Enemy turf

[prog]

Just watched three more Losts at dougo's. I have some problems with elements introduced during season two. I find one particular character deeply unlikable, not in a boo-hiss way but in a STFU way. And tonight I actually managed to find an episode politically repugnant.

The show's done a good job staying apolitical, a small feat in the face of the Gulf Wars being a minor plot element. But I think it crossed a line in an episode that hinged on the assumption that confessions extracted under torture are reliable and true. I watched the episode with my teeth clenched, waiting for any of the characters to speak up and question this assumption, or for some other event that would cast doubt on it. It never came.

I don't know it for a fact, but I fear that a light was shone on the writers' political views, which would be ones I find disgusting and contemptible. Probably I am reading too much into it and it's just particularly ugly TV trope that I've only started noticing more often lately, like everybody tends to lie and you can kick a prone man in the face 20 times and he might get a few bruises but that's it, both of which this show also espouses.

I like a lot of Lost still and I will probably go back to watch more, but this is two strikes against it. At this point, if it loses me, I will write it off not just as having choppy quality but because it is has the taint.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

ack, spoilers!

I know real folks are waiting for 3rd season, but I'm just a few eps behind you on second. can you please, as a favor to me, cut any additional LOST musings?

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry... I tried to keep it free of effective spoilers, but with a serial show like this I should really play it safe and hide everything. I'll do so in the future.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's no big deal, it's just funny you being ever so slightly ahead of me. And I'm sad because the last few eps we've seen were, I thought, really quite good, and I know more suck is coming...

[prog.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, I thought another of the three eps we saw kicked ass; it was dark, acid and sweet.

I enjoy honest intercharacter conflict, but this bit of business was just... ill-timed.

[dictator555.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't think I'm going to go to Doug's Lost things anymore. The stuff you're always saying about it is similar to my own feelings, only I seem to react more with deep sadness than rage. It's too bad, because I really do like watching TV shows with other people. But I don't think I can stomach another night like last night. :(

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

If you find any show or movie that doesn't go with the "info obtained by torture is 100% reliable and the only issues are morals/squeamishness" trope, I will be VERY impressed. In fairness, I'm not sure its a political thing so much as it is an "easy storytelling" or fantasy fulfillment thing.

In terms of easy storytelling, most dramatic torture scenes are mindbogglingly contrived. The "hero" knows without any shadow of a doubt that the "bad guy" has the information he needs, sometimes to the point of the bad guy saying "ha, I know where the macguffin is, but you don't and its too late for you to find it by any good guy means, which I will make clear by giving you a precise and accurate countdown of how long you have before its TOO LATE." (mwahahaha optional).

Then there's the fantasy fulfillment. While we are supposed to be nice and civilized, who doesn't like to see the occasional bad guy getting a well deserved beatdown? Usually this can be accomplished in a relitively fair fight where the beatdown is immediately necassary, but "information extration" provides another option. The "hero" has a ready made excuse to inflict pain and suffering on a helpless victim but still claim to be a hero. For bonus points he can say "I hate that you are forcing me to these means" or something equally creepy. If "these means" are actually unreliable then there's no excuse. (even in the contrived situations, there's often little excuse anyway, since with the perfect knowlege we have of guilt there are other options for tracking the bad guy back to the macguffin.)

Uh oh, you activated Kahuna Rant #329. *blush*

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right about it not being intentionally political. In some ways the assumptions about the world that it's based on is no uglier than "Everyone is a selfish liar", but the fact that it hits very close to a certain international political controversy that I've been following, and following angrily, really gets my hackles up.

I submit that what happened on this show was of a different class than typical action-hero beat-the-info-out scenes because it didn't even try to equivocate. One of the good guys was torturing someone who continued to profess his innocence, and the only person who moved to stop it (maybe the most A-grade hero-type character on the show) did so more out of concern that the guy was getting seriously hurt than out of objection to the practice altogether.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Hm, I thought you were talking about the flashback, not the main plotline. The person who was "moved to stop it" was actually pretty adamant about saying "what if he's innocent?" and tried pretty hard to get it to stop. I really don't think you're supposed to feel sympathetic to the pro-torture side. (Especially the "I know he's guilty because I didn't feel guilty" speech at the end—I think that was supposed to sound as monstrous as it did.) (Actually I don't think you're supposed to feel sympathetic to any character on the show—they're all anti-heros in one or more ways. Which also answers the "everyone's a selfish liar" question—this is not supposed to be a representative sampling of the population as a whole. In fact there's a lot of speculation that someone arranged for these particular people to end up on that plane, but that's another whole topic...)

