Monday, May 14, 2007

Richard Heller almost made me a Republican

I'm re-watching Season 4 of "24" on DVD, and this kid Richard Heller is annoying the shit out of me. I look at "24" as an escapist fantasy, its plots of terrorism and national security notwithstanding. Although some call it a political thriller, I try to distance it from that genre, as it's very light on politics, and only glosses over it in most examples when the plot isn't really tied to anything political. What I mean, is that Jack Bauer doesn't spend 24 hours trying to understand where the terrorist is coming from or what his gripes are. It's television, we want to see him kick their asses. At the end, it's an action show, although much better than any action show I've ever seen.

It also doesn't have a political agenda, as some would try to claim. In various seasons, we've seen Jack try to stop a war perpetuated by oil interests and to prevent Muslim terrorists from nuking Los Angeles. So it's pretty even on that scale. But one of the creators, Joel Surnow, is a right-winger who has been on Limbaugh more than once. And it's apparent he had a heavy hand in the fourth season (the season that has Muslim terrorists) because in addition to the Muslims, there are several "liberal" characters that in spite of my stances on progressive issues, I have grown to loathe.

One of them is Richard Heller. See him in this clip here:



While I agree with some of what he's saying, he's such a little punk. He must go a week in between bathing. And who lights up a joint right in front of their dad? I love how Devane smacked it right out of his hand. (note: On the commentary on the DVD, Surnow states that he regretted writing the "Sixth-grade Michael Moore logic" line. He then said that he should have made it "fifth-grade Michael Moore logic", since it doesn't make it out of the fifth grade. Ouch.)

Another character in Season 4, albeit minor, was the Amnesty Global guy. This was the bald guy in the suit (he reminded me of Dana Carvey's Turtle character in that Master of Disguise movie) who was representing Joe Prado, who was assisting Marwan and the other terrorists. He's another guy I just wanted to slug in the face. Jack was trying to persuade him to interrogate Prado, since Prado really wasn't a good guy, but the Amnesty Global guy kept bringing up the Constitution and due process. Again, it's one of those cases where you agree with the opposing viewpoint, but it's done in such a way, and you get caught up with the show, that you just want to strangle the guy and let Jack and CTU have their way.

Despite that, I will not become a Republican. But I'm still planning to unregister as a Democrat at some point (they suck), I'll probably change back to being an Independent.

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