Freedom Cake, Quick to Bake

This is something that is more in Roy's wheelhouse, but still, it's damned peculiar, and worthy of notice of some sort or other.

It emanates from a blog called Libertas, subheaded "A Forum for Conservative Thought on Film"; the subject is the departure of Proud Conservative Joel Surnow from his hit program on the Fox Network, 24. The tone of the post is remarkably sullen and paranoid. The author quotes the Hollywood Reporter on Mr. Surnow's decision to quit the show and go off and do other stuff, and detects in this Hollywood reporting an ideological sneer:

And because Hollywood liberals are incapable of even the slightest amount of class the article closes with this bit of snark:

The openly conservative Surnow, who jokingly labeled himself a “right-wing nut job,” has been the most visible of the masterminds behind “24.”

He hasn’t shied from speaking his mind and made headlines in November when he said: “Are we nuts thinking Hillary Clinton could be president of this country? Honest to God, just stand back and think about it.”

Ironically, the upcoming seventh season of “24,” slated to debut in January 2009, features the first female U.S. president, played by Cherry Jones.

Hmmm. I believe I know from snark, and I don't quite see where it comes in there. Perhaps in the adverb "ironically"? Somehow?

All of which seems like no more than garden-variety sniveling about perpetual victimization, an inevitable component of "conservative" identity politics. What's interesting though from a clinical perspective is the specifically aesthetic angle.

All I can suggest to any network executive out there, cable or otherwise, is that you need to let Joel Surnow be Joel Surnow. Yes, “24″ has a dynamite premise that, until season six, was equally great in the writing department, but the real reason “24″ worked so brilliantly was because Surnow has a unique sensibility that understands ideological purity is the death of drama.

Well, sure, I don't disagree about the need for artists to reject "ideological purity," necessarily (though to be fair there are some nice moments in Henry V, I wouldn't deny it, a play that most certainly rests on some very firm ideological foundations). But I do worry that this Libertas blog draws the water for its theories of legitimate artistic production from stagnant, unreflective critical puddles.

What I mean is, you can't pretend that simply saying the literal opposite of certain idées reçues is the equivalent of a properly Flaubertian aesthetic detachment. Or, well, you can, but you just come across like a petulant dickhead:

Before Hollywood started working for al-Queda my biggest complaint with them was how left-wing cliches were killing films and television. Once you know how the simple liberal mind works — once you crack that code – you can see plot-twists coming from a mile away. Liberal purity has created more cliches and ruined more thrillers and action films than I can even begin to count.

I don’t know the man, but Surnow seemed to consciously understand that over the decades a liberal socialization had taken place with television audeinces which would allow him to create truly shocking plot twists by playing on what we’ve expected from liberal Hollywood for decades and then turning those expectations on their ear.

Black presidents torture? Torture works? The bad guys really aren’t white? A black first lady is the villain? The hippie kid really is a snivelling punk? The protagonist loves his country? The guy who played John F. Kennedy is torturing his own son because his country comes first? Terrorism is always a bad thing? Non-white people are terrorists? Guns do good? And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I suspect that many auditors will find the foregoing just slightly over the top. Or, well, not totally accurate. (Note to Libertas: examples help you prove your case -- it's true! And weren't some Tom Clancy novels made into a successful movie franchise even during the commie Clinton years?) At any rate, I have to admit to not quite getting how you're striking a blow for artistic freedom by making a black woman a traitorous anti-American bitch. I suppose that making the gay guy the real villain of No Way Out was equally daring from a conservative perspective? Freedom!

It really is rather odd to be focusing on the action genre as the locus for a defense of the artistic freedom from ideological pressures. In this regard, Henry V is a good example: you have your kickass hero, lots of patriotism, gratuitous slagging off of the French, a lack of good lines for chicks, desperate battle scenes, regretful but still dramatically satisfying pitilessness on the part of the protagonist, whose nods towards a weenie conscience only make his kick-assery all the more poignant... shit, how daring and innovative is Jack Bauer anyway? I've tried to watch the show and thought it was pretty stupid, though I'm willing to cop to a respect for an ability to tweak an ancient formula in an intriguing manner. But come off it, if you thought the particularly non "PC" elements of 24 made for gripping drama, well, where the fuck have you been since the 17th century?

