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?

[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*

[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.)

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

hehehe. you said "taint."