Originally Posted by
Maximilianus
The problem is not 24, but what people have within the skull, which is what eventually helps you understand what you watch on TV. There's not a single episode of 24 where Jack Bauer is depicted as someone who enjoys what he does. Actually, and if you look carefully inside the story, he pays a high price for his actions, but of course in order to see it you have to dive into the story's plot, and not merely to watch some bloodbath. It's as though we were saying that George Washington lead a revolution because he wanted to kill Brits. Well, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Washington was mainly thinking about what was best for his country, in a similar manner as Jack Bauer does. I don't advocate for violence, but how did almost every free nation become free? The character is not having a great time, as most of the founding fathers of every free nation did not have a great time during the killings they had to get involved in. My point is, you do what you do because you have to do it and not necessarily because you like it, or because you enjoy it, or because you want a reputation as a "badass". If our youngsters do not understand that they are being showed the price one has to pay for being a full-time undertaker, and instead they believe they are merely seeing an entertaining bloodbath by a "badass", then our youngsters lack enough brains to catch the purpose of the story, and that's not a TV show's fault. It's as though we blamed a book because there are people who don't get the book's plot. It's all matter of analytic ability.
By the way, "badass" is one of those words I hate the most. It has become one of those stupid clichés that get stuck into people's vocabulary just because they heard it somewhere, without really pondering about real meaning and implications.