Anyway, if Jack Bauer were to come out as gay in the last season, that might perhaps provide more of an unforeseen plot twist than the daring move of showing that dusky-hued fellows can, unbelievably, actually be terrorists. Just saying. "Bauer, if you don't suck this cock, millions die by fire!"

Oh, and it gets better:

I knew "24" was something special during season one when Jack’s wife agreed to be raped in her daughter’s place and then it actually happened. What a horrific and anguishing moment that was, and in any other show the rape never would’ve happened because we’ve become so socialized to the conventions of the genre we all knew the "good" bad guy would stop the rape (because we’ve seen it a hundred times before) or something else contrived would save this character we cared about from such a terrible thing. But she was raped and it solidified our sympathy making her death at the end all the more heartbreaking.

More importantly that moment told us all bets are off; anything can happen to anyone. It completely undermined our sense of security about the entire cast. Nothing was sacred. Nothing's off limits. And that is drama.

Yeah, Lord knows the threat or reality of having Our Womenfolk Raped By Bad Guys has never ever been used before in a dramatic production and that when this happens there are never ever any preconceived ideological or political connotations. Also, when a young couple's car breaks down on a stormy night and they seek refuge in a spooky Gothic mansion, nothing eerie will happen to them. And when two very different cops are thrust together as partners, they will not overcome their differences and ultimately unite to confront a wicked crime boss. (Has this idiot ever been to the fucking movies? Or read a book?)

But I am glad to see that rescuing women from rape is a weenie liberal fantasy. Let's hear it for weenie liberal fantasies.

Anyway I don't think Libertas really understands what a genuine artistic interrogation of and liberation from ideological constraints might entail. Just a feeling I have.

Also I'm enough of a commie art for art's sake maniac to suppose that money exerts a more profound censorship effect on Hollywood productions than do liberal pieties. But maybe that's just me.

Comments

[Molly Ivors]

a lack of good lines for chicks,

Hey! She gets to say "finger"! How is that not a kickass line?

[Brendan]

Jesus god, if you think that Dirty Harry blogger is bad, you should read the comment threads. There's some quality crazy in that place.

[Ruth]

I condemn the author to sit through The Usual Suspects which obviously he hasn't. keep him away from anything sharp afterwards.

[Pale Quarter Moon]

Wow--24 was always so contrived that it was painful to watch.

The obvious literary reason the wife died after being rape, is so typical, she was too pure and hence the only noble and right thing to do is for the writer to kill her. Moreover, it solves the problem of having Jack deal with his wife on a emotional level. It would have been cutting edge if she lived, but became hateful and angry and then did in Jack for allowing the rape to happen in the first place.

As you noted: trite and dull.

[derek]

You can tell how liberal Hollywood is by their portrayal of the President 1995-2000 and 2000-2005:

Wag the Dog -- President rapes children in the White House

Dave -- President fucks his interns in the White House and is an SOB. Schmuck off street does better job

Independence Day -- President is brave former fighter pilot and kicks alien ass

Air Force One -- President kicks terrorist ass personally

Wait, maybe there's something wrong with my examples.

[Spokane Moderate]

No fair, Thers. This indicates that your target rides the short bus, and it's not cool at all to pick on those folks.

[verplanck colvin]

Did that last quote seem to be a bit too, um, enthusiastic towards rape to you? It did to me.

And PQM, I saw the first season on DVD, with an alternate ending where Jack's wife didn't die. That ending seemed too trite and dull. Too storybook. It ended up feeling more realistic with her dying at the end. Do you really expect a series at this level to seriously deal with the emotional after-effects of rape?

