MickeyThe Royal Pain
Blogger's Log: I know there is another thread regarding torture on the show 24, but while it's got me thinking about the subject I don't watch 24 and so couldn't comment in depth on it there.
Babylon 5 was one of the few sci fi shows my mother got into; she enjoyed how the characters grew and learned (or failed to learn) over time- but it was the believability of the characters that ultimately got to her: She couldn't keep watching after the episode where the Emperor makes Londo watch G'kar being tortured.
Torture is a relatively rare thing on TV, in the networks boundless determination to push the envelope to the point of catching up to where movies and cable already was decades ago. Certainly we've seen pain on TV, but it's usually played for laughs- has America's Klutziest Home Videos ever not included a shot of a man getting hit in the nuts?
Traditionally, though, outright torture- deliberately inflicting pain for pain's sake- was always done by the villain, by the guest star against the hero. Watching Emperor Cartagia taking delight in G'kar's torture, we could be relatively certain that Cartagia wouldn't survive the season. Of course, who killed him was a surprise- but surprises are often found in good shows.
More recently, though, we've seen torture inflicted by the regulars, by our "heroes." In the fourth and half-way decent season of Enterprise we saw Archer questioning a pirate who had taken part in an attack against Enterprise. When the prisoner was reluctant to answer the questions Archer had him put in an airlock and "persuaded" to talk. More recently on Lost, we saw the usually sympathetic Sayid torture Sawyer when they thought Sawyer was hoarding asthma medicine that Shannon needed.
Do the ends justify the means? Does preventing a huge tragedy justify sacrificing part of our ideals? Is it more noble to torture information out of a prisoner to save lives, than to torture for information to take lives... or merely to torture because you despise someone's nationality or religion or their choice in the Coke vs. Pepsi debate?
I've never had to make such a decision, Great Maker be praised... but I suspect that any events that could push me to that point would have included so much bad, insane damage to homeland and peoples that in that context, would torture really be such a huge step? Sayid and his friends had just survived their plane coming apart in mid-air, and Sawyer was deliberately acting the asshole who had hidden the asthma meds... but in the end, a lot of people (on both sides of the screen) questioned the morality of that- including Sayid.
Babylon 5 was one of the few sci fi shows my mother got into; she enjoyed how the characters grew and learned (or failed to learn) over time- but it was the believability of the characters that ultimately got to her: She couldn't keep watching after the episode where the Emperor makes Londo watch G'kar being tortured.
Torture is a relatively rare thing on TV, in the networks boundless determination to push the envelope to the point of catching up to where movies and cable already was decades ago. Certainly we've seen pain on TV, but it's usually played for laughs- has America's Klutziest Home Videos ever not included a shot of a man getting hit in the nuts?
Traditionally, though, outright torture- deliberately inflicting pain for pain's sake- was always done by the villain, by the guest star against the hero. Watching Emperor Cartagia taking delight in G'kar's torture, we could be relatively certain that Cartagia wouldn't survive the season. Of course, who killed him was a surprise- but surprises are often found in good shows.
More recently, though, we've seen torture inflicted by the regulars, by our "heroes." In the fourth and half-way decent season of Enterprise we saw Archer questioning a pirate who had taken part in an attack against Enterprise. When the prisoner was reluctant to answer the questions Archer had him put in an airlock and "persuaded" to talk. More recently on Lost, we saw the usually sympathetic Sayid torture Sawyer when they thought Sawyer was hoarding asthma medicine that Shannon needed.
Do the ends justify the means? Does preventing a huge tragedy justify sacrificing part of our ideals? Is it more noble to torture information out of a prisoner to save lives, than to torture for information to take lives... or merely to torture because you despise someone's nationality or religion or their choice in the Coke vs. Pepsi debate?
I've never had to make such a decision, Great Maker be praised... but I suspect that any events that could push me to that point would have included so much bad, insane damage to homeland and peoples that in that context, would torture really be such a huge step? Sayid and his friends had just survived their plane coming apart in mid-air, and Sawyer was deliberately acting the asshole who had hidden the asthma meds... but in the end, a lot of people (on both sides of the screen) questioned the morality of that- including Sayid.
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Like violence, sex and CGI if it advances the story, then well and good. If it's just shoe-horned in to say "Hey! Look at how modern and 'edgy' we are!" then think of something interesting next time.