Tag: Dexter

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Janet Jackson’s Nipple

Apparently the exposure lasted about 9/16 of a second. Janet Jackson’s breast.

Not very long– you would think. But long enough to require a stern response from the guardian of public morals, the Bush Administration’s FCC.

Meanwhile, prime-time television continues to broadcast an unending stream of knifings, shootings, beatings, and torture. All shown tastefully, of course, so as to not cause offense. “24” tells us that torture works: the bad guys immediately tell the truth, even when the torturer has no idea what the truth is and, well, will just have to take the victim’s word for it because there is no time to lose.

This may sound strange, but was it ever so clear that the U.S. government wants to encourage young people to enjoy depictions of violence and abuse and hatred? By all means– let’s prepare our youth for a world in which we will ask them to kill and torture and destroy on behalf of our national interest. Of course it does. Think about all the episodes of “24” and “Lost” and “Dexter” which incurred not the slightest censure or approbation of the U.S. federal government: torture may not be nice but sometimes it’s the only way to find out if someone is hiding an inhaler (“Lost”, Season 1). The government pats TV on the head: that’s cute. It’s nice that our children learn to regard sadistic serial killers as redeemable if they only focus their efforts on suspected criminals (“Dexter”). The audience is assured– as it can never be in real life– that the victim deserved it.

Actually, shows like “Dexter” encourage you to feel that it is right and good to commit the same atrocity we find so reprehensible when committed by our enemies. Even for someone who is a little inured to the raging hypocrisies of television, this show reaches a new level of nauseating deviance: Dexter, a psychopathic serial killer, is actually heroic. I don’t understand why, even in post-9/11 America, there has not been a furious outcry about this show.

And it’s cute that the authorities torture people because, of course, then they instantly tell the truth, as on “24”. How does Jack know it’s the truth? The only possible explanation is that he read the script; there is nothing in the set of facts supplied to us by the story that would justify his belief that he has now heard “truth” and that the victim is not just saying whatever he thinks will make the torture stop;.

And I’m not sure “children” doesn’t include the infantile half of the U.S. population that regard it as their birthrate to carry guns and drive Hummers and biggie-size their fries if they damn well feel like it.

But one thing that cannot be permitted: the sight of a woman’s breast! As at the 2004 Super Bowl. For 9/16th of a second, as determined by a lower court. Our children will imagine the sickening, disgusting things that are done to a woman’s breast, like kissing and caressing and fondling and suckling!

Since it is scientifically proven that children imitate what they see on TV, this must be stopped, at all costs. CBS must be fined $500,000 or more to ensure that they won’t do it again. America will be pure again, and safe for Rush Limbaugh.

 

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Dexter

I just happened to catch part of a new TV series tonight– “Dexter”. As far as I can tell, this is a new low or high in television drama: Dexter is a heroic serial killer splatter-analyst who only tortures and murders “deserving” victims. And there it was– in the first episode I watched– Dexter duct-taping a slime-ball to a table in some remote location and perusing his collection of knives and then asking the victim if he was guilty. The victim tried to be evasive– for a second or two– but a quick jab in the head clarified his position and he confessed. He did it. Yes, he offed the girl. Now kill me please.

Dexter does not fly. He does not have x-ray vision. He can’t transport himself from one location to another in the flick of an eye. He can’t bend steel rods with his bare hands. If he did those things, the show would be a fantasy instead, and many people would not watch because they would find the premise silly. I think. But these same people see a man taped to a table being threatened with a knife and somehow believe that he would confess to a heinous crime right away because… because why? Because he believes the man wearing the saran wrap on his face is going to let him go if he only tells the truth?

No wonder over 30% of the population supports George Bush and Dick Cheney. Bush and Cheney are right. If you catch an Islamic fundamentalist and torture him, he will tell you the truth. He won’t make anything up. And it’s enjoyable to inflict unspeakable suffering on deserving individuals, regardless of whether we have an investigation and trial first.

Do most Americans believe this scene? Do they actually believe that torture makes people tell the truth, as opposed to what they think their torturers want to hear so that they will stop the torture?

The CIA doesn’t even do us the courtesy of demanding new information to prove that that the adduced evidence has any kind of validity. They supply the names. “Is Ahmed Mohammed from Egypt a terrorist?” “No? Yes? Which is it you want me to say?” “Whatever is the truth Hamdi.” “Yes, he is a terrorist.” “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes, yes, please don’t hurt me.” “Okay. Thank you. Call the White House and tell them we kept America safe for another day.”

Dexter’s adoptive father knew that he had problems. But Dexter’s problems aren’t the result of an addiction to porn– James Dobson didn’t consult on this series, though he should have (to make it even more stupid)– but the result of some kind of mysterious abuse he suffered before his wise adoptive father steered him towards a constructive expression of his dark impulses: there are evil people out there… people deserving of your deviant attentions…. So Dexter resolves to join the police force so he can find out who, exactly, out there, is “deserving”. And no one is more deserving in Bush’s American than the mythical serial killer — who everybody knows dun it– who gets off on a technicality. Hell, why doesn’t Dexter just off all the lawyers, and the ACLU, and journalists, and environmentalists… and get it over with? Because, in this tract of American entertainment, I’ll bet you Dexter is an environmentalist– but not one of those extremist tree-huggers! He believes in clean coal, and planting grass on those open pit mines once we’ve extracted all the carbon.

All this beauteous dismemberment and sadism, and the concomitant warnings about “adult” content… and Dexter, it turns out, like Bush, is hilariously chaste. No sex education here! Dexter is dating a lovely blonde mother of two– after all, sooner or later someone Dexter personally cares about will have to be imperiled– it’s as inevitable as Dr. House himself becoming sick– but he doesn’t want to have sex with her. Alleluia. At last a program with some family values. At last something James Dobson can approve of for white middle America to watch in between spankings!

Go Dexter Go!

I say it’s peculiar that after all of the reversals of verdicts due to DNA testing in the past few years, television audiences are still so eager to believe that it’s easy to identify who the real murderer is and the TV hero– serial killer or not– never makes a mistake when he goes out there and exercises a little vigilante justice on our behalf.

And America never tires of enjoying the carnage as long as the fig leaf of just desserts is employed correctly. I am not a monster just because I enjoyed the scene in which he butchers a man because the man deserved it. I am not a bad person just because I tuned to this station to watch this show because I couldn’t wait to see some kind of sadistic violence… no no– not me.

This is why audiences have the perversity of Dexter backwards. Dexter is not really a serial killer who conceals his true nature behind the façade of a police man.

In fact, behind the façade of a serial killer, what we really have a is a policeman.

And that is why Dexter may well be the sickest, most obscene program ever broadcast on television. It seriously invites the viewer to enjoy fantasies of dismemberment and torture and inflicting unspeakable pain on human beings under the fig leaf of retributive justice. If you had any shred of belief left in the basic decency of human beings, pray that this show gets cancelled because too few people watch it.

I’m being coy here– okay. I said that Bush and Cheney believe that an Al Qaeda operative would not make things up under torture. But that’s ridiculous. Of course he would, and I have to theorize that most people involved, the torturers, the authorizers of torture, and the monsters in the Bush Administration, and maybe even the victims themselves, all understand that it doesn’t matter if they make things up– all the better. Name names. Tell us what they “did”. They will be arrested, which constitutes proof that the torture worked. They will be tortured and asked if what the first torture victims said was true. Of course it was. Torture works. Lives have been saved. Americans can rest easy tonight in their trailer parks and school gyms and gated communities: Bush and Cheney have preserved your way of life. And it only took a little torture.