But god, yes, the plotlines are so fucking predictable.

Shorter 24: Just listen to whatever Jack has to say, 'cause he's right.

[Jay C.]

I'd also like to see some examples of ruined action films that suffered at the hands of Liberal Purity. I mean, I know "Commando" is a classic of the genre and all, but not everything can reach its lofty heights.

I'd also like to hear this cat's take on "The Wire." No heroes, just lots of institutions fucking people through sheer inertia. Oh, and black people.

[LA Confidential Pantload]

I know Mr. Edroso's made the point, and I'm sure others have as well, that wingnuts do not differentiate between art and propaganda.

[Keith]

John Rogers has written extensively on the Liberal Hallywood myth. His view, as a screenwriter is it's all about the money. ideology is somewhere down the far end of the list where Sean Penn lives but otherwise not a factor.

OMG & Jumpin' Jeebus on a pogo stick! Here I thought conservative political commentary was bad.

[low-tech cyclist]

I am glad to see that rescuing women from rape is a weenie liberal fantasy. Let's hear it for weenie liberal fantasies.

Of course it's a weenie liberal fantasy. The conservative fantasy is to catch the rapist, cut his balls off, and make him eat them.

What happens to the woman is immaterial: her survival doesn't demonstrate Toughness, and her rescue does so only if it involves the revenge motif, but revenge is independent of rescue.

It's kinda like all those wingnuts who openly kinda hope we get hit by the terrorists again, because that would give them a justification for revenge against their true enemies - liberals. The fact that innocent people would get killed is of secondary importance.

[Stephen Stralka]

OK so I was thinking of coming up with some counterexamples to the list of things that allegedly don’t happen in liberal action thrillers (“Torture works? The bad guys really aren’t white?”), but then I got to:

Guns do good?

And I realized we’re dealing with someone who apparently thinks Hollywood action movies are anti-gun. I don’t think anything else needs to be said.

[actor212]

ll of which seems like no more than garden-variety sniveling about perpetual victimization, an inevitable component of "conservative" identity politics.

Like when Obama's minions played the race card when Clinton called his anti-war stance a "fairy tale"?

That thin-skin works on both sides of the street.

[Batocchio]

Very well put.

I liked aspects of 24 at first, but boy, this past season was crap. It does have more nuance than its diehard conservative fans ever notice, though. They watch it to prove their machismo by proxy.

As LA Confidential Pantload said, and Roy's often pointed out, the Libertas folks really don't distinguish between art and propaganda. They don't get that art can say more than one thing at a time, and the whole ambiguity thing. Not a shock. Still, I find their obtuseness on all the arts, most of all film and television, more grating than their idiocy elsewhere, somehow.

Low-tech cyclist, you're absolutely right that the woman is immaterial in their stories, except as a motivation for revenge. But you made me think of one example: Klanmen surrounding a black man (white actor in face paint) with the title card "The Trial," in Birth of a Nation. I read that originally, they castrated the evil rapacious black man first, but the film was edited to remove that element.

[rea]

And weren't some Tom Clancy novels made into a successful movie franchise

Clancy, I'm sure, is regarded as a liberal by these people. After all, Clancy co-wrote a book with Gen. Zinni, criticizing the Iraq War.

[Jemand von Niemand]

It's an outrage that the American Right continues to be disenfranchised, ridiculed, victimized, and kept from the Destiny promised them by a mighty and all-powerful god. The grip of the liberal establishment in control of this country, its media, its universities and schools, its supermarkets, must end and end now.

Face facts, people:

>> We've only controlled the Congress by numbers or threats since 1996. The only bright spot? Who knows how long we can count on the Defeatocrats to stay on the leash?

>> We've only been able to invade one country -- goddamn it; Billy Kristol and Doug Feith and Norm Podhoretz and Wolfie promised us Iran and Syria and North Korea! War is the ticket in a free-market economy. A torpedoed enemy ship lifts all boats, or something.

