True, but I don't feel it's not enough for Homeland's producers, or anyone, to say 'it's not our problem'. We all live in a community and are responsible for taking care of it and for the consequences of what we do. "No man is an island."
People absorb their views of the world from TV, in part. With widespread prejudice against people who believe in Islam, portraying stereotypes of that prejudice worsens a dangerous situation. Many, many very bad things in history have resulted and are resulting from that kind of prejudice. It's similar to portraying all black skinned people on TV as drug dealers; many people, seeing only stereotypes, come to believe them.
> The Globe and Mail reported that Scalia came to the defense of Jack Bauer and his torture tactics during an Ottawa conference of international jurists and national security officials last week. During a panel discussion about terrorism, torture and the law, a Canadian judge remarked, “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?’ ”
> Justice Scalia responded with a defense of Agent Bauer, arguing that law enforcement officials deserve latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles . . . . He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia reportedly said. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” He then posed a series of questions to his fellow judges: “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer?”
> “I don’t think so,” Scalia reportedly answered himself. “So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”
Yes, I believe that it my point. By creating constructs like Bauer, the underlying topic that torture is justifiable became easier to relate to. Thus, it's not correct to absolve the creators of those shows simply, as drzaiusapelord did, because 'Its a dramatic show'.
If you don't think art has an ideological function then you are my target audience. Manipulating political discourse is a major motivation for my creative activities, probably the primary one in fact - I falsify the world in order to improve upon it.
>many people, seeing only stereotypes, come to believe them.
Seems like the local education system has failed if people can't think critically or rationally. Blaming the arts is wrong and only treats the symptom. Do you believe that all information needs to be carefully controlled so that people don't get the wrong ideas? If so, what are you doing on an open/liberal/libertarian forum like HN then? Anyone can post anything here, pretty much. Seems to me that you're going your own advice by being present here.
This.
Thanks for posting this. Everyone likes to shirk personal responsibility and put the blame on others. If you are too challenged to distinguish between real life vs reel life, you should excuse yourself from such matters.
EDIT: Thanks for the down votes, the truth is a bitter pill to swallow, isn't it?
And matches are perfectly safe, if you don't happen to be surrounded by flammables.
The simple facts are that we have a huge amount of ignorance in the audience for this show, this show takes advantage of that (it is targeted to folks who are not informed about the places and people and groups depicted, otherwise it wouldn't take such extreme artistic license with them) and will have an effect on the views of its audience.
It doesn't matter what society we'd like to live in or how
that might play out in theory.
> And matches are perfectly safe, if you don't happen to be surrounded by flammables.
My point goes back to personal responsibility. Whose fault is it if you're surrounded by flammables labeled appropriately?
The analogy is that this is labeled as a "TV show" not a documentary.
You seem to have gotten caught on the analogy and failed to read my argument.
It doesn't matter if something is fiction, the reality is that fiction has a great impact on its audience, and that impact comes with proportional responsibility.
It does not matter what ideal rational actors should theoretically do when it comes to managing their opinions and knowledge about the world in the face of fiction, we don't have any of those.
We don't get to pretend society works a particular way, just so we can justify bad television that uses real places and real names of groups in a farcical way because it's capitalizing on a contemporary societal phenomenon of fear and ignorance of those things.
Why are the creators of the show absolved of their personal responsibility regarding the impact of their actions? If a company poisons the local reservoir with their chemical run-off, are they morally able to say, "Well, they shouldn't have drank that water. They knew they lived near a chemical plant."
No, we trust fiction-based-on-reality to have a semblence of reality to it and to not be blatently racist. That's a cultural evolution we've developed. We are criticizing a show for not being what it should be. That's our responsibility as viewers, and we're fulfilling it.
> Why are the creators of the show absolved of their personal responsibility regarding the impact of their actions?
Because they aren't democratically elected public officials, they're just making a TV show from private funding. And watching the TV show is optional.
> If a company poisons the local reservoir with their chemical run-off, are they morally able to say, "Well, they shouldn't have drank that water. They knew they lived near a chemical plant."
That's a violation of environmental laws; how is this analogy applicable to a TV show? Would you propose to curtail the right to free speech? It's a TV show, not real life.
We're not talking about the viewers of the show, we're talking about the people (Muslims, Arabs, etc) who are affected by the people who choose to watch the show -- that is, the impact on the culture that racism has.
>Would you propose to curtail the right to free speech?
We already do. The FCC does this. But I'm not suggesting that there be a law against it -- though other countries have gone this route -- I'm critizing the production of the television show. For being racist.
>It's a TV show, not real life.
Ah, but here we are: it is real life for millions of Muslims. Remember after 9/11 when Sikhs got beat up because people thought they were Muslims? Remember in the 60s when a black man couldn't get a hotel room in Atlanta?
We know that television and media have an impact on people, their opinions, and how they treat others. The people who broadcast that content have a moral responsibility to use that power in a way that does not negatively impact a single group.
Edit: since we reached our limit here:
>So one of the solutions to solving fundamental societal problems is to criticize a TV show?
Sure has worked for gay people. The public opinion turnaround time for gay marriage has been astoundingly fast. Television featuring strong portrayals of gay people certainly helped.
The Bill Cosby show/Fresh prince of Bel Air showed African Americans in the non-sterotypical manner. How did that work out?
Outliers don't mean they work in all cases.
Again, I point to the fact that these are societal problems, you can't criticize writers and producers of a TV show with this burden. They aren't incarnations of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. They're just trying to make money, it's a TV show for the umpteenth time.
> We're not talking about the viewers of the show, we're talking about the people (Muslims, Arabs, etc) who are affected by the people who choose to watch the show -- that is, the impact on the culture that racism has.
I agree, but I don't agree that this is the problem of the show's creators.
> Ah, but here we are: it is real life for millions of Muslims. Remember after 9/11 when Sikhs got beat up because people thought they were Muslims? Remember in the 60s when a black man couldn't get a hotel room in Atlanta?
So one of the solutions to solving fundamental societal problems is to criticize a TV show?
Nobody mentioned laws or curtailing their rights. Not everything is reduced to whether an action is legal or not.
We can and should discuss whether something is ethical, and we can and should advocate for legal ways of opposing such things, like publicly criticizing it, boycotting the show, etc.
It might be my fault if I put you in a room full of flammables, turn the lights out, and close the door. People who trot out the 'personal responsibility' mantra tend not to have much experience with situations in which their autonomy is curtailed. This is not to say there is no such thing as personal responsibility, but you plainly have a hard time conceiving of a context where you are not the author of your own situation.
If someone fails to distinguish between reality and fiction, that may be their fault.
But if you know that many people are unable to properly distinguish the two, and you do something that you know may lead those to hurt innocent bystanders, don't you have some responsibility if the expected happens?
True, but I don't feel it's not enough for Homeland's producers, or anyone, to say 'it's not our problem'. We all live in a community and are responsible for taking care of it and for the consequences of what we do. "No man is an island."
People absorb their views of the world from TV, in part. With widespread prejudice against people who believe in Islam, portraying stereotypes of that prejudice worsens a dangerous situation. Many, many very bad things in history have resulted and are resulting from that kind of prejudice. It's similar to portraying all black skinned people on TV as drug dealers; many people, seeing only stereotypes, come to believe them.