Torture on TV

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It is said by some people that games like Grand Theft Auto have influence on some people that end doing 'bad' things. Now, according to Human Rights First, tv series such as 24 and others, can influence on soldiers ( Link)
I don't know, but, do soldiers watch 24 wherever they are fighting?

Sometimes, you see the hero of such series 'torturing' the 'bad guy' to get information that usualy can save hundred of lives. How could you get such vital information from a guy who you'll know won't talk by just asking "where you put the bomb".

Still, is hard for me to understand why people get influenced by tv shows or video games or can't distinguish between real life and fiction.

 

What I don't wonder about is that 24 features torture and that Bauer succeeds as a result of that in finding 'ticking time bombs', and all that accidentally on FOX.

 

It's called drama. Without it TV would be boring.

 

Does anybody actually believe that by not showing it, that it won't happen?

 

No. The reason the soldiers at Guantanamo Bay torture is because the US administration say it's okay, not because of video games and movies.

That said, like Ragusa, I'm not suprised that it's Fox that's showing 24 aka Torture-Hour.

 

DarkStrider,
not the point; as far as torture is concerned, less is better, and nothing is best. Torture in tv should be what the bad guys are doing, you know, the SS and Gestapo types. That's thrilling enough for my taste.

In 24 it's Special Agent Jack Bauer who does it for the US government, the official good guys. That's it, and that makes it look 'legitimate', which it clearly is not. Bauer's success also lends torture the undeserved air of 'ruthless effectiveness', which is especially problematic.

Taking away that inspiration might spare a few the occasional mock execution or other sadistic crap like that by feebleminded guards and interrogators.

As for utility: Let's leave it at you don't win hearts and minds that way. Many people, after torture, became much more determined than before. After all, they got clarification what exactly they're fighting against.

 

Any person who can be influenced to behave badly by a television show/movie/video game should never be allowed in public without a protective helmet and supervision.

Any person who thinks it is o.k. to kill a hooker, smack a pedestrian with a bat or run a cop over because they did it in video game should be euthanized.

 

The very thought of torture makes me wince. I can't stand it, either in real life, on TV or in computer games. I do understand why people torture others, but that realy makes it worse.

The fact that people can bring themselves to do this to other people makes me ill, and the fact that they do it over and over makes me think they belong in a loney bin.

 

I spent countless hours on playing and modding gta games. I have never wanted to kill some pedestrians on the streets though. Not yet. But some people are stupid enough to get influenced by those games or TV series.

 

24 always seemed racist to me, but I don't comment on it because I have only watched 1 episode when I was in the states. Torture against foreigners does seem to be okay in the states with or without shows such as 24.

I have watched some very extreme Japanese movies and I have no desire to try out what I see.

 

What about shows that are actually real? I was watching 'Dirty Sanchez' with some mates a few weeks ago, and when they go to Japan, they get involved in an illegal japanese wrestling group that use barbed wire and broken fluro bulbs as weapons. 2 of the japanese wrestlers actually pin one of the guys from the show on the ground while another jams the end of a broken fluro bulb into the guys forehead. Stuff like that shows people who might be just as sick in the head as these guys that it is alright to do stuff like that.

 

I'm not as much troubled of the possible effects of such shows as Dirty Sanchez or Jackass as of the fact that they are already as popular as they are.

The same thing might go for movies and why not for games as well. It was amusing enough when gaming was a marginal geeky thing to do that people were so worried about rpg's making kids satan worshippers. And even when Doom was available gaming was still a pretty marginal phenomenon, so the fuss was clearly an overreaction.

Now that gaming's no longer that marginal it is kind of worrying how popular some games are. Heck, I like the gta series as much as anybody, but I'm not so sure what goes on in the minds of the guys whose taste in games is narrowed mainly to these types of games.

So there. This definitely applies to torture in tv. It's the people who are very narrow in what they watch from tv. If torture and anything with graphic content is all they're interested in, I'd be worried. Not of how they affect to the person, even if they would, but of the fact that these kind of people might already be unwell. To balance this, I'm almost as much worried about anybody who's very narrow minded, no matter of the genre of the entertainment they indulge themselves.

 

24 Always seemed unbearably stupid to me.

But, frankly, 24 is simply a more sophisticated version of Rambo. That is, it's a hyper-patriotic, we-can-do-no-wrong sort of thing.

 

Bumped for this article from the New Yorker. Long, but very interesting. Note the bit about a currently serving general meeting with the 24 folks and asking them to tone down the torture, because it's having a deliterious effect on American interrogators.

On a related note, here a US interrogator, with experience in Iraq, speaks.

 

I haven't watched 24 myself, but I've seen a lot of people recently argue that torture can be "necessary" and very effective "when you do it right." Nothing annoyed me more than arguing over at the WotC boards with some guy claiming that it's sometimes acceptable for paladins... I hope none of them goes into the police or army.

Anyway, it's a TV series, so by itself it can't do that much. It's a problem if, together with other sources, it weakens a taboo (on torture) that's there for a reason. I've yet to see a computer game that basically insinuates that torture is a necessary evil. AFAIK characters who are considered "good" seldom resort to any violence against a defeated foe.

 

From the New Yorker article, third page:

Finnegan being a Brigadier General at an academy, and 'the others' being experienced interrogators.