>> We've been denied privatization of Social Security, and an end to the era of the 'Free Ride' handed out by Roosevelt. The disabled, the sick, and the grandparents of liberals can shift for themselves -- because the weak culls have to fall by the wayside, as Nature intended. And far be it from us to go against Nature.

>> We've been denied the ability to place more 'strict constructionists' on the Federal bench. This nation needs it's laws changed from the bottom up -- and packing the DoJ with loyal Bushies just isn't enough.

>> We've been denied equating standardized testing results with more reductions in support for a bankrupt public education system. We've rewarded failure long enough; let's replace those public schools with privatized ones, or good christian schools.

>> Finally, we've had to fight far too hard for the basic protections this country requires against the many terrorist elements that have risen in the past four years against us -- the Fourth Amendment needs to go (In fact, Mike Huckabee's idea of editing the Constitution make a lot of sense).

To sum up -- our work is far from done. We cannot rest until this is a nation at peace, it's many enemies (foreign, and domestic) dead or imprisoned, their remnants scattered and denied even minimal credit lines or basic cable.

A nation, secured by constant vigilance and heightened security. A country where the honest worker and his family live under the fatherly protection of those whom god has blessed to become Captains Of Industry. A nation where fierce, pitiless and unending competition produces the Best and Brightest.

A nation whose people must believe in the wisdom and power of its Leaders -- where its television and newspapers are free of the stain of a particular viewpoint -- and where the entire world is awed at our humbleness in our greatness, beneath the watchful eye of the spirit of the kindly and revered Father Of Our Country, The Founder, Ronald Reagan.

Glad we could get that clear.

[Kathleen]

never never never descend into a Libertas comment thread. You won't make it out without scarring.

[harmfulguy]

I thought inane amnesia subplots were the death of drama.

[expatjourno]

Hollywood is so liberal that Arnold Schwarzenegger could never get financing for his movies and Sylvester Stallone was cheated out of the Oscar for Rocky and never even got to do sequels. Also, Mel Gibson could never get himself cast in anything. Nor could Bruce Willis.

Oh, wait.

[Pere Ubu]

I knew "24" was something special during season one when Jack’s wife agreed to be raped in her daughter’s place and then it actually happened. What a horrific and anguishing moment that was, and in any other show the rape never would’ve happened because we’ve become so socialized to the conventions of the genre we all knew the "good" bad guy would stop the rape (because we’ve seen it a hundred times before) or something else contrived would save this character we cared about from such a terrible thing.

Then there's always the rape scene in The Fountainhead, which makes out rape to be a perfectly natural and healthy thing between two Objectivist bioroids who love each other very much.

[Brendan]

"Before Hollywood started working for al-Queda" -- man, where do they come up with this stuff.

Nice GBV lyric in the title. Thanks.

[commie atheist]

Of course it's a weenie liberal fantasy. The conservative fantasy is to catch the rapist, cut his balls off, and make him eat them.

What happens to the woman is immaterial: her survival doesn't demonstrate Toughness, and her rescue does so only if it involves the revenge motif, but revenge is independent of rescue.

It's kinda like all those wingnuts who openly kinda hope we get hit by the terrorists again, because that would give them a justification for revenge against their true enemies - liberals. The fact that innocent people would get killed is of secondary importance.

Posted by: low-tech cyclist | February 14, 2008 at 03:07 PM

Excellent comment. Wingnuts desperately want bad things to happen to good people - not only does it feed their victimhood complex, it also justifies their hatred of everyone who doesn't react blindly by lashing out and killing something, anything, as long as it make them fell temporarily powerful.

As Tom "Six Months" Friedman put it so succinctly:

"Suck. On. This."

[chicago dyke]

his enthusiasm for rape is upsetting. i'm very glad i don't own a teevee.

