wayne Palmer meets with his cabinet to dismiss a mandate created by Tom Lennox, his Chief of Staff, which would allow the government to hold Muslims in detention centers for questioning and possible deportation. Lennox says it will increase public safety and reclaim lost faith in the administration. Karen Hayes, the National Security Advisor, endorses the President’s refusal, stating it would destroy civil freedoms, to which Lennox growls, “Security has its price!”

Tom Lennox: this season's perpetual asshole.

            Meanwhile, CTU (Bauer’s Counter-Terrorism Unit) completes a shady deal. Abu Fayed, former partner of Hamri Al-Assad, the notorious Muslim terrorist, will give up Assad’s location if he can kill Jack Bauer and have 25 million dollars. Bauer, who killed Fayed’s brother, has been in a Chinese prison for the last two years, the twist on which season five ended. President Palmer, at his wits end with the attacks, agrees. CTU facilitates the deal with its newest employee, Muslim Nadia Yassir, who acts as translator between Fayed and CTU director Bill Buchanan.

Jack's Jesus phase.

            In another part of Los Angeles, a suburban family watches the morning news. A Culver City mosque has been bombed in retaliation for the bus bombing earlier that hour. Ray, the father, debates with his wife whether they should let their son, Scott, go to school.

Across the street, the FBI arrests Ahmed Amar’s father on suspicion of domestic terrorism. Stan, a neighborhood tough guy, intimidates Ahmed after the FBI leaves. Knowing Ahmed is his son’s best friend, Ray chases away Stan and offers Ahmed his home as shelter until his father returns.

Ray: father of a skater boy son, protector of neighborhood Muslims.

            24’s first stumbling block is Ahmed Amar, played by Kal Penn, the noted young Indian actor (yes, Kumar), and former member of the Obama administration. Popular for his stoner movie roles, his ethnicity is well known, and one cannot help laughing when he appears on screen. To be cast as a Middle Eastern teenage terrorist, Penn admitted in New York Magazine:

I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting

a form of racial profiling…it’s repulsive. But it was the first time I had a

chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn’t

I have that opportunity? Because I’m brown and I should be scared about the

connection between media images and people’s thought processes? (Yuan)

Obviously, in accepting the role, Penn did not share the concerns of The Council on American-Islamic Relations. In Ahmed’s character, Muslims, even the quiet ones across the street, cannot be trusted.

At 7am, Abu Fayed reveals to Jack Bauer that he, not Hamri Al-Assad, is behind the attacks. Soon, Fayed calls Ahmed and asks him to deliver a package. Ahmed tells Fayed of his father’s arrest. Fayed replies, “If your father is meant to be sacrificed that is how it will be.” Ahmed nods. Of course, the slaughter of ‘infidels’ is more important than family.

Abu Fayed, this season Big Bad, chats with Kumar....I mean Ahmed.

Fayed continues, “I could have chosen other people. I chose you.” Not only does Fayed think Ahmed specially suited for the job, but he tells him he will kill him should he fail. Forget the idea that Muslims don’t kill Muslims and Arabs don’t kill Arabs.

The show reveals Ahmed’s motivations as ‘Arab Rage.’ “The roots of so-called ‘Arab Rage’ lie not in some purported cultural or religious peculiarity of the Arabs, but in the adherence by peoples of the Arab world to the universal claims of justice and equality which the rest of the world has propagated these two centuries past” (Halliday 22). None of 24’s Americans possess this deep-seeded anger (unless you count the depictions of “others” on this show).

After the phone call with Fayed, Ahmed tells Scott—remember, his neighborhood pal—he must leave. Scott says he is sorry about his father and that “the whole world’s gone crazy.”

Ahmed hisses, “The world’s been crazy for a long time. You just haven’t been paying attention.” He hurries home and tears apart the living room wall with a claw hammer (this begs the question: how did Ahmed’s father not know his son hid something behind the drywall?). As he removes a small box from between the wall studs, Stan, the neighborhood bully, bursts into his home. Ahmed pulls a gun and shoots Stan.

From that point on, Ahmed becomes a volatile, wild-eyed madman.

Hearing the shot, Scott rushes into Ahmed’s house, sees Stan’s body, and Ahmed takes him hostage. Marching him back across the street, Scott asks him why he is doing this; they’re best friends.

