Jack Bauer and the Pope
by Kathryn Jean Lopez[There are spoilers in this post.]
24 isn’t the first thing most people would think of when looking for a pop-culture representation of papal guidance, but if you’ve been watching 24 this season, you’ve seen a taste of what Pope John Paul II meant by “the genius of the feminine.” You’ve seen the complementarity of men and women at work.
During Monday night’s show, that Port Authority officer was not that innocent, having agreed to help a supposed electronics-smuggling ring (tempted by the extra money it would bring his family, with twins on the way). Seeing his regret once he knew the stakes–that he was aiding another terrorist attack on the United States–Jack Bauer couldn’t let him die if it was within his power to keep him alive.
At a remarkable moment in Monday night’s episode, Jack had the choice of keeping his word to have the guy’s back or (defensibly and understandably) sacrificing him. He chose what was probably the reckless option. But by doing so, Jack not only saved this man’s life but also affirmed his commitment to human dignity on another day when he was driven to do things he really didn’t want to, for the good of the country, in defense of freedom.
We saw this same compassionate side of Bauer at the White House a few hours ago, when he was locked in a safe room with the president: The president pleaded with him as a parent, playing on his love for his daughter, to let her save her daughter from torture (this is 24, so I mean that literally).
During these latter hours of the day, Jack has been under the influence of Renee Walker. Renee is an FBI agent who appreciates that desperate times call for desperate measures. As a necessarily rogue agent, Jack has broken rules of civility. I won’t defend all he’s done and he has made clear that he will take responsibility for every bit of it. But it’s hard not to notice that being around Renee, and the female president, has had an effect on him.
Renee, too, has done things she didn’t want to do. She was shaken not just by the near death of the president’s husband on their watch, but by the fear of the young mother and child she had to terrify in order to help locate the woman’s treasonous husband.
In a message to an international congress on “Life, Family, Development: The Role of Women in the Promotion of Human Rights,” at the Vatican this past weekend, Pope Benedict XVI said: “Given the distinctive influence of women in society, they must be encouraged to embrace the opportunity to uphold the dignity of life through their involvement in education and their participation in political and civic life.”
He said of women: “Because they have been gifted by the Creator with a unique ‘capacity for the other,’ women have a crucial part to play in the promotion of human rights, for without their voice the social fabric of society would be weakened.”
You have seen that concern for the other in Agent Walker throughout the season. You’ve have seen that concern for the other in the president all season.
That is not to say that David Palmer was self-interested. (President Charles Logan was another story entirely.) But a woman brings something out in a man (the reverse is true too, because we complement one another) and you’re seeing that on 24. In its way, it’s a little pop-culture clarity in a land of confusion.
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40 Comments
Up until this season I was a 100% unreserved Jack Bauer-he's-the-man fan.
Right up until I saw Jack Bauer shilling in for the Global Warming Fraud Conspiracy Network (my term) in a PSA. Last night Chloee did it too.
NOW WHAT? What possible fictional TV characters are left for me to put my faith into? (partially serious, but mostly tongue-in-cheek observation).
Sorry folks but seeing Garofalo's mug show up on a great show like "24" was such a bummer, that I am sure that there are lots of us who just don't tune in anymore. Besides watching the whole season in four days between Christmas and New Years was such fun for years. Garofalo has actually jumped the shark so wholly that the "shut up and sing" axiom has been voided by her. She has successfully merged whatever stage persona she had with her political stances and if you don't like her politics, then you can't like her acting, however well done. She's like Max Baer Jr. ,always Jethro. Only she's always screechy and wrong.
Yeah between the Man Made Global Warming nonsense and Jennie Garofalo I was so distracted I lost track of the plot and don't really care if Jack saves the contry or not.
Of course now that Agent Walker has shown she's not completely loving and caring, and can do things just as nasty as a man can, she must die. She has offended the Modern Feminists by implying she cannot be fully trusted by all to do everything in the best interest of everyone she meets, thus casting doubt on the innate divine purity of all women everywhere. Although she may be allowed to live, if they reveal her earlier sex change, or her history of horrific morality-destroying abuse by males, but I don't think there's enough time left.
Of course Jack did lose the MacGuffin for saving the guard, and it will be hard to justify that if Jon Voight manages to shove it up America's ass.
Of course Jack did lose the MacGuffin for saving the guard, and it will be hard to justify that if Jon Voight manages to shove it up America's ass.
I'm a big fan of 24 – have been from season 1 – and have always thought that Jack represented a terrific example of the fact that people sometimes have to make difficult choices that can have serious personal consequences. Jack's life undoubtedly would have been much easier and the personal consequences for him much smaller if he had stood on the sidelines but the consequences for his country would have been disatrous. Great moral dilemma. Great drama.
