You Don't Know Jack, or Do You?

I have a tendency to change my Instant Message “info” pretty often. Recently, while I was deciding what I was going to put in it for February, I noticed a great deal of my “Buddies” had the same thing in their infos: “Bauer Power.” For those of you who, when hearing that name, don’t find yourself in a sudden grip of adrenaline and fear, you must not be a die-hard Jack Bauer (24, Fox) fan like me.

The entire season of 24 takes place over a time period of 24 hours, (hence the name), with all episodes depicting one hour. Jack, the main character of the show, has been created as a superhuman help to the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU). Since the first season in 2001, Bauer has escaped out of a Chinese prison, had to kill his best friend, stopped the country from being gassed, uncovered a corrupt oval office, and gotten away by means of sinking his teeth into the adam’s apple of a bad guy. I’m not going to lie, 24 frightens me when I watch it. I lie down on the couch but within minutes I’m sitting up, and by the time it’s over my fingernails are significantly shorter than when the show began.

The popularity, I’ve decided, is probably caused by the show’s story line following very closely with current media events. This season has focused on the possibility of Muslim terrorists in the United States. Some may argue that this is a very real possibility. It is true that some Muslim extremists have taken drastic measures in suicide bombing missions, but I believe that the details of the show are unrealistic and are giving Americans a false fear.

One character in particular, Hamri Al-Assad, a reformed Muslim extremist, was aiding the CTU. Al-Assad was able to provide CTU with valuable information that would aid it in the capture of terrorist Abu Fayed. Bill Buchanan, the head of CTU, refused Fayed so much as a handshake despite his promise of peace. Another Muslim character, Walid Al-Rezani, who was the head of the IAA, or Islamic-American Alliance, was forced into a detention center that was for, (gasp here), people of the Muslim faith, to spy on them and find out whether or not any prisoner had a connection to the terrorist attacks. After the government coerced Al-Rezani into pickpocketing a phone from an inmate, Al-Rezani was nearly beaten to death when the inmate realized his phone had gone missing. A third Muslim character, Nadia Yassir, who was a CTU employee, was also under government fire. The Department of Homeland Security restricted the access of all employees who are of Middle Eastern descent, which caused Nadia to not be able to work efficiently and at a suitable pace.

The thing that bothered me most was the fear that was instilled in Americans that every Muslim is someone to be feared, that they might at any moment detonate a nuclear bomb with the intention of using four more. Political commentator Keith Olbermann accused 24 of being “propaganda designed to keep people thinking about domestic terrorism to keep us scared.”

I was at the DMV not too long ago and a Muslim man walked in. He had recently moved here from a Middle Eastern country and he spoke with a thick accent. My 11-year-old sister turned to me, clung to my arm, asked if he was a terrorist. She then proceeded to shreik in horror when she saw him climb into a big black van. Although she had only seen the show once, it appalled me that those were the kinds of ideas that 24 might be encouraging.

I wonder that if an 11-year-old ‘one-timer’ got those kinds of impressions, what in the world is the rest of America thinking? Would it not make sense that a country sitting on the edge of their seats with fear of another potential terrorist attack would begin to believe the possibility of this scenario in real life and with this fear more easily support a war against the “terrorists” that the President promotes? Isn’t also quite coincidental that 24 is aired on FOX News, the most conservative news broadcasting station and the co-producer of 24, Paul Gadd, is a registered Republican?

It’s no secret that we, The United States, are currently at war and this war is only supported by a mere thirty-six percent of Americans and our President, George W. Bush, is supported by less than thirty percent of our country. It seems to me that FOX could be using it’s political platform to take advantage of viewers and attempt to gain the support that our country is clearly lacking. Not to mention that Dick Cheney is a self-proclaimed 24 enthusiast and that is reason enough for me to not showcase my AOL Instant Messenger profile with the power of Bauer.