“Friends?!” Ahmed shouts. “You can’t even pronounce my name. It’s not Ahmed. It’s AH-Med!”

First, Penn’s overacting is hilarious. Second, Ahmed will kill friends and innocents because they mispronounce his name? Oh, yeah, the irrational Arab!

"Go ahead! Call me 'Ahmed' again!"

            Taking Scott’s family hostage, Ahmed demands Ray, the father, deliver the box to his contact in exchange for another package or else he will shoot his wife and son. Ray, with wonder in his eyes, says to Ahmed, “You were a terrorist all along.” Well, yeah! He’s Muslim!

Ray complies with Ahmed and delivers the box to Ahmed’s contact. The man opens it, says there is not enough money inside, and demandss higher payment. Ray, in a fit of rage and fear, kills the man and takes the package. This scene exemplifies a thread throughout this season: contact with Muslims will inevitably cause rational Americans to lose their senses and harm not only themselves, but each other.

"I'm sorry," says Ray. "A Muslim made me do it!"

            Ray, with the package, demands Ahmed release his family or he will destroy whatever is inside it. Ahmed compromises, and releases the mother. She flees the house, calls Ray, and they decide to call the police, who then call CTU. Soon, fresh from escaping Fayed’s men, Jack Bauer and his partner Curtis Manning are on their way.

            As promised, Ray delivers the package to Fayed (the big bad terrorist) and is soon taken hostage. Fayed calls Ahmed and orders Scott’s death: “He’s seen and heard too much.”

Make your own caption, I guess.

Meanwhile, outside, Jack and Curtis sneak upon Scott and Ahmed. Just as Ahmed is ready kill Scott, Jack bursts in and shoots him. Scott tells Jack of the conversation he overheard between Ahmed and Ray about where his father took the package, but it is too late. The package, a detonator to a nuclear bomb, is used to explode the device. Ray is killed in the blast, leaving a kind, American family fractured by Muslim intrusion.

In Part 4, I’ll continue my dissection of season six’s other Muslim characters.

An actual affecting moment in the show--Fayed bombs Los Angeles.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Social Warfare in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws?

Enough has been written about Jaws’ narrative tightness, excellent acting, and technical prowess. Really, what more needs to be said? Spielberg’s shark tale is the 1975masterpiece that spring boarded him into our cultural spotlight as possibly the greatest director of all time and set the standard by which all blockbuster films should be compared. It’s essentially a man vs. nature film. A great white shark brings physical and economic carnage to the town of Amity, so three men must battle it mano-a-mano in chilly Atlantic waters. It’s a simple film, but when I recently rewatched it, I couldn’t help but find deeper social commentary.

            WARNING: SPOLER ALERT.

            WARNING: I am reading far too much into this.

  I’ve always found Jaws’ second half more interesting than its first. Don’t get me wrong, the first half is terrifying (the fleeting brutality of the Kitner boy’s death is probably what scares me most). Yet, the second half provides three rich characters (Brody, Hooper, Quint), each possessing internal demons, and the shark the catalyst for metaphorical confrontation.

AGAIN—I’m reading too far much into this.

            Okay, first we have Matt Hooper, the excitable shark scientist. From the town’s point of view, he’s an outsider, a rich boy, an aspect the film hammers home repeatedly. As Hooper says, he has money on top of his family’s money. Hell, look at his freakin’ boat! All that gadgetry!

Matt Hooper. Rich. Intelligent. Bearded.

            Anyway, during the film’s second half, Quint takes a special disliking to Hooper because he’s rich. When examining him to see if Hooper can work on his boat to catch this shark, he tells him he has city hands, that he’s “been counting money all his life.” Hooper immediately cries, “I don’t need this working class hero crap!” The scene is played wonderfully by Dreyfuss and Shaw.

            Quint and Hooper’s animosity only continues on the boat. Quint makes fun of Hooper’s shark cage and other expensive items he brings aboard the Orca. “Don’t know what he’ll do with it,” says Quint in reference to the shark. “Might eat it, I suppose.” On the boat, Quint constantly criticizes Hooper, from how he ties off lines and barrels to his steering of the ship. Quint to Hooper: “Don’t tell me my business.”They do have a night of bonding, the famous “Show Me the Way to Go Home” scene, but quarrel for the rest of the movie.

