the ramble dump

So it's Christmas time again, and it's become tradition that every Christmas I get some delicious pop fiction to suit the dumbed-down state of my brain. It's a little break from the higher forms of literature that I spend my academic life consuming. As it's only Christmas Eve and I don't yet have a fresh supply, I've been reading one of last year's that I never got around to finishing: a 24 Declassified novel by Marc Cerasini called Trojan Horse.

Now, I've read two of these 24 novels before, and generally they're pretty decent for what they are. But there are a few things that really jumped out at me in this one as, well, plain bad form.

Take the following extract. This little section of conversation crops up as characters Tony Almeida and Fay Hubley are setting up equipment in their undercover hideout.

Tony folded his arms. "Funny how extending the RICO Act makes some people crazy. But if we can use these laws to prosecute drug dealers, why not apply the same laws to stopping terrorists, too?"

"Yeah, strange how no one complains about the IRS knowing every single financial transaction a citizen makes in a given year, but knowing what book a suspect borrows from the library is suddenly a problem."

"It's the theoretical world versus the real world," said Tony. "Most people aren't lying awake at night worrying whether the Feds know what book they borrowed from the library. They're worried red tape is going to prevent the government from failing to stop a terrorist attack like Beslan, or Bali, or London."

Fay fumbled with one of the laptops, almost losing her towel. "Here, check this out."

Sexual tension ensues.

But what the hell was all that doing there, so sneakily wedged in between some technobabble and a meaningful shoulder massage? Were we supposed to believe that this was part of natural conversation? There's nothing like sticking your opinion in the mouths of some righteous fictional characters as they're out saving the world to lend it some credibility, but could Mr Cerasini not have been a little less blatant? The TV show from whence this came also has a bad habit of less-than-subtle political posturing, but it was still a surprise to find it quite so barefaced, slipped into the scene as it was. A similar effect would be achieved by the TV show if Jack Bauer were in a scene brushing his teeth and suddenly turned to the camera to advertise the toothpaste.

And it gets worse.

He could see the war behind Castalano's eyes. "Believe me, Frank," Jack continued. "I can break this man, but not here. Police methods are inadequate in the face of this man's fanaticism."

Castalano's features darkened. "A couple of years ago, the loss of basic civil liberties you're talking about would have scared the hell out of me...but that was before I saw the horrors in Hugh Vetri's home this morning."

The detective paused, thought of that van full of innocent kids, thought of his own.

Context: Hugh Vetri is a movie director who is murdered by said man along with his wife and child. Detective Castalano is then recalling an event that took place once this murderer fled the scene in Vetri's car: the man, high on drugs and speeding, accidentally forces a van full of church-going kids off the road (along with the bus driver, described beforehand as 'a mother of five') before fleeing the scene again. Not very morally responsible of him, you might agree. But even though what happened with 'that van full of innocent kids' is completely incidental to the suspect's fanaticism, note the recourse to a 'think of the children' sentimentality used to help justify Castalano's decision anyway.

I'm not even going to get into the dubious logic of Jack Bauer's request. The politics behind it are questionable enough--Jack isn't even aware of any time-sensitive situation at this point, which is usually what the show uses to rationalise such actions--but Cerasini's attempts to feed it to us, his disingenuous manipulation of our emotions over such a tricky subject, strikes me as grotesque.

The man's eyes glazed once again and he struggled anew. His cries were in another language now. Castalano figured it was some form of Arabic because the words Allah Akbar were repeated many times--never a good sign.

Yeah, you hear someone uttering that and you know you've got a madman on your hands. If they say it ten times, you've got yourself a terrorist. Detective Castalano is experienced enough to know that his man didn't even need the fresh blood around his mouth from having recently ripped open a State Trooper's carotid artery with his teeth; he didn't need to be screaming or rambling or jumping about. He just needed to say the A-word, and Detective Frank Castalano knew in his stomach that something was wrong.

Maybe I should blame clumsy syntax, but I think Mr Cerasini just let slip a prejudice.

And now Mr Cerasini's most heinous crime, which I have saved until last.

"Listen, Milo...I updated the archives last night at nine o'clock, before I went home. You can see the update log right on the screen."

"Calm down. I'm not accusing you of anything."

"Can you isolate it?"

"W00t!" cheered Milo. "I already have."

W00t? W00t?

Labels: 24, morality

# posted by Chris @ 11:33 AM