[a]

Your entire posting is composed of deliberate misunderstandings. It is deceitful and all too typical.

If you could honestly and substantively refute your enemy's writings we know that you would do so. The fact that you did not do so is telling.

[Bob]

Spokane Moderate -- That Kung Fu Monkey piece was about Jason Apuzzo, this piece is about Dirty Harry, a different guy. The shocking part is that Harry is a A LOT smarter than Apuzzo, yet still an idiot on most things. (Well, I haven't been reading it lately, always possible he's decline to Apuzzo's level.)

You should have been reading these guys when the "Death of a President" mishegas was going on. You'd have thought that little British mock-doc which played a few arthouses and a British satellite channel, which they felt sure was going to cause the death of Pres. Bush by simply simulating the possibility, was getting the same marketing push as a Harry Potter film.

And, oh yeah, all liberals were responsible for the film until such time as we denounced it.

Beyond idiocy, these guys.

[Bob]

"a"...is that you, Jason?

[AnacherForester]

Never watched "24." Not even once. The premise didn't appeal to me at all. Sure I was a little curious. But since it was on Fox it didn't take too much imagination to guess where it was headed.

When "24" proved to be the fear mongering "torture porn" I suspected, I lost total respect for any and all involved in the show. Later I cringed as I watched this preposterous piece of fictional trash was used by both citizens and our elected officials to justify the all-too-real use of torture on all-too-real human beings.

Surnow has a lot to answer for.

-AF

[Thers]

Your entire posting is composed of deliberate misunderstandings. It is deceitful and all too typical.

If you could honestly and substantively refute your enemy's writings we know that you would do so. The fact that you did not do so is telling.

Yeah, well, fuck you.

[uptown]

Wow, and here I always thought 24 was just satire of all those crappy spy movies. Loved that retro split screen effect.

[CattyinQueens]

We used to play a drinking game for season 1 of 24--pretty much drank every time they broke out the victim blankets for the women. We drank a lot.

Not to quibble about a minor point here, but no Lit scholar worth her salt would ever discuss Henry V in terms of its "ideological purity." That play is full of stuff that works the against simple narrative espoused by the Chorus, and there's roughly 4 decades' worth of scholarship devoted to pointing that out.

[Thers]

Nice GBV lyric in the title. Thanks.

Check out all of our post titles...

[AnacherForester]

Sorry, I actually meant to call the show "terror porn" not "torture porn" although as I understand it they quickly became interchangeable descriptions for "24."

-AF

[Thers]

Not to quibble about a minor point here, but no Lit scholar worth her salt would ever discuss Henry V in terms of its "ideological purity." That play is full of stuff that works the against simple narrative espoused by the Chorus, and there's roughly 4 decades' worth of scholarship devoted to pointing that out.

I know. Though the red-meat patriotism in the play is still red-meat patriotism. But overall I would agree that the play was clearly meant for multiple audiences.

[Buhallin]

It's an odd conclusion...

Predictable, dull endings: Bad.

Liberals: Bad.

Predictable, dull endings: Liberal!!

[AnacherForester]

Never watched "24." Not even once. The premise didn't appeal to me at all. Sure I was a little curious. But since it was on Fox it didn't take too much imagination to guess where it was headed.

When "24" proved to be the fear mongering "torture porn" I suspected, I lost total respect for any and all involved in the show. Later I cringed as I watched this preposterous piece of fictional trash was used by both citizens and our elected officials to justify the all-too-real use of torture on all-too-real human beings.

Surnow has a lot to answer for.

-AF

[RobertoElGrande]

Oh come on people. 24 was awesome. You had a total bad-ass who did bad-ass things in a bad-ass way. With cliffhangers!

The fact that some waterheads thought it had anything to say about the real world should not be used against the show. And as pure popcorn 24 worked quite well. Jack, Nina, President Palmer, Sheri Palmer, twists, turns, moles, betrayals, cliffhangers and Jack's daughter menaced by a cougar! It was the 1930's serials resurrected!