            Finally, when Quint’s methods for killing the shark fail, the three men agree to lower Hooper into the water in his shark cage to jab the fish with a poisonous needle. As Hooper is lowered, I can’t tell whether he earns begrudging respect from Quint or if the captain can’t wait for him to become shark food. Of course, the shark proves too much, breaking through the cage, causing Hooper to drop the needle. He escapes to hide behind a rock near the seabed, leaving Chief Brody and Quint at the shark’s mercy.

            For Hooper, the shark represents his own discomfort with his class standing, the constant reminder that his money makes him different than others and produces overwhelming hostility. In the end, he will always be running from this fear.

Da Chief.

            Next, we have Chief Brody, the middle-class hero of the group. He owns a nice house in a nice section of town. He has a nice truck, nice clothes. He’s average in all possible ways. In town, he’s an outsider because he hasn’t been born on the island, yet everyone treats him with respect because he is chief. He’s humble, self-deprecating, and reliable.

His wife jokes several times how scared Brody is of water. He never swims, just stays on the beach. She says he even sits in the car on the island ferry. For him, the shark not only represents this fear, but also his fatherly duty to his wife and kids. He has to confront the shark on open water to protect his family.

After it destroys Hooper’s cage and kills Quint, Brody is left on the sinking Orca with only a rifle and a few bullets. In the famous ending, he tosses a SCUBA tank in the shark’s maw, lets it circle toward him, and shoots the tank, blowing up the shark. Earlier in the film, he’d seen a picture of a shark in a textbook with a similar tank in his mouth. If he hadn’t had both the guts to get on Quint’s boat and the impetus to have studied sharks beforehand, he wouldn’t have been able to kill it. Brody must be pushed out of his comfortable middle-class existence to confront what these comforts have caused him to lose—primal-survivalist struggle with Mother Nature.  

"Smile you..."

Finally, we have Quint, whose story is undoubtedly the saddest and most disturbing. He’s a fisherman, a working class hero as Hooper puts it. He’s also crazy, made evident as he smashes the sinking Orca’s radio and their last chance to get outside help. In the “Show Me the Way to Go Home” scene, Quint explains he served in WW2 on the USS Indianapolis, the aircraft carrier that delivered the A-bomb. The ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo and the survivors attacked for days by sharks. Many were eaten alive.

This is not the face of a sane man.

Quint swears he’ll “never wear a life jacket again,” preferring to rely on his know-how/intuition. Thus why he dislikes Hooper’s expensive tools and prefers to kill the shark “old school.” As the film progresses, he becomes more like Ahab, seeking revenge against the great white for the killing of his mates and the emotional destruction such an experience has cost him.

Ironically, Quint is killed by Hooper. Yes, the shark jumps onto the boat and Quint slides into its mouth. Brody tries to catch him, but Quint slips through his fingers. Quint does grab the edge of a table, but one of Hooper’s SCUBA tanks rolls over his fingers, causing him to jerk in pain, lose grip, and slide to his demise. So, yes, the shark kills him. But Hooper’s tanks give him that unfortunate push. Quint is then consumed by his painful past, the demons that have followed him all his life and now manifest in the shark itself. Really, this is the only logical end for Quint. What, was he gonna go to therapy? Get over the whole shark thing? No. No life jackets, remember?

Another picture of Quint. Never a bad thing.

So, what is the film trying to say?

Is Hooper—the rich boy—doomed to run from his money all his life?

In Brody, does the middle-class policeman provide the means for heroism?

Does Quint represent the working man, who provides the bulk of the hard work, yet is doomed to be rolled over by the rich and consumed by his spot in the socioeconomic structure?

In a movie about a killer shark, I don’t know if it is posing any of these questions.

But I find myself asking them just the same.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part Two—24: Season Six

The show's most uber-patriotic DVD cover.

If Jack Bauer represents American ‘values’, then 24’s villains reflect his global ‘others’.

In season one, Serb warlords try to kill the first African-American presidential candidate. Season two sees Middle Eastern terrorists financed by American oilmen attempt to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Mexican cartels and a vengeful Mi-6 agent spread a lethal virus in southern California during season three. Terrorist group Crimson Jihad (what a name—ooohhh, like blood!) kidnap the Secretary of Defense, rupture a nuclear power plant, shoot down Air Force One, and almost destroy Los Angeles with a nuclear missile in season four (damn, those guys had a plan).

