The series about the American hero who defended the use of torture

BarcelonaEvery summer Sunday, the ARA revisits some of the most controversial series in television history. The fifth installment is 24, the action series that followed an anti-terrorist agent

It had nine seasons and millions of followers, but also some rather questionable plots. 24, the action series starring counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), was a phenomenon with a fair share of controversy and criticism. Among its attractions were its commitment to real-time storytelling—each season covered 24 consecutive hours—and the terrorist theme, which was highly topical at the time of its premiere in November 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks in New York. In a particularly dark period for the United States, Jack Bauer was the American hero fighting the terrorism that had just struck the country. However, the agent's methods for achieving his goals opened the door to debate, and many voices expressed concern about the effects of the violence he depicted.

One of the main controversies the series had to face was a supposed defense of the use of torture. If in the first season the violence exercised by Jack Bauer could be more or less justified or understood, in the following eight it became difficult to digest. When it came to extracting information, the agent had no limits: he could drown, electrocute, or stab the badThe inclusion of numerous torture scenes raised alarm bells among human rights groups, such as Human Rights First, which warned of possible connections between Hollywood's portrayal of coercive interrogations and the treatment of real-life US detainees in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Gu.

In 2007, when the series was in its sixth season, Tony Lagouranis, a veteran US military interrogator, told Reuters that during his time serving in Iraq, commanders would ask interrogators to be "creative." "We were given a general order that basically said you could do whatever you wanted," Lagouranis told Reuters. "So, lacking training, because we hadn't been trained to torture, we resorted to what we saw on television," he added.

That same year, Lagouranis was one of three former interrogators who participated in a meeting attended by the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, representatives of the group Human Rights First, and producers and screenwriters of 24The meeting was intended to ask the writers for a more realistic and careful portrayal of torture. Among other things, they wanted the series to demonstrate that the use of torture does not usually result in obtaining truly reliable information. "The meeting opened our eyes," said the executive producer of 24Howard Gordon. "We've never really thought of torture as anything more than a dramatic device," he added. Still, the producer defended the series and the character. "Our view is that Jack Bauer hurts people, and whether he's right or wrong, he suffers. 24 "It's a television series with its own dramatic requirements, which are reductionist and unrealistic," Gordon argued.

Islamophobia?

Beyond the potential glorification of torture, the series was also heavily criticized for its portrayal of Muslims beginning with the fourth season (aired in 2005), when the main antagonists were Muslims affiliated with a Turkish terrorist group. During that season, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a complaint stating that the portrayal of Muslims as terrorists could "contribute to an atmosphere in which it is perceived as okay to harm and discriminate against Muslims."

Shortly after this criticism, representatives of the council met with Fox, the network that aired the series, to reach an agreement. As a result of that meeting, one of the episodes of the fourth season began with a public service announcement starring Kiefer Sutherland himself. "The American Muslim community stands steadfastly with our fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism. So, please keep that in mind when watching." 24", read the message read by the actor.

Despite this gesture of goodwill, the series again came under fire from the Council on American-Islamic Relations when it was revealed that the main antagonists of the sixth season would once again be Muslims. However, at the time, the network and production were less conciliatory: "Over the past few seasons, the villains have included shady Anglo-Saxon businessmen, Baltic Europeans, Germans, Russians, Islamic fundamentalists, and even the (Anglo-American) president of the United States. Throughout the series, no ethnic group has been."