Emphasis on the was part. Like all series TV, 24 had its ups and downs, but as the series went on the downs came fast and furious. Worst mistake, they killed all of their supporting cast, including their villains (Rule #1, NEVER kill a good villain, heroes are a dime a dozen in comparison.) It left Jack operating in a vacuum. How can he be awesome when Palmer isn't threatening to cancel his All State Insurance?

The fact that 24 is such an icon for the Libertas crowd says more about them than it does about 24. Now if you will excuse me I have to go watch Lost and decode how the world REALLY works according to what I see there.

[RickD]

I stopped watching 24 during the first season because all of the female characters were pathetic. You had the shrewing Mrs. Palmer, the treacherous one who worked with Jack, the wife who got amnesia, the other treacherous one who worked with Jack, the daughter who was kidnapped twice in one day, and still, what really got my goat was the woman who had been told that her lover was a terrorist and the government wanted to talk to him, decided to go ultra-whacky and kill him because he said "I love you" to her when she knew he was using her. Nothing worse than a woman scorned, eh?

And that was all before the show decided torture is a Good Thing.

[RobertoElGrande]

Checking in to see that there is a recurring criticism that all women on 24 were portrayed as villainous or weak. I'll grant that.

I don't want to be the official apologist of the show. I only watched intermittently and not at all during latter seasons. But the same criticism can be leveled at all but two of the male characters.

If their name didn't end with an ERRR sound (Bauer, Palmer) then they sucked. Just a total waste of screen time. They were human and therefore frail, weak and boring. Troubled by love, relationships, doubt, the need to go to the bathroom or eat in 24 hours? Then the sole purpose of your existence is to provide obstacles to superior beings whose name ends with an ERRR sound.

(Besides, Nina and Sheri kicked ass. They were like Lady Macbeth with handguns and without regrets. I won't bother to look it up, but I'm sure Nina's last name had the trademark ERRR ending sound.)

[Mr.Murder]

"It emanates from a blog called Libertas, subheaded "A Forum for Conservative Thought on Film"; "

It's like the conservative rulebook on torture.

One page, and it's blank on both sides.

Who knew Leni Riefenstahl also did minimalism? Better yet, who could have imagined?

[mere mortal]

Shakespeare's women had few important lines because they had to be played by boys.

The best, most accomplished actors get the best lines. For Shakespeare, these often went to the clown/foil or the villain. Not tarted up pre-pubescent boys.

[tavella]

Except, of course, for the comedies, where there are numerous strong parts for women. Which suggests it wasn't the qualities of the actors that was the problem.

[Harry R. Sohl]

I thought inane amnesia subplots were the death of drama.

I forgot about that!

[Jay B.]

To Thers' original mystification -- it's obvious: Proud Conservative Surnow claims incredulity about a possible female president played in flesh and blood by Satan's Right Tit Hillary Clinton. The reporter (perhaps up on all the latest snark delivery systems) used the Surnow quote to then point out the (actual, textbook kind of) irony that his show will be featuring a female president played by Semi-Famous Lesbian and Probable Hillary Voter Cherry Jones.

I admit, it's a working theory, and it doesn't seem all that snarky really. And Jones could certainly play, as seems probable, a castrating bitch of a Madame President (in homage or mockery? Hmmm....)so, again, in the end, mystification seems the right choice. Unless one is able to unlock the conservative mind, crack the code (psst, it's "0-0-1") and realize that anything Hollyweird does is, by definition, opposite of what Real America wants.

Which is obviously more porn.

[Phoenix Woman]

I'd also like to see some examples of ruined action films that suffered at the hands of Liberal Purity.

There aren't any. However, I can name one book, The Quiet American, whose initial film adapation in the 1950s not only suffered at the hands of Conservative Purity, it was utterly twisted around to present a message 180 degrees from that of the book.

[Utiffellurf]

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.

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