In these seasons, 24’s villains were less of a vehicle for pushing politics and more focused on providing Jack Bauer strong antagonists. Playing it safe like this was a strength and weakness. Yet that changed in season five.

            Season five (2006), 24’s best, had Russian, British, and American terrorists take hostages, release nerve gas, and attempt to kill the Russian presidential family. All were violent, greedy, and blinded by anti-American ideologies. That is, until the season’s big twist. The true villain behind the attacks was the President of the USA, who believed provoking war between Russian dissidents and its military would gain America Asian oil interests.

24, once a simple thriller, moved into the realm of political commentary and succeeded wonderfully. Although it rightly condemned its villains, each was allowed to speak, to touch the deeper issue at hand. Here, 24 questioned the Bush administration at the height of the Iraq War and did so not in black-and-white terms, but in prevalent grey. It made a continual thematic point to state even hardliner patriotism can be treason. Flawed, human, characters and sharp, economic writing elevated the season to critical acclaim. It won Best Drama Series and Best Actor at the 2006 Emmys.

President Charles Logan: Yes, this dude's an asshole.

In 2007, the stakes were incredibly high for its sixth season. 24’s producers, buoyed by the response to season five’s weighty matters, decided to tackle a delicate subject: Muslim extremists operating in America. The stakes were high, but the slope was too steep.

            Obviously, 24 used Muslim terrorists in seasons two and four. The difference between those seasons and season six are paramount to condemning season six’s depictions. In season two, the terrorists worked for American oilmen for profit, not for ideological gain. They had no real political purpose, only greed, grounding their actions in a universal temptation the American viewer could accept as applying to everyone. In season four, Crimson Jihad, led by Habib Marwan (an excellent Arnold Vosloo), proclaimed the exact purpose for their attacks in a homemade video:

People of America, you wake up today to a different world. One of your own

nuclear weapons has been used against you. It will be days and weeks before

you can measure the damage we have caused. But as you count your dead,

remember why this has happened to you. You have no knowledge for the causes

of the people you strike down or the nations you conquer. You choose to meddle

in their affairs, without respect. You follow your government, unquestioningly,

toward your own slaughter. Today, you pay the price for that ignorance...Unless

you renounce your policies of imperialism and interventionist activities, this attack

will be followed by another...and another after that.

Crimson Jihad criticized the Bush regime’s foreign policy. Marwan, intelligent and well spoken, killed only when necessary, and Vosloo, so charismatic in the role, captivated the screen. Although Marwan was evil, he was not a Muslim stereotype. His religion, like the terrorists in season two, was moot. His motivations were purely political, and for much of the season, largely ignored.

Nevertheless, when his character emerged, The Council on American-Islamic Relations cautioned the show on how it portrayed Muslims. In a BBC News statement, the CAIR said: “Repeated association of acts of terrorism with Islam will only serve to increase anti-Muslim prejudice.” Kiefer Sutherland appeared before 24’s next episode with this announcement:

Hi. My name is Kiefer Sutherland and I play counterterrorist agent Jack

Bauer on Fox’s ‘24.’ I would like to take a moment to talk to you about

something that I think is very important. Now, while terrorism is obviously

one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it is

important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly

beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism.

So in watching ‘24,’ please bear that in mind. 

Yes, a nice sentiment, maybe weightless, maybe forced. Still, such intention was lost on the creative team behind the show’s sixth season. Religion—evil, evil Islam—is the only motivation of its Muslim villains.