About the flashback, I somewhat agree with kahuna's point that torture always works in fiction, just like prophecy always comes true, so I can kind of write it off as they're just playing by the standard rules. But also, as I pointed out last night, it's not entirely clear that the information was useful—it's not even clear that the torture actually happened, though it was strongly implied. Clearly this show is all about "things are not as they seem". Anyway, the main point of the flashback was more that the Americans turned him into a torturer, for no good reason. (Or specifically, that guy who looks like Reverend Justin did... this is actually sort of an important distinction, but that's kind of spoilerish.)

[prog.livejournal.com]

Jack's objection was not to the fact that there was torture at all, but concern that the torture was being misused. After all, he was all in favor of torturing Sawyer way back in one of the first episodes.

I just wanted anyone to raise the point that information gained through torture is suspect, at best. (Or to call out Sayid for acting like a straight-up sociopath, as one of our friends noted, instead of just a conflicted soldier.) There was lots of opportunity for this to happen without changing the path of that episode's story, but it didn't happen.

You're correct that the torture wasn't very sympathetic, but I think it was unsympathetic for the wrong reasons. As I said to Ms. Burger, I split hairs over this because of unfortunate timing: I watched this episode while possessing a low-level burning rage over the Bush admin's position on torture. You can't blame me for transferring some of that to a TV show that seems, in some way, to agree with that same position.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I had forgotten that Jack was in favor of torturing Sawyer. (Although even Sawyer was in favor of torturing Sawyer at that point.)

I'm still doubting that the show's producers (or anyone in Hollywood) thinks that torture is ever a good idea. The "torture doesn't work" meme has only really become prominent in the last few months, and I suspect if the episode had been written today it might have included something about that. It would be interesting to ask them though.

Sidebar: I'm pretty uncomfortable with the pragmatic argument against torture anyway. Even if torture worked perfectly every time, I would be against torture because it's either cruel and unusual punishment (if it's done to a convicted criminal) or it violates habeas corpus and due process (if it's done to a suspect). Even in the cliche hypothetical situation where a guy knows where a nuclear bomb is hidden that would go off in an hour and kill millions and he'll tell if you torture him, I think torture is still unjustified.

[prog.livejournal.com]

The pragmatic argument is useful because it has a better chance of reaching people who think torture is just dandy so long as it's to bad guys, and as far as I can tell we've got about half a countryful of those right now.

The meme has burrowed deep within me, yes. If I had watched the same episode last year, it might not have bothered me as much, or at least bothered me in the way it was supposed to bother me, instead of making my anti-Bushie flags snap up.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

But even there, you can rebut that argument (in the context of Guantanamo) because they have not been proven (in a court of law) to be bad guys yet.

[prog.livejournal.com]

"They're unlawful combatants. The laws as we know them do not apply."

[dougo.livejournal.com]

The Supreme Court has already contradicted that.

Excuse me?

[prog.livejournal.com]

"I don't think you understand. These are bad guys who want to murder your children."

[dougo.livejournal.com]

This is a tangent upon a tangent, but it's reminding me of the debate about whether you're born gay or it's a lifestyle choice. The distinction only matters for those who think the latter should be illegal (or unequal), and the real argument is that it should be legal (and equal) whether it's a choice or not.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

But I think it crossed a line in an episode that hinged on the assumption that confessions extracted under torture are reliable and true

I would love to see a show in which the macho hero does all the things that macho heros always do--shoot people, torture people, break the law--and every single time have it result in a complete mess that the macho hero is held completely blameless for because "no one could have predicted" that it would end in a complete mess, with dead dead or incarcerated innoncent people and monsters given free reign and massive profitteering and the like.

It would have to be played completely straight, with no element of humour, just like the real world. After a few seasons of continual disaster people would be screaming at the TV, "No, you idiot, don't try to torture the information out of him! He'll just tell you what he thinks you want to know so you'll stop hurting him! Haven't you learned yet that it never works!? What are you, some kind of morally debased imbecile?"

[daerr.livejournal.com]

I stopped watching for a while, somewhere around there, and kinda just let the episodes accumulate. (There were new BSG episodes at that point and I wasn't feeling motivated to watch more Lost.) IMO, the season does improve after this.

(Also, on the basis of the admittedly silly Lost podcasts, I think I can say that the Lost creators are not on the other side of the fence politically.)

[prog.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I feel pressured to hurry up and watch the rest of these DVDs coz Season 3 is starting soon and it feels way too much like a deadline. :b

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

hehehe. you said "taint."