But you brought up a new twist here that I hadn't thought of which just makes Jack and the show all the more interesting
I'm a big fan of 24 – have been from season 1 – and have always thought that Jack represented a terrific example of the fact that people sometimes have to make difficult choices that can have serious personal consequences. Jack's life undoubtedly would have been much easier and the personal consequences for him much smaller if he had stood on the sidelines but the consequences for his country would have been disatrous. Great moral dilemma. Great drama.
But you brought up a new twist here that I hadn't thought of which just makes Jack and the show all the more interesting
[spoiler alert!]
They tracked him via a helicopter. It would have been really tough to make his rendesvouz anyway, even with the two minutes that he stopped. He would have also exposed thousands to a biological weapon en route had he not stopped.
My big problem with this isn't season so much the PSAs. They're annoying but they 're also avoidable. They're probably also part of the contract for the actors; like it or not they have got to read the stupid things. The real annoyance here is having the Big Bad as a rogue military contractor. We started with actual terrorists doing actual evil in the world and ended up with them merely as puppets for the evil conservatives. Blackwater is such an obvious stand-in for Halliburton that I'm surprised there aren't pictures of Dick Cheney in every office.
Women have always been the civilizing element of western society. But I'm always glad to see a woman occasionally getting in touch with her masculine side. I'll arrange a flower or two in exchange for a woman who can use a gun, and isn't afraid to do so.
Women have always been the civilizing element of western society. But I'm always glad to see a woman occasionally getting in touch with her masculine side. I'll arrange a flower or two in exchange for a woman who can use a gun, and isn't afraid to do so.
Women have always been the civilizing element of western society. But I'm always glad to see a woman occasionally getting in touch with her masculine side. I'll arrange a flower or two in exchange for a woman who can use a gun, and isn't afraid to do so.
PS: Roses are red, violets are blue, I hate J Garofalo, and so should you.
Unfortunately I do not see this in the same positive light.
Look at network television and tell me how many female-lead shows there are. Now tell me how many male-lead shows there are. Can you even find any? Even the ones that pretend to be male-lead (the horrible "Burn Notice", and 24) have female 'partners' who get tons of screen time and have large influence over the male.
Meanwhile every day we hear about some new female-lead show. And they're all the same: some waif-thin, model-looking woman making snippy wisecracks, always illogically overpowering some huge male thug who would, in real life, tear her apart, then turning to her male partner to engage in some witty, non-threatening banter.
What is happening in America is that women are becoming men and men are becoming irrelevant. I never thought that would happen in 24. But then again I never thought I'd see the day that a show on Fox would tell me that "climate change is happening" and "we can stop it". I never thought I'd see Janeane Whoreofolo work again. A lot of nasty surprises.
Over at the hilarious Dave Barry "24" live blog, someone offered a common response to the global warming PSAs on the show:
"There's nothing that makes me want to burn a mountain of old tires in my back yard than listening to some Hollywood actor lecture me about my carbon footprint."
Amen bro!!!
I haven't watched series, scripted television since "Married With Children" was cancelled and "Law and Order" went over the leftist deep end — lo so many years ago, but posts like this make me want to see this season of 24.
Nothing enrichens a story like this kind of subtext. It's what makes you keep watching and re-watching. You don't see it, you don't hear it, you feel it at a level you can't even explain. For this reason, subtext can't get boring — it's like the rhythm of the favorite song you listen to time and again long after you know the lyrics by heart — it's about the way it makes you feel.
So far this season has been very good; seems like they let the writers from the past two seasons go.
I've felt that way about "Lost." On the surface, it's a clever sci-fi / mystery with solid acting and jaw-dropping plot twists. But it's also been an extended meditation on free will and determinism, faith and science.
I agree. The only thing that can save this season of "24" from Garofalo is if she turns out to be a bad guy helping the terrorists, 'cause that's the side she's on in real life.
I've enjoyed this season. I do love Jack, Tony and Chloe. There are a few people I would love to dispatch with extreme prejudice but you never like everyone. 24 always has the best asshats. Bill Buchanan being offed bothered me greatly. Garawfulo has ruined this season for my spouse>he refuses to watch now. I manage to control the gag reflex during her scenes…She is truly atrocious…
I gotta tell ya – the moderation on this board is worse than even left-wing sites. What's the deal with killing comments?
Yeah, it's pretty bad. Filters are "set too high."
Unfortunately, Sarah Palin found out how the media treats women who know their way around a gun.
Agreed.