24: Season Six has, coincidentally, six major Muslim characters. All become mired by Middle Eastern/Muslim myths. As discussed by Edward Said in his seminal work, Orientalism, the roots of Islam’s clash with the West was caused by its misconception and demonization by Western powers. Robert Irwin summarizes Orientalism as the “discourse of imperialism…[one] that constraints everything that can be written and thought in the West about the Orient and more particularly about Islam and the Arabs…The West possesses a monopoly over how the Orient may be represented…[carrying] implications about Western superiority” (3). Bernard Lewis, in From Babel to Dragomans, states “[The West is] accused of distortion, not just distortion of this or that individual theme, but a systematic, deliberate distortion conducted as a profession or, more precisely, as a conspiracy” (437). I don’t buy the conspiracy part of Lewis’ assessment, but feel rather that now ignorance has fallen over our views of the Middle East. When it comes to artistically depicting the region and its people in accurate (ie: multi-faceted) light, unfortunately we often find laziness and a reliance on outdated archetypes. 24’s Muslim depictions in season six explicitly exist in Orientalist branding. Specifically, the show depicts a ‘backward’ behavior considered abnormal to the West which inhabits these strange ‘others’ Jack Bauer must defeat.

Return for Part 3, where I’ll begin to analyze season six as it unfolds.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Misinterpretations, Idolatry, and Anti-Manichaeism in O’Connor’s Fiction

When I first read Flannery O’Connor, I thought she was lampooning Southern idiocy, the kind of evangelical buffoonery and racism that’s become a cheap joke. Then I read Mystery & Manners, and thought she was a Christian nut job mashing together the Old Testament God with the New Testament Christ to give her characters and readers some much needed tough love. I believed this lessened the importance and impact of her fiction.

            Oh, how wrong I was.

            Upon further investigation, I realize the problem was my agnosticism as a modern reader. I’d misinterpreted her work at every level. It wasn’t just the generation gap between O’Connor’s redemptive themes and our own cultural mores, but the complex structure of her fiction. And I was no doubt influenced by my flirtation with the New Atheists. Remember, New Atheists: religion = bad. Boogey-boogey-boogey.

Anyway, O’Connor’s use of imagery, vocabulary, and symbols that contain negative cultural connotations only enables further misinterpretation. She cleverly employs this technique, and therefore her true intentions may go unnoticed since her salvational concerns for her characters must find harsh conflict in the worlds they inhabit, ones that lack the Christian values of love, hope, and charity. Of course, this is O’Connor’s theological concern—the world of her characters is our own (har-har).

            In “Revelation”, for example, from her second collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, Ruby Turpin’s excessive judgments in the doctor’s office about Mary Grace seem to suggest Turpin’s fervent Christianity is the cause of this pervasive “othering.” O’Connor’s biting prose reads as if Grace is justified when she tells Turpin, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” This makes sense as modern audiences tend to see Christians as rabidly judgmental, more concerned with our salvation than their own sins. Of course, this is the modern media stereotype. Westboro Baptist Church = all Christians. You get the idea.

Yet, in Turpin O’Connor examines the horror of human complacency. Turpin is so satisfied in her own beliefs she’s blind to her lack of character and in turn, of true Christian understanding. In the end, standing amongst her hogs, raging at God before the setting sun in a very Job-like scene, Turpin realizes her pettiness. The ignorance that follows complacency has almost ruined her life. Only by defeating her pride and her desire to possess “all the answers” without participating in the continual wheel of confusion/wisdom, does she find redemption.

I guess you’d call it God’s grace.

Many have called O’Connor’s work “good Catholic fiction,” a charge that at first seems ludicrous. Stories about murderers, pedophiles, and mouthy, fat Southern ladies? Really?!

Well, what’s considered good Catholic fiction by the Vatican isn’t necessarily considered such by O’Connor. After all, she often said the Church needs reform. This raises the question, “What is a good Catholic?”

First, let’s understand O’Connor’s vile characters are actually “prophets” in her work. A prophet in literature doesn’t have to stroll into town proclaiming the Good Word. No, he or she only has to proclaim O’Connor’s gospel. Catholic guilt aside, the importance of being Catholic, and thus a “good Catholic,” is to realize you will never have all the answers. In this way, you are imperfect (the Church and Pope’s infallibility is whole other can o’ worms). You’re human, and must recognize this in its totality. You are not a god, but a small cog in a vast, complex machine.

Why would you think you have all the answers?

Well, pride, and fear.

This sweet face writes about murderers.

            For O’Connor, any ideology that blinds one to the realities of the world is pagan worship. In thinking one is always right, one can’t see how often one is wrong. By worshipping one’s ideology, one is worshiping oneself, and putting his or her worth before God’s.

