Keith Olbermann does not like ’24’
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- January
- 22
So the plot is hackneyed, the writing uneven, the characters one-dimensional, and the hype overrated. You know you’re still going to be watching 24 tonight. They just set off a frickin’ nuke in L.A.!!
But, according to Hastings-bred MSNBC talker, Keith Olbermann, the show is nothing short of right-wing propaganda. Last week, he suggested the producers exploit our fear of terrorism to get ratings and possibly advance an agenda.
It’s a familiar tactic for grabbing and holding the public’s attention, beloved by both the Bush administration and, just as another example, Fox News Channel. Step 1: Fear, and if step 1 does not work, Step 2: More fear…it is also evidently how the producers of the Fox series “24” plan to keep viewers during the show’s sixth year, as evidenced by the first 30 seconds of the season premiere [when terrorists blew up a bus in L.A.]…If that wasn’t enough to scare or outrage you, the rest of the four-hour, two-night show featured a mall attack, a would-be suicide bomber on the subway and a successful suicide bombing on a passenger bus  not in places where these things have already happened, but in a country called the United States of America… In case you missed the point, the show finished up with a nuclear weapon detonating in a major American city, literally conjuring up the administration’s imagery for the war in Iraq: the good old mushroom cloud.
He’s probably right. The producers have always –proudly, believe it or notâ€â€bragged about how they don’t know where the show is going each season, and are usually only a few episodes ahead of the rest of us. In place of plot development, they rely on the outrageous and shocking. It’s also a bit unnerving how the show has slowly anesthetized the audience to the idea of torture. Of course torture is worthwhile when it’s seemingly done against would-be terrorists and there is LITERALLY a ticking clock!
Still, the show is like an addiction. And I’m not the rehab-type. So, I’ll be watching with the rest of you tonight. Because, they just set off a frickin’ nuke in L.A.!!
(AP Photo/2006 Fox Broadcasting Co., Kelsey McNeal)
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on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 10:16 am by Suburbarazzi.
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keith olbermann scares me. i’m sure if it were up to him shows like 24 would not be allowed to exist. what a fair, impartial, level-headed guy
oh, c’mon, Keith. I know lots of lefties who love 24 simply for the fact that it’s so far over the top that it’s almost a parody of terrorism.
“TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!” Yeah, that and a bullet (or knife) in the knee will get you all the intel you need.
The Executive Producer of 24 is a self proclaimed right wind advocate and his show reflects his politics without any compunction on his part. I’m sure that Karl Rove arranged a tour of Langley or NSA headquarters as the government often does to politically friendly film and TV producers so that he could get a feel for how his sets should look and ideas for plot lines..
Right after 9/11, the Bush administration held a meeting with the Hollywood community to ask them to produce patriotic, military friendly, propaganda type shows to help unify America during what was then, a popular war.
Fox is owned by staunch right winger, Rupert Murdoch who is said to love the show because in Jack Bauer’s universe, everybody watches Fox News, and the shows generates a lot of money for him.
My only beef with the show is that the Executive Branch gets progressively stupid with every passing season and if the easily impressionable think that logic portrayed by the 24 president and his staff on that show would work in a real world crisis scenario, it could be trouble for the rest of us.