So far, the only thing that has come close to ending my viewership of "24" was finding out that they are "going green."
And it's a good thing for them she didn't have them in her sights.
I dunno. Sounds like good TV to me.
Thank you for so succinctly summing up the problem I'm having with 24 this season. What a huge distraction she is, which is the danger performers get into when they exercise their right to be politically active (or as in her case, obnoxious).
I'm still SORT of following what's going on, but I've lost all desire to watch it, despite the presence of Kiefer Sutherland and James Morrison. I still love them to pieces, and I'm sure it's still a great show, but something has killed my interest this year. I've been blaming it on Garofalo's presence, but that might not be the whole story (I still love her in Mystery Men).
Do I have a point in this posting? If someone can find one, I'd appreciate if they'd let me know what it is.
Thank you for so succinctly summing up the problem I'm having with 24 this season. What a huge distraction she is, which is the danger performers get into when they exercise their right to be politically active (or as in her case, obnoxious).
I'm still SORT of following what's going on, but I've lost all desire to watch it, despite the presence of Kiefer Sutherland and James Morrison. I still love them to pieces, and I'm sure it's still a great show, but something has killed my interest this year. I've been blaming it on Garofalo's presence, but that might not be the whole story (I still love her in Mystery Men).
Do I have a point in this posting? If someone can find one, I'd appreciate if they'd let me know what it is.
Yeah. They call her "stupid" but at least she shoots straight. I was entirely unenthused about this past election until Sarah Palin's speech at the convention. I was fired up! I voted for HER this past November.
Yeah. They call her "stupid" but at least she shoots straight. I was entirely unenthused about this past election until Sarah Palin's speech at the convention. I was fired up! I voted for HER this past November.
It's one of the few good decisions McCain made during his entire miserable campaign.
I really love Renee's character, especially with the lack of Chloe this season. I was very bummed that there was so little of either of them in this last week's episode.
I'm with you on that. Sometimes I feel like the only person in America who hasn't ever seen even a single episode of 24. In my defense, however, I will say that I resisted the Lost phenomenon for a couple of years, and when I finally decided to watch it from episode 1 in reruns, I hated it and thought it was some of the stupidest TV I'd ever seen. The character names, drawn as they are from historical personages, were particularly idiotic. When they, "moved the island" I rolled my eyes and finally turned it off. That was a shark too far to jump for me.
The bad guys know who the guard is. They can go kill him AND his pregnant wife anytime to cover their tracks. They WILL, and Jack Bauer (the real one, not the one on this week's show who's so in touch with his kinder/gentler/feminine side) would KNOW that, just as Tony clearly did.
My first thought was, aside from politics, that Garofalo was BAD casting because her style is so similar to Chloe's and in a battle of the kvetchynerdywhiney types, she couldn't win. But with so LITTLE of Chloe this season (big mistake) well….she's kinda become Chloe Lite, and it would be too OBVIOUS for an allegedly "right wing" show to cast famous lefty as terrorist, so I'm not expecting that. BTW, Mrs. Spooky, Morrison's character is dead, Jim. Too bad, but at least he got a silent clock.
Awwww, such a shame! Bill Buchanan was an awesome character. Well, like they said, NOBODY is safe – probably not even Jack.
At least he died saving the Prez by drawing badguy gunfire into the "safe room" where Jack'd left the gas on. The explosion did it…but really, we knew it was curtains for Bill when he refused to torture or let Jack do it. Ah well….sic semper sidekicks.
The most misogynist show on television, 24 is nothing but another woman-hating British-made communist antiAmerican wasteland for Fox to grind into American livingrooms. Do we really need another season? No, because we never even needed the first. And, remember, it was the British who helped Obama rig his election votes because they knew he'd screw us bad, and he is.
I'm a huge 24 fan and I'll keep watching it as long as it's on. But it is a maddening show to watch, for reasons far beyond it's obviously ridiculousness. The over-the-top absurdity is what makes it so fun to watch. But here we are, so many years after 9/11, and the one show that should have gotten it, never has. Its very few attempts at portraying the real threat to the United States have been lame at best, and cowardly at worst. The people writing and producing 24 are the worst kinds of liberals. Too afraid to show Islam for what it is, they have no problem demonizing the American government as Evil when white American men are in charge. White President? Gotta be Evil. White Vice President? Gotta be Evil. Oh, except when the President is a woman, who is simply incompetent, while the white male Vice President is just plain stupid. This season Jon Voight is filling the Dick Cheney, Blackwater shoes just nicely.
Liberals like Garafalo should be right at home with this years plot. It's too bad a conservative like Voight would play into the liberals hands. I hope they're paying Voight well.
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