This often results in violent, disturbing, or blackly comic climaxes in O’Connor’s fiction. These “negative” denouements are essential—they’re a form of iconoclasm, the breaking of the individual’s psychological and spiritual idols. To understand this further, you must realize O’Connor’s favoritism of St. Thomas Aquinas’ critique of Manichaeism.

Manichaeism, developed in the third century, took God’s second commandment to heart: it deplored graven images. God is neither a man nor a physical being, and cannot be artistically depicted. St. Thomas Aquinas viciously opposed Manichaeism. While he agreed God is a spirit, and to worship images is sinful, he thought that just because someone renders an image of God doesn’t mean that person believes the image contains God. To Aquinas, Manichaeism concerned itself too much with materiality and failed to see the glory of the Divine picture, human dignity, and love. 

For O’Connor, “Parker’s Back” illustrates this. Parker, in an attempt to win the favor of his wife, Sarah, gets a Byzantine tattoo of Jesus Christ on his back. Although he acts as if he could care less about the fanatically religious Sarah, he actually wants her to see him as her lover, husband, and friend. He knows the tattoo is just a tattoo. Yet, when he shows it to Sarah, she condemns it. “He don’t look,” she says. “He’s a spirit. No man shall see his face.” Not only is Sarah’s conception of God problematic (if He is a spirit, how does he have a face?), she’s blinded by pride. Like Ruby Tuprin, she only sees the world through her disapproval of others. She cannot understand the difference between a picture of God and the Divine Mystery, of which she is part, and therefore cannot truly see her husband, understand his love, or even herself.

Much if not all of O’Connor’s work can be seen as a battle between self-idolatry and true spiritual insight. Modern readers may misunderstand her purpose because of their inability to separate her intentions from her religious affiliation. She has no traditional “Catholic agenda” or ideological mission. By creating characters so convinced their doctrine is infallible, you’d think O’Connor is saying that their dogma is anything but. However, her point is that the human mind and all the wrathful deities within is where real fallibility lies. This type of stubbornness (ie, the fear of realizing this fallibility) must be broken. She smashes it with truth and irony.

Or if you’d like, God’s grace.

Big, Bad Muslims: Part One—24: Season Six

James Bond. Jason Bourne. Jack Bauer. Contemporary film and television’s top spies epitomize Anglo-physical perfection: blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, toned bodies. 24’s Jack Bauer, however, is the ideological anomaly. While Bond battles international megalomaniacs and Bourne defends himself from his country’s own agents, Jack Bauer remains quintessentially hawkish. Unlike Bond, he’s unconcerned with sex or witticisms (he tells the women in his life ‘I’ll be right there’ before running off to fight terrorists and smiles maybe once per season). Unlike Bourne, he’s unapologetic in his use of violence (when he decides to hack off his daughter’s lover’s hand to defuse a bomb in season three, he doesn’t even blink). Unlike both Bond and Bourne, he often sacrifices friends, family, and coworkers for the American good (like killing his boss to stop the spread of a lethal virus). Truly, Bauer embodies post-9/11 neoconservativism: a strong America assured of itself and uncorrupted in its ‘values’. Always, Bauer battles the ‘other’, a seditious force intent on taking American lives and civil liberties. In characterizing the villains of its sixth season, the show exploits the fear of Muslim terrorists operating freely on American soil. 24 could be accused of simply embodying the Bush administration’s homeland agenda but for its reliance on Orientalist stereotypes uses harmful parody to color its Muslim characters.

To understand 24’s conservative agenda, one must grasp its hero. In a 2005 USA Today interview, the show’s producer, Howard Gordon, said Jack Bauer “taps into the public’s ‘fear-based wish fulfillment’ of having protectors…who will do whatever is necessary to save society from harm.” This usually involves torture. “‘[Bauer] is a tragic character. He doesn't get away with it clean. He’s got blood on his hands,’ Gordon says. ‘In some ways, he is a necessary evil’” (Bauder). Calling him an anti-hero undermines Jack’s political importance in the fear-mongering Bush-era in which he was born. “The disturbing appeal of Jack the Torturer reflects a wounded and frightened national psyche, a desire to lash out at those responsible for 9/11, and the frustration of a superpower unable to defeat a ragged band of terrorists” (McCormick 17). Bauer’s dramatic core, however, is similar to the Hollywood cowboys of Wayne and Eastwood. Though a government agent, Jack distrusts politicians and bureaucracy, and operates by his own moral code. Yet, after saving the day, he most always returns to government service.

