• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

- Work in Progress ± - Do Not Cite - Draft Paper for ISA Convention 2008 `Bridging International Divides', 26-29 March, San Francisco, USA Interrogating 24: Making Sense of U.S. Counterterrorism in the Global War on Terrorism Introduction Celebrated by fans and critics alike, Fox's 24 television series, now filming its seventh season and averaging over 15 million viewers a week in the United States, has set a new standard for action- drama (Chamberlain and Rudin, 2007).1 Lauded for its innovative split-screen presentation and signature ticking-clock that counts down the seconds remaining in the 24-hour day - time remaining to `save the day' - 24 has nonetheless come under sustained criticism for its depiction of torture and interrogation, most recently and notably by US Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan (the Dean of the US Military Academy at West Point) and by former US military interrogator Tony Lagourianis (Mayer, 2007; Miller, 2007; Baunder, 2007). In their defence, 24 producers argue that the fiction of television torture has no influence on reality; that the public can tell the difference between television fantasy and what is acceptable in the `real' world (Mayer, 2007).2 As Jutta Weldes argues, however, popular culture and politics are inseparable (Weldes, 1999b). Popular culture (re)inscribes or (re)presents stories about the nature of reality, often (re)telling tales about the rules governing `our' societies and the consequences of 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the British International Studies Association Conference, December 17-19, 2007, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 2 The complex interplay between fantasy and reality has been recognised on some levels since the 1774 publication of Goethe's Werther was linked to an increase in suicides across Europe. The effect of popular culture on reality has subsequently been referred to as `the Werther Effect' (Lawrence and Jewett, 2004, 9). The specific claim by 24 creator and producer Joel Surnow that there is no connection between fiction and reality is moreover belied by his collaboration with the Fox Broadcasting Corporation to establish a conservative satirical news show, The Half Hour News Hour (now cancelled), to `counter' Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, a satirical news programme that often lampoons the Bush administration and which Surnow describes as `tipping left' (Mayer, 2007). Interrogating 24: Making Sense of U.S. Counterterrorism in the Global War on Terrorism transgressing these rules. Like the genre of American `law and order' prime-time television from which 24 has evolved, such as Dragnet (1967-70), Hill Street Blues (1981-87), Miami Vice (1984-89), America's Most Wanted (1988-Present), Rescue 911 (1989-96), Top Cops (1990-93), Law and Order (1990-Present), NYPD Blue (1993-2005), or CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-Present)3, 24 is saturated with meaning about US society and its response to criminality and violence. However, along with the more traditional police-drama cast of murderers, drug-dealers, gangsters, prostitutes, corrupt officials and greedy businessmen (characters who nonetheless remain central to 24 and other recent spy-dramas like Alias and The Agency), the storylines of 24 focus explicitly on the dangers posed to the US by terrorists. And just as police dramas in the 1980s and 90s began to (re)tell the tales of the US `war on drugs', in the process mirroring the discourse of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations (Grant, 1992), 24 is fulfilling the same uncritical role with regards to current security policies. As I argue, a critical reading of 24 suggests that the series (re)produces key elements ± including the exceptional and pervasive nature of the threat posed by terrorism, and the corresponding need for a militarised and repressive form of counter-terrorism - of the Bush administrations discourse of the `global war on terrorism', potentially facilitating its practices. This is accomplished in ways that are no different from the way that popular culture (particularly film and television) and political discourses have traditionally (re)presented crime, conflict and justice. 24 therefore relates more broadly to long-standing US security policy traditions that are a legacy of what Lawrence and Jewett refer to as the American Monomyth (2004), the idea that salvation only comes through extra-legal force. This in turn relies on a Schmittian understanding of politics: that `authentic' politics is a fatal confrontation between friend and enemy, and is consequently beyond legal regulation (Scheuerman, 2006, 116). Though the packaging of 24 may be new and exciting, the underlying messages remain the same ± that America is open, innocent and law-abiding but that extralegal force is needed to maintain these qualities when confronted by an existential threat - in the process rendering commonsensical the construction of the US global war on terrorism and the way that it is waged.4 In order to make this case, what follows is a discussion in 3 The mixing of these `fictional' and `reality' shows is deliberate. They may be considered distinct genres but, as Grant argues (1992), they work together to constitute a common (mis)understanding of crime and justice in the US. This fiction/reality boundary is therefore misleading: the `fictional' shows draw on elements of `reality' (realities), rearranging them so that their plausibility is accepted to a greater or lesser degree, while the `reality' shows are themselves fictional, firstly, as their mediation through a televisual format means that they are edited, even framed, and a narratives imposed (Grant, 1992). And, secondly, they are fictional due to the nature of reality itself: reality is socially constructed (ªthere is nothing outside the (con)textº (Derrida, 1974, 158)). Accepting this binary as unproblematic therefore allows `reality' to continue as the privileged signifier making it harder to challenge those who claim special access to this `reality' and ignoring the meaning we derive from other sources of truth. Therefore conceptualising fiction and reality as texts which we treat as part of the same `pick- and-mix' (or `image bank') for our constitution of meaning in the world may be more useful. This is an important theme and one to which I return later. The recent emergence of `the CSI effect' is an example of this interdependence. Prosecutors and police officers have reported an increased tendency among jurors and victims of crime to expect courts and police to work in accordance with the television show (Thomas, 2006; Toobin, 2007). I am grateful to David Mutimer for this point. 4 Due to length constraints several other important constructions and themes at work in 24 are not discussed here such as the gendered and racial constructions of the terrorists, as well as the troubled relationship with technology in the series. 2 Interrogating 24: Making Sense of U.S. Counterterrorism in the Global War on Terrorism three acts (in keeping with the style of 24) first, of the ways in which the threat from terrorism is represented as exceptional and pervasive in both 24 and the discourse of the GWOT; second, of how the only logical response is constructed as a militarised and repressive counterterrorism policy; and finally of how this narrative occludes the rule of law and the role of a legal system as part of countering terrorism, overall maintaining the construction of America as innocent and law-abiding. Popular Culture, World Politics and Counterterrorism There is a growing body of literature that explores the linkages between popular culture and world politics, arguing that popular culture while reflecting politics also plays an important role in (re)producing and popularising it (Der Derian, 2000; Weber, 2002; Weldes, 2003; Philpott and Mutimer, 2005).5 As Jutta Weldes explains, popular culture does so by providing ªa background of meanings that helps constitute public images of world politics¼ [It] helps to construct the reality of world politics for elites and the public alike, and to the extent that it reproduces the content and structure of dominant foreign discourses, it helps to produce consent to foreign policy and state actionsº (2003, 7). And while Weldes' discussion centres on foreign policy, the interconnection equally applies to security policy. This is due in large part to intertextuality: that any text, whether a presidential address or a film, ªis necessarily read in relationship to others [so that¼] a range of textual knowledges is brought to bear upon itº (Fiske, 1987, 108). When experiencing a text, these intertextual knowledges ± what Fiske refers to as a culture's `image-bank' ± ª`pre-orient' readers and allow them to make meanings [to read and therefore respond to texts] ¼ in some ways rather than othersº (Weldes, 2001, 649). The repetitive use of elements from the `image-bank' thereby generates a ªcommon symbolic environment that cultivates the most widely shared conceptions of realityº (Gerber, et al., 1986, 18). More specifically, this interconnection can occur in at least three ways: through an established and long-standing relationship between text producers, secondly, intertextually through explicit references from one set of texts to another, and thirdly, intertextually through the common narratives or tropes that are central to the constitution of meaning in the texts (Weldes, 2001). In other words, the interrelated representations produced by these texts interact to constitute a frame of meaning which if repeated often enough can come to be identified as `common sense'. By both constituting and drawing on the same (re)presentations of `reality', the intertextuality of popular culture and world politics helps to make the world intelligible. Popular culture therefore can be explored ªfor insights into the character and functioning of world politicsº (Weldes, 2003, 7) as it is relevant for insight into what becomes `common sense'. To explore the way in which meaning and particular conceptions of security emerge, I therefore turn firstly to a closer examination of the points of intersection between popular culture and conceptions of security, particularly with reference to terrorism and counterterrorism discourses.

Load more

  23

Copy Link