4. Summary and Conclusion

In this essay, we’ve considered how different facets of the world of 24 and of the character of Jack Bauer make any transcendent ethical framework irrelevant compared to the pragmatic exigencies of the situation and the mythic presence of the hero. The world of 24 collapses time; it is a world on the edge, and so no moral deliberation can be afforded. The character of Jack Bauer is this curious blend of the normal and the superheroic (without the cape), and his situation strangely parallels our own, so he is commended as a trustworthy hero, despite (or because of?) the evil he does.

I have also been arguing that this sort of projecting of a fictive world the viewers can inhabit and a hero with which to identify all have definite effects upon the identity and moral perspective of the audience (what Ricoeur would call the “refiguration” of identity as the world of the text intersects the world of the reader).¹⁶  I have argued that the show enrolls us in a sort of sentimental education whereby evil is seen as necessary and acceptable.¹⁷  But perhaps the connections I’ve been making have been misleading, the paths of influence too direct: Jack does x, so we’ll collectively do x.¹⁸ 

Actually, I believe that the influence is more subtle and indirect because of the institutional setting of the character of Jack Bauer. He works for CTU, he is a government agent. Part of his super-prowess seems to emanate from his position as a government agent (his training, his field experience, and so on). The subtext seems to be, “Don’t try this at home, folks! Jack’s a professional.” Rather than directly influencing the audience to go out and emulate Jack, I would argue that the show would have a pacifying effect upon its audience. Instead of spurring us to action, the show may subtly influence us towards passivity, to accept whatever the government deems is necessary in getting the job done in its post-9/11 “War on Terror,” to let the talented and trustworthy folks like Jack and his friends at CTU take care of it. In accepting evil heroes like Jack, we may be tacitly abnegating our responsibility to morally approve or censure the actions of those who represent and protect us. That sort of moral reflection and moral accountability seems irrelevant given that time moves so fast, the threat looms so large, and people like us (but a whole lot better and cooler) are getting the job done.

Notes from this page

¹⁶  See Ricoeur, 1984, 70-86.

¹⁷  Ricoeur calls fiction a moral “laboratory of the imaginary.” See Ricoeur, “The self and narrative identity,” in: Oneself as Another, translated by K. Blamey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 164.

¹⁸  Lawrence and Jewett call this direct effect of popular culture upon the behavior of its audience the “Werther Effect,” after the copycat suicides that swept Europe after the publication of Goethe’s popular novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. See Lawrence and Jewett, 9-12.