"Hey, brother. Long time no see" - Jack's brother discovers family reunions aren't what they used to be.

In post Abu-Ghraib America, 24 takes great strides to prove that for whatever diplomatic laws Jack breaks, he suffers for in his personal life. Through eight seasons and a TV movie, Bauer loses a wife, coworkers, friends, and estranges his only daughter. His politics, however, remain 24’s driving force. Jim McDermott humorously dissects Jack Bauer in America. “Yes, he tortures prisoners and shoots co-workers in the head, but he’s not a bad person. He’s just caught in a bad situation” (23). Still, the show enforces his rationale: his ends justify his means. “[Jack] demonstrates what few may care to admit: in the war on terror, the conservative movement has become willing to sacrifice principle to passion and difficult moral reasoning to utility” (Dougherty 9). Jack Bauer is not “America”. He does, however, represent values 24 believes sacred, ones entrenched in American lore: self-sacrifice, results before diplomacy, and an unbending “sense” of right and wrong opposed by those too weak to do what is “right”.

In season six, 24 cherry-picks this sense of right and wrong with abandon. A New York Times column “compared 24’s focus on domestic terror threats to the Bush administration’s focus on Iraq” (Bauder). Whether Jack Bauer is a sadistic sinner or patriotic saint, in the 24 world America is unique, and its villains need to clearly wear the black hat or else its sense of right and wrong might be complicated by nagging realism.

In Part 2, I’ll examine the villains in previous seasons of 24 and how they adhere to us vs. them U.S. geo-political archetypes.

Bibliography

“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24. Fox, 2005, 2007.

“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.

Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38. 

Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real Life.” USA Today. 11 February 2007.

Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer Do?" American Conservative 6.5

(2007): 8-10. 

Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.

Halliday, Fred. 100 Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,

2005.

Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook

Press, 2006.

Lewis, Bernard. From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004.

McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S. Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17. 

McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.

Rossi, Melissa. What Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume

Books, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.

Oliver Stone Speaks at Kent State University

Two weeks ago was the 43^rd anniversary of the May 4^th Kent State shootings. To celebrate, the university opened the May 4^th Visitor's Center, an interactive multimedia museum in Taylor Hall, and Friday night had PBS’ Gwen Ifill host a discussion panel about the shootings’ significance in local and national history. Events continued throughout the weekend, one of which my wife and I were fortunate enough to attend Saturday night in Cartwright Hall. Academy-award winning writer/director Oliver Stone spoke to an auditorium of five-hundred students, faculty, staff, and local residents about the importance of the shootings and his use of history in his films. It was an interesting evening, one that got me, my wife, and students talking.

            The KSU shootings took place during an on-campus student protest of Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. What happened next is well-known: riots and looting of businesses on Friday May 1^st and the arson of the ROTC building on Saturday the 2^nd. Eventually, the Ohio National Guard killed four students and wounded nine others. Two of the dead were merely hurrying to class. One was an ROTC member. The shootings led to protests throughout the country and the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the dead Jeffery Miller is forever engrained in our cultural memory. Prior to the shootings, Nixon called the protestors “bums,” to which Allison Krause’s father famously retorted, “My daughter was not a bum.” Neil Young would pen “Ohio” about the massacre, and the KSU shootings provide a key sequence in Oliver Stone’s 1995 bio-drama Nixon. 

Talking to community members about the shootings will invariably give you different opinions. No one says the students “deserved it.” It was a tragedy, but many feel slighted that the protests overshadow the destruction caused to the community during that week, most of which was committed by student activist groups from around the country. Considering the Justice Department’s dismissal of a 30-year old audio-recording that purports to show the ONG’s order to shoot was based on gunfire manufactured by an on-campus FBI informant, we may never know what really happened.

Still, four kids died.

That was Oliver Stone’s point throughout the evening. What led to their deaths? How have we moved on? What did those kids die for?

