That said, this kind of thing doesn't come from a position of racism or malice. The writers of these films have a story they want to tell, and taking the time to portray a given country accurately might very well hinder that storytelling.
That said, this kind of thing doesn't come from a position of racism or malice. The writers of these films have a story they want to tell, and taking the time to portray a given country accurately might very well hinder that storytelling.
I'd argue there was more to that.
The political climate needed the public to be aligned with meddling a lot with foreign countries (and the Vietnam war was still happening), and passing it as something that isn't just happening, but needs to be done.
The more modern equivalent would be 24h (the tv series), which basically shoved to the public the notion that torturing and going extra-legal ways was something heroes had to do.
What's new about it is that as the means of creating the requsite affective environment of hyperreality ("engagement") gradually became available not only to nation-states but to private parties (down to the individual amateur influencer starting with no political agenda), they managed to interpose themselves as the very means of our critique of themselves.
Which on the meta level is a genius, as it establishes whole new channels for inter-reality exchange (a.k.a. cultural osmosis) on a first-come-first-serve basis, knowledge arbitrators love those. Not everyone necessarily finds it too comfy to find themselves in the same ecosystem as said ingroup though. Hence also the equally elaborate evolution in faux-antisystemic reaction since the turn of the century (while they try to bury the potential of technology as means of critique and bottom-up social reengineering.)
24 isn’t an example of “Manufacturing Consent” because there’s no alignment of interests of incentive structure. It’s an example of a different thing, that is an underlying cultural pattern that’s reflected both in media and foreign policy. Americans love their heroes to shove weenie bureaucrats in the locker. 24 is just Dirty Harry in a more contemporary law enforcement setting.
24 was developed before 9/11. The pilot was filmed in March 2001 and production started July. It was just a freak coincidence that it was released around the same time as 9/11.
Moreover, heroes going outside the rules is a longstanding trope in American film. Most American law enforcement movies in the 1970s-early 2000s portrayed “the system” as holding back the good guys with bureaucracy and rules. Dirty Harry was 1971. It’s just because we’re Americans, not Europeans.
> It’s just because we’re Americans
This is a specific political ideology that I don't think defines the country. In theory, in 20 years the USA could have a completely different political landscape.
9/11 was when the “War on Terror” started.
> This is a specific political ideology that I don't think defines the country.
But it’s not a “specific political ideology.” My friends and I loved “24” in college and most of us had supported Al Gore. “Break the rules to get the bad guys” is just Americanism.
This was just slapping a name and an official policy on something that has been going on for way longer. In a way, 9/11 was the point where it could be put as is on the public place and be accepted politically ?
> Break the rules to get the bad guys
I'd offer you "agencies that have their own extra-legal rules and only need some higher up's approval" as a better description.
The CIA doing it's own drug trafficking to balance its sheets would be a real life example of this.
US TV is endlessly about reducing a certain subset of the US to a bit of a caricature to entertain. Real housewives of (insert town), Jersey Shore, Sopranos, Duck Dynasty. I don't think anyone here believes all Italians in Jersey are mafia.
Real maturity comes from being able to laugh at yourself without getting offended at every second line.
To a point. When the entertainment market is flooded with wildly inaccurate stereotypes (produced by a majority/mono culture) then it can become a punching down situation. That's not OK.
I suspect a whole lot of TV fails both parts of this test. The audience doesn't understand and there is only a little bit of truth and a lot of simplification.
Similarly, the film Bad Ass features an older Latino that beats up white skinheads that were harassing and threatening him. Based on a real event, where an older white man was being harassed and threatened by a black man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ass_(film)
The film River's Edge is about a boyfriend that kills his girlfriend, both white teens. Based on a real murder, but the perpetrator there was black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River%27s_Edge
The Netflix series Painkiller features a capable black woman lawyer that takes on the Purdue pharma in the opioid epidemic. The real lawyer was white: https://www.thepublica.com/netflix-accused-of-race-swapping-...
In Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis have free reign in Egypt, and the locals support and cheer for the British and Allies, to the point of breaking into song lauding British sailors. In reality, Egypt at that time was effectively under British occupation, which the Egyptians fiercely disliked, and hated the British (they would have a revolution against them in 1952).
I wouldn’t put that in the same category as reality tv shows selling hyper dramatized personalities to conform to, and make fun of, stereotypes. Its like saying The Wire and the Real Housewives of Atlanta are both caricatures of black people.
...you can watch Borat, which is far less about Kazakhstan than it is about the US.