So, Is "The Americans" a Field Guide to Spotting Spies? @Variety @Danielletbd

In this article for Variety, Danielle Turchiano examines the popular culture image of the CIA on the hit FX television series The Americans (2013-2018) with the assistance of real life agents Martha Peterson and Mark Kelton. (And probably not a good idea to call them "spooks." Here's a guide to some agent lingo).

More about the show's March 28 finale in this Vox article and about the show generally in this Variety article.

A (very) selected bibliography on the spy and popular culture here.

Thomas Andrae, Television's First Feminist: "The Avengers" and Female Spectatorship, 18 Discourse 112-136 (Spring 1996).

Lisa Marie Bidlingmeyer, How the TV Image Destabilizes Identity in TV Spy Series (Thesis, MIT, 2007).

Wesley Britton, Spy Television (Praeger, 2004) (The Praeger Television Collection).

Christine Alice Corcos, "I Am Not a Number! I Am a Free Man!": Physical and Psychological Imprisonment in Science Fiction, 25 Legal Studies Forum 471 (2001) (discussing the series The Prisoner).

Luis M. Garica-Mainar, The Return of the Realist Spy Film, Cineaction 12-19 (2012).

Jon Heitland, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Book: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Television Classic (St. Martin's Press, 1987).

Michael Kackman, Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) (Commerce and Mass Culture Series).

Stephen Keane, America (sic) Exceptionalism in Television Spy Dramas: Mainstreaming American With "I Spy," "Sleeper Cell," and "24"? (Thesis, Georgetown, 2007).

Tom Lisanti and Louis Paul, Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962-1973 (McFarland and Company, 2002).

J. Fred MacDonald, The Cold War As Entertainment In 'Fifties Television, 7 Journal of Popular Film and Television 3-31 (1978).

Trevor McCrisken, The Housewife, the Vigilante, and the Cigarette-Smoking Man: The CIA and Television, 1975-2001, 100 History: The Journal of the Historical Association 293-310 (April 2015).

Alan Nadel, Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture, 60 Film Quarterly 71-72 (Summer 2007).

N. S. Stone, A Reader's Guide to the Spy and Thriller Novel (G. K. Hall, 1997).

International Law, Torture and "24"

Knut Fournier has published Torture Justification in ‘24’: Aesthetics of the Bush Administration

In the context of the War on Terror, fiction is a support of ideologies for the Bush administration. The TV series '24' resorts on all legal justifications of torture made by the Bush administration, and justifies torture as being necessary, effective, and lawful. In that justification process, the thesis of the main international lawyers supportive of the Bush doctrines are used in a very detailed way, maintaining a 'simulacra' in the sense of Baudrillard.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link. NB: The text is in French.

Jack Bauer Syndrome

Tung Yin, Lewis and Clark Law School, has published Jack Bauer Syndrome: Hollywood's Depiction of National Security Law, at 17 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J. 279 (2008), also presented at the 2008 AALS Section on Law and Humanities panel. Here is the abstract.

In this Article, which was presented at the Law & Humanities Section Panel at the 2008 Annual AALS Conference, I examine the way that the Fox television series "24" portrays two issues relevant to national security law: the use of torture to extract information in order to stop an imminent terrorist attack, and the depiction of Arabs as villains (and non-villains) with the concomitant impact on racial profiling and other stereotyping of Arab-Americans and Arabs. I conclude that the depiction of torture is narratively stacked in favor of government agent Jack Bauer. I also conclude that "24" attempts to balance its portrayal so that not all villains are Arabs, and not all Arabs are villains. However, I point out points of improvement in this area.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Jack Bauer and "24": Torture In American Culture

Kate Kovarovic, American University Washington College of Law, has published Our ‘Jack Bauer’ Culture: Eliminating the Ticking Time Bomb Exception to Torture in volume 22 of the Florida Journal of International Law (2010). Here is the abstract.

After eight successful seasons on the air, Americans have come to trust Jack Bauer of 24 to get the job done. Regardless of the circumstances, Jack always succeeds where most men cannot; Jack can always find a way to break a terrorist suspect and obtain the exact information he needs to save the world. Because of this unrealistic portrayal of the successes of torture, Americans have also come to expect that Jack Bauer is not the exception, but the norm. The War on Terror has introduced a new legal theory to the American consciousness: that of the ticking time bomb exception. Despite the country’s pledge to uphold the principles of the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture, more and more Americans are rallying around the ticking time bomb exception, which permits government officials to torture a suspect who might possess critical information regarding an imminent security threat. This paper seeks to convey that the ticking time bomb exception is strictly prohibited under national and international law, and to place the ticking time bomb exception in a more realistic context for the American public.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Television and Torture

Bev Clucas, University of Hull School of Law, has published "24 and Torture," in Torture: Moral Absolutes and Ambiguities (B. Clucas, G. Johnstone and T Ward eds.; Nomos: Baden-Baden, 2009). Here is the abstract.

In this chapter, I explore and reflect on the underlying themes concerning torture and legitimate action in 24. I begin with a short introduction to the TV show itself, highlighting the many different instances of torture, as well as some of the general criticisms leveled at it. I then proceed to consider some of the moral issues associated with the dissemination of information about torture in general, first in relation to factual instances of torture, and then fictional. This discussion informs a more detailed analysis of the depiction of torture in 24. Having considered the express intentions of the program makers, I apply a scheme of analysis on 'speech acts' devised by J.L.Austin, and developed by Langton, to argue that the real intention of the program makers is better understood as pro-torture propaganda: an instance of double immorality, as not only does the show push a pro-torture message, but also, it does so under the pretense of pure entertainment.

Download the essay from SSRN here.