Stone maintained they died in the social-civil war between “those who asked questions” and Nixon’s “moral majority.” He emphasized that he was born into an Eisenhower-Republican household and enlisted in Vietnam because he felt it was his duty to fight communists. He was told all his life by the educational and political machine they were our enemy and threatened our way of life. If you’ve seen Platoon or for that matter any of Stone’s work, you know that war changed his ideology. Even after the KSU shootings, Nixon won a landslide election in 1972. Stone said those numbers show that Nixon could lay claim to the majority, as “immoral as they might have been.” The importance of the students’ deaths was that they died during a time when our country fought among ourselves ideologically.

Who won? Well, the military industrial complex is stronger than ever, and we have more influence and control abroad. Who do you think?

Stone made sure to point out how history changes depending on whom guides cultural memory. Ronald Reagan knew that the first Gulf War might erase the soured-impact of Vietnam, and that with a new enemy to fight, the old grudges would be laid to rest. The cultural fears after 9/11 and initial enthusiasm for the Iraq War only enabled media and government agencies to propagate American exceptionalism and imperialist policies. Stone cited recent polls that show 51% of American young people feel the Vietnam War was justified. This flabbergasted him, and was one of the reasons he co-wrote and produced the Showtime documentary series The Untold History of the United States. He was appalled by what his kids were taught in schools, and hopes to change it.

During his one-on-one discussion with a JMC professor (I forget the guy’s name, oops) Stone did not want to rhapsodize about his movies. He doubts his films have made any real cultural impact. When asked which of his films he likes best, he replied he can’t pick a favorite. Each is one of his babies. Stone spoke of media bias at length, ripped Time Magazine and Walter Cronkite, and made it known Obama has continued the policies of Bush, Jr., albeit with different rhetoric. He said in his travels it has been enlightening to see how America is viewed abroad and encouraged students to get on the internet and learn to find out what foreign and domestic policies are actually doing, and to combat disinformation. “We’re dealing with some real scum,” he said, which got cheers and giggles from the crowd. He finished by repeating that the KSU shootings should always be commemorated by this campus so that we—maybe I’m going too Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with this—teach our children well. If not, then the immoral majority will have won, and those kids will have died for nothing.

After the talk, I milled about the lobby with my wife and students. A few of my kids—ah, listen to me, calling them “my kids”—were put off by Stone’s “strong opinions.” However, most said his words inspired them to question what they are taught. In days since, many went to the Visitor’s Center and were deeply moved. They all talked about the draft board, where you can “get your number” to see if you would’ve been drafted in Vietnam. Many would have been, and they were deeply disturbed.

The question Stone has me pondering is—What is history? Is it concrete? Moldable? Without witnessing an event, will we ever know the exact details? Is history a stone thrown into a pond and can we only be sure of its impact by studying the ripples?

It was an exciting night. When I met Mr. Stone, he signed a copy of his Untold History and posed for a picture. I don’t know what I said to him, probably fan-boy rambling about how much I like his movies, but after he signed my book, he told me I seemed like a very nice young man. I’ll take that.

Back Online

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve posted on this site. Why? Over ambition.

Originally, way wayyyy back in the summer of 2011, I had grand plans to blog, continue grad school, teach college classes, and finish my master’s thesis. And all with time to spare!

Well, something had to give. Fortunately, it was Intrinsic Gratification.

Since then I’ve got my MFA, wrote my thesis, and finally, finally secured a full-time college teaching gig. Now, I’m at a place in my life where I can blog again. Yet, this time I have a significantly different attitude. Now, I feel comfortable blogging again.

When I started blogging, I’d been discussing philosophy with a good friend for years, and we always wanted to spread the conversation online. But we ran into the same questions. What would we be adding? What would we say that hasn’t already been said?

I plowed ahead anyway. I always loved reviewing movies, books, and music. Couple this with a passion for politics and religion, and a craving to get everyone to “see the light”—whatever the hell that meant—and you get a young man with serious intentions that burns himself out too quickly. Three months after starting the blog, I simply gave up and said, “Who gives two shits what I think?” It was a real concern. I guess you could call it a cop out.

This time, I’m blogging for fun. Sure, I want to spread intellectual discussion online. I’m still addicted to art, ideas, and “investigations of a spiritual variety.” But I’m not coming at it with an ideological plan of attack. I’m doing it for me. If you want to join, please do. I appreciate the feedback and love the conversation. All is intrinsically gratifying (duh-dum-tish). And…go.