Monday, January 27, 2014

Season 7 of "24": 9/11 Truther TV Show?


I spent the greater part of this past weekend on a DVD marathon watch of season 7 of the television show, "24."  I must say it was far more entertaining than the first season of the show, which had to rely on very contrived scenarios to fill in the timeline, such as Jack Bauer's wife experiencing amnesia (which is when I gave up watching the show).  It's clear that at least by the seventh season, the writers had figured out how to come up with far more credible subplots in order to keep the story moving, yet keep everything happening within a 24 hour period.  Perhaps they accomplished this in much earlier seasons of the show.  I wouldn't know.

Anyway, the local library had the seventh season, which I checked out and watched as close to non-stop as I could.  It was fairly entertaining, and involved four successive terrorist attacks, each by a different and higher level group in an ever larger and expanding hierarchy of power.  I imagine that if they had gone to a fifth level, we would no doubt be introduced to the Illuminati.  Meanwhile, the fourth attack involves a false flag terrorist operation.  The powers (a group of military contractors in the U.S. who want to create chaos and panic in America, allowing them to take over the country) try to set up an innocent Muslim immigrant as the fall guy for the attack.  Interestingly, they threaten to kill his younger brother in order to make him follow their orders.  For some reason I was reminded of the recent Boston bombing attack.

I haven't watched it, but JDB pointed out that the fifth season of the show also involved a false flag terrorist attack.

Since 24 is usually viewed as a right-wing television show that tried to defend the actions of the Bush administration when it came to the war on terror, one wonders if it is legitimate to label these seasons as "9/11 Truther" shows.  I would contend that yes, it is legitimate and proper.  But then, I'm using a rather broad definition of what would constitute a "9/11 Truther" show, film, book, play, etc.  My definition is fairly simple:  any fictional work that displays a false flag terrorist attack, post 9/11.  And my justification for using this definition is also rather simple.  Any fictional work, post 9/11, that involves terrorist attacks, will be written with the events of 9/11 as background information, known by the authors and their intended audience.  Thus, if they write a narrative of a false flag terrorist attack, they are consciously (or unconsciously, it doesn't matter) comparing that attack to the events of 9/11.  This does not mean that the authors believe that 9/11 was a false flag terrorist attack.  They may or may not.  It does mean that they most likely know that their audience, if at all imaginative, will compare it with 9/11 and perhaps wonder if 9/11 itself was a false flag terrorist attack.  In light of this fact, I think it requires re-evaluating the common view that the authors of "24" wrote only in order to try to defend the actions of the Bush administration.  I suggest that it is obvious that they did not.

By the way, I don't know if that left-wing Democrat Janeane Garofalo was in any other seasons of "24," but she played a major role season 7.  Perhaps this had something to do with it:


3 comments:

JDB said...

I wondered why it took so long for some of my comments to get approved......

JDB said...

But if false flag story-lines make for money-making, thrilling fiction before and after 9/11, and the material for money-making, thrilling fiction is often taken from contemporary events, then why is it surprising or at all significant that this would happen post-9/11? (I mean: the mere fact that it happens. Obviously it is more significant when there are cases that go beyond your think criteria.)

Also, if I said something was a "PETA film" or an "ACLU film", I still think most ordinary English speakers would assume that the film and its makers positively support PETA or the ACLU.

Bilbo said...

...then why is it surprising or at all significant that this would happen post-9/11? (I mean: the mere fact that it happens. Obviously it is more significant when there are cases that go beyond your think criteria.)

For the same reason that art that bares significant similarities to a significant historical event become more significant after that event than before. Whether or not the author thought that the audience would compare the fictional events to the historical event, many of them will.

Also, if I said something was a "PETA film" or an "ACLU film", I still think most ordinary English speakers would assume that the film and its makers positively support PETA or the ACLU.

But the 9/11 Truth movement is not an official organization. If we saw a film that showed the torture of animals in a condemnatory context, then we could say that was an animal rights movie. We probably wouldn't say it was a PETA movie.