Jimmy

People who know me well (or have read this blog in the past week) might know about my great love of the TV show 24, still other (and probably more) people will know that I’m a feminist, and some other people (again, anyone who’s read this blog probably) might know of my love of analyzing things to death.

So it is that tonight these three loves of mine come together as I post [in what might very well become a weekly feature on this blog] my thoughts on the latest episode of 24 (12pm-1pm, aired January 19th). Obviously, a very large SPOILER ALERT applies to the below discussion.

In the course of publicizing Season/”Day” 7 of 24 co-executive producer of the show Manny Coto observed that “In a sense, it’s a reboot — in location and personnel.”

This didn’t really strike me as a special quote until this evening when I was watching FBI agent Renee Walker starting to act a lot like someone we’ve begun to know and love on this series, can anyone guess who I’m talking about? I’ll give you a hint (I mean, besides the title of this post…) in the form of this quote from executive producer Howard Gordon: “She is somebody who has probably pressed up against the limitations of what’s been allowed [according to the law]. Her soul is in balance is the question. Is it worth doing whatever’s necessary at the personal price it extracts?”

Are you getting the picture yet?

Let’s back up a bit to, well, the beginning: Season/Day 1. If you analyze what’s going on behind the story (and I admit that you have to be both: 1: a huge film-making geek and 2: watch it at least twice to be able to start analyzing, but still) you’ll notice how the writers are trying to introduce these new characters to us. The first time we see Jack Bauer he’s being a “family man” but in the course of the first episode we see that he’s also a hardened CTU agent (OK, maybe that takes a couple of eps to show, but still), and by the end of the day we’ve probably (I admit I’m only half-way through my second watching of the season) seen probably 80-90% of his basic personality (another way of saying this is that throughout the following 5 seasons we only get 10-20% more of his basic personality), I know that the character changes throughout the years (as any good character should), but his personality of being a loner and rule-breaker is set up from the start. Another thing I’d like to just point out about season 1, and something I noticed when I started re-watching season 1, is that it’s a lot more sexist than seasons 6/7. I think the show progressively improves in this regard throughout the years, but I remember noticing the first time I watched Day/Season 1 that all of the moles in CTU are female, both Jack’s wife and daughter are shown as weaker than I think they would be if their husband/father were a CTU agent and we don’t have any nice females in command positions at CTU. By season 2 we got Michelle Dessler in the #2 position at CTU and in Season 3 Chloe O’Brian made her debut as the top computer tech at CTU. The list goes on, but my main point stands: season 1 of 24 displays few if any strong female lead characters.

Now let’s fast forward back to season 7, the “reboot” of the series. It’s a brave new world (our world, I mean) and the show has changed to fit the times, including becoming less sexist/more feminist. And that takes us back to Renee and her torture last week of a suspect and her refusing to stop her mission in order to answer for it now. The way I’m saying it sounds like she’s running from the police, which she is, but not because of the torture. No, she’s running because she’s damn committed to her mission and won’t let anything (including the legality of her actions) stop her. She is, in effect, saying that the fact that (she thinks) Jack is helping terrorists who have the power to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and she has the best chance of stopping him do it is more important than the justice department probe into her illegal torture of a terrorist. She’s making her own decisions, sure. She’s breaking protocols left and right, but she’s on a mission to save possibly millions of people and she can’t let a few rules get in her way.

I’ve probably pretty much beat this down your throat by now, but it’s time to say it: Renee Walker is Jack Bauer 2.0. Not to say that she’s taking Jack’s place (because who can really replace Jack?), but that in a new and more feminist world (just look at the person in the Oval Office this season) the series needed a female Jack Bauer. The Karen Hayes’, Chloe O’Brians and Nadia Yassirs are all well and good, but they’re all office people. We’ve never had a lead female field agent on 24. I’m not sure I’ve even ever seen a female in the SWAT teams that are always backing up Jack and co. on missions. Renee Walker is long overdue on our TV screens.

Now I just hope she survives being buried alive by Jack and Tony and the silent clock at 12:59pm!

Cheers!

-j

Posted in: Feminism, Media and Arts, Media and Culture by jimmy2 /