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Who Tortured First

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The Last Psychiatrist is losing his analytical skills:

I didn’t see Zero Dark Thirty, but from the hype I’ve gathered that the only two things I need to know are that it may or may not justify torture; and that it’s made by a woman and has a strong female lead. . .

Only a movie made by a woman could get away with asking (neutrally, of course) if torture is necessary; only a strong female character can get away with supervising it, because the assumption is she doesn’t enjoy it, she’s doing what she has to do, her lack of privileged status in the world is precisely what gives her the privilege to use torture when needed. . . That’s the point: the only way to get people to accept torture in real life is through the backdoor of showing a woman did it first.

The Last Psychiatrist must have slept through all of the seasons of 24 where a very unfeminine Jack Bauer justified torture in every episode. Viewers accepted torture years ago, and it was definitely a man who did it first.

21 responses to “Who Tortured First”

  1. charlesrowley Avatar
    charlesrowley

    Torture surely is justifiable under extreme circumstances. To locate Bin Laden was surely one such circumstance. Whether supervised by a man or a woman is irrelevant. Both sexes include among their members individuals who are prepared to carry out such activities. The kind of actions used in the War on Terror are trivial by comparison with those used during the Mediieval Period.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Both sexes include among their members individuals who are prepared to carry out such activities.”

      – Exactly!

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    2. Benoni Avatar
      Benoni

      “Torture surely is justifiable under extreme circumstances. To locate Bin Laden was surely one such circumstance.”

      The thing about torture victims is they’ll say anything to make the torture stop. That means telling their torturers what they want to here, and that includes lying in many circumstances. You think a system that encourages people to lie is a good way to get information?

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    3. thevenerablecorvex Avatar
      thevenerablecorvex

      “Torture surely is justifiable under extreme circumstances. To locate Bin Laden was surely one such circumstance. ”

      This is an entirely moot point in view of the fact that enhanced interrogation techniques do not appear to have been instrumental in finding Osama Bin Laden in real life:
      http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/opinion/bergen-zero-dark-thirty

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  2. Cam from Canada Avatar
    Cam from Canada

    There is a great line from 24, Jack’s brother has been trying to kill him and Jack now has him tied to the chair. Jack starts his questioning and his brother says, “Jack, you are hurting me”, there is a close up on Jack’s face and he says,”No I am not” move to fade and hear the screaming. All good when the nation is at risk.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I still haven’t figured out if the show is a comedy or not.

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  3. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    Except that they got the information they needed to find
    Bin Laden without torture.

    The first showing of 24 and the passing of the Patriot Act were roughly contemporaneous.

    Where was he when Alan Dershowitz about ticking time bombs and warrants for torture?

    The Last Psychiatrist must have been in a coma for the last decade.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “The Last Psychiatrist must have been in a coma for the last decade.”

      – That’s what I’m saying. The show was ultra-popular and, unlike me, viewers seemed to take it completely seriously. Antonin Scalia actually mentioned Jack Bauer as a reason why torture was a good idea: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/06/20/justice-scalia-hearts-jack-bauer/

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  4. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I would say that a female character is pretty much the only kind of character that can get away with questioning the justification for torture. Any male character in an action movie or series that would take a stand different from “torture is totally awesome and I use it every time I take the law into my hands, also HUAH ‘MERICA!” would probably either not a serious character to begin with or be ridiculed beyond recognition and stamped off as a complete wuss.

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  5. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    Here’s something I posted elsewhere this morning. It also relates to the above passage with its nonsensical gender essentialism:

    I am in the mode of thinking Americans — and most Anglos, too– are very stupid, because of the way they behave over this Dawkins thing. And because lately they have been coming at me in a very stupid way. I do believe Americans tend to choose passivity and call it “science” especially when it comes to intellectual matters. They don’t want to budge from their protestant idealism. So they keep their protestant idealism and call it “atheism”. The principles of consumerism mean trying to get the highest reward for the smallest input. When American stop essentializing gender, that will be nice, too. So much of their “science” is pseudoscience, but you need to get an adequate distance to see that. In reality, those apes who venture out to the where no ape has gone before tend to be adventurers and not particularly sensitive types. The ones who ended up in colonial Rhodesia were not particularly sociable either. They did get knocked off fairly easily, though.

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  6. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    The ideology that women are the guardians of morality and that if they become something different it gives tacit approval for civilization to descend into primal chaos sure is funny, when you think about it for more than one second.

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    1. Kathleen Avatar
      Kathleen

      Yes, Musteryou, I agree. Very good point.

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  7. marc2020 Avatar
    marc2020

    I think the one thing that’s really bugging me about this is he’s talking about a film he hasn’t even seen I mean shouldn’t he actually watch the film before he starts making assumptions or does he consider himself above such formalitys?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Weird, indeed!

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  8. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    Torture is good for doing a few things

    1 obtaining confessions (esp false ones, like the thousands of old ladies who ‘confessed’ to riding throug the air on brooms and turning people into newts during the witch hunts)

    2 intimidating most people into not causing trouble (I’m not sure if actual torture is needed or just the strong intimation that it will happen if you’re arrested)

    3 unloading unfocused primal rage (see Abu Gharib)

    As for the film I haven’t seen it (don’t plan on catching it either) and haven’t read this LP post (yet). But I’ll put in my two cents anyway. My guess is that in the current cultural climate a woman torturing a political prisoner is a way of a woman encroaching on a previously male domain and therefore sold as ’empowering’: “Hey Jack Bauer! Sisters are inflicting humilation and pain on political undesirables just like the big boys! Take that, Patriarchy!”

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I have no idea whatsoever how anybody could arrive at the idea that this was ever a male domain. Do people not study history at all? Oh wait. . .

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “a male domain”

        By which I meant ‘Jack Bauer’ and more broadly torture in the pop media.

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      2. el Avatar
        el

        // I have no idea whatsoever how anybody could arrive at the idea that this was ever a male domain. Do people not study history at all? Oh wait. . .

        I have never heard of women torturing people either. Except may be punishing other women for adultory and other sexual crimes in the pre-Medieval tribal times.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Seriously? Never learned about Saltychikha at school? 🙂

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      3. el Avatar
        el

        May be you could write about it? Not only torture, but in general women doing “unwomenly” things in the past (I don’t include working since most worked a lot). But with one condition! Of not talking of one in a thousand who stood out (Joan of Ark or an occasional, rare women who fought disguised as a man), but usual women.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          This will be hard since I can’t imagine any “unwomenly” things. 🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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