Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Wierd TV observations: 24

Since I didn't have class, I was at home in time to catch fox's 24 today. While watching it something interesting occured to me. 24's treatment of its female characters is more than a little disturbing.

Lets look at a few examples.
The current head of CTU is painted as this cold, conniving bitch who also happens to have a mentally disturbed daughter who just commited suicide.
Aisha Tyler's character was a mole for the terrorists until they killed her.
Bauer's daughter was constantly running from one improbably idiotic situation to another. His mistress was also a mole who tried to kill him. His current girlfriend, much like his daughter, is constantly running headlong into dangerous situations.
Pres. Palmer's daughter was raped, his wife was working for his enemies.
Behrooz's girlfriend was invited over and killed basically because she was stalking him.
Bauer's contact at CTU is framed and tortured before getting out and blackmailing her boss for a better position.

Now, I don't watch this show regularly, I usually catch less than half of a given season so I could be wrong here. On the other hand, it is more than a little improbable that I just happen to catch the eps where the women are treated badly. Its also possible that this is just part of a larger trend involving both male and female characters. Doesn't seem that way to me though.

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