24/7, 16.8

Abstract

When writing about culture, one must necessarily contend with problem of meaning. What can be said coherently about any given cultural artifact? Is artifact always forthright about expressing what it means? Or is artifact dealing in figurative expression, an allegory perhaps, that might make covert reference to a parallel, alternate narrative? What is best technique for hunting down such a parallel narrative? Must we all become vigilant audience members, carefully substituting readings for or against any given manifest clue, in order that latent narrative may see light of day? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is a commonsense notion today that 24, Fox television drama that premiered in 2001, is a show that tells us something about contemporary life. Roughly stated, conventional wisdom on 24 is that the show is America. Set in post-9/11 United States, hour-long serial is a prism into nation itself, its anxieties about terrorism and torture, growing police state, an obsession over real-time phenomena, security of clan and family, power of information systems, and like. In recent months show has provoked a flurry of controversy around these and other hot-button political debates. Whether or not any of these issues adequately describes inner workings of this particular cultural artifact remains to be seen. However, I would like to pose it as a problem for critique. Is 24 a political show? If so, in what ways is it political? How does this particular cultural artifact express a political claim? What hermeneutic method is appropriate to interpret meaning of 24? The most prevalent interpretation of 24 is a political one because series advocates a utilitarian moral philosophy that pits dubious short-term actions (e.g., torture) against greater of contemporary state. If new millennium brings a novel spin to utilitarian impulse, it is probably way in which a teleological sense of total utility is concocted anew with both a tick-tock urgency and a military state in which maximized is that of moral truth itself. It is not clear if this is utopia or fascism. Nevertheless, two flags become unfurled. On one hand, sense of urgency is a natural sublimation of information age in which networked instantaneousness is expected norm; any political solution is chronologically dependent only on computer cycles available to execute it. The challenges in 24 are always informatic in this sense, because they hinge on abilities of various cybernetic systems (weapon, com-link, agent, satellite camera) to operate smoothly without obstruction. On other hand, from where does show derive its yen for definition of total moral frame as that of security of state--at any cost--against total annihilation? This is also consummate late-modern anxiety that those threats, which until now have arrived in many shades of grey, have now become, like computer itself, binary; like nuclear holocaust of cold war, terror strike, or viral pandemic, or warming of planet--which promise to arrive not with small pricks of pins and needles but with a total collapse without recourse. The utilitarian moral philosophy appears via a number of narrative and formal details. The most common is digital clock, both in nondiegetic time code that appears regularly before and after each commercial interruption and occasionally during narrative action, but also with in-world clocks that are ticking in every show (the nuke in season two, virus pods in season three, gas canisters in season five, etc.). The clock is adept at heightening persuasiveness of utilitarian rationale, for it convincingly elevates absolute importance of teleological good over necessary blood that must be spilled in order to get there. If end of society is so near, in seconds and minutes even, who will notice a little bit of spilt milk? …