heroes, anti-heroes, and ensemble casts

[cellio]

Generally when I'm reading/watching fiction that revolves around a main character, I want that character to be a hero -- someone I'm sympathetic to and whose actions, in context, I can more or less agree with. I said "more or less" -- nothing's perfect, after all, and following only characters like me would be boring. On the flip side, I can sometimes get into the right "anti-hero" as a character study if presented well.

This doesn't come up in all fiction, of course. A TV show with an ensemble cast, by definition, doesn't call out one character as "the main guy", and I find I both tolerate and relish many shades of gray there. B5's Londo is a fascinating character to me, for instance. I actually prefer ensemble shows, by the way, because they seem to allow for richer characters.

Jack Bauer on 24 tries to be a hero, but as this season goes on I'm becoming convinced that he is pretty much completely amoral, and there's nothing heroic about that. The character and the show do not fit any of the molds I've described as liking -- he's not a hero I identify with, he's not a fascinating character study, and 24 certainly is not an ensemble show. And yet I find myself watching it every week, and wanting to watch it on the broadcast night. I don't know why.

This ramble was inspired in particular by the last five minutes of this week's episode. There darn well better be consequences.

Edit: A cleaner way of saying this might be: if there is a main character then I want to either like or be fascinated by him; this is not true of Jack Bauer; yet I still watch.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I have not seen the most recent episode of 24 yet, but I agree that Bauer is not so much of a hero as a rogue. His actions and beliefs encapsulate the idea that the ends justifies the means. And for an American audience, when the ends are saving the USA from terrorism, the harsh means by which he sometimes accomplishes this can be made to seem necessary.

A recent recap on Television Without Pity posits (with sarcasm) that the whole thing is a critique of how we're letting the government get away with eroding our freedoms for the sake of security.

As for why one keeps watching every week -- well, it is a cliffhanger show.

[cellio]

Good points. They're certainly, quite intentionally, doing this for a post-9/11 America, after all. And yeah, I guess cliffhangers are pretty strong.

It's funny: I used to be plot-driven, with character being secondary. Twenty years ago a talking-heads story like Tuesdays with Morrie would have driven me absolutely batty. (Well ok, I would have stopped reading/turned off the TV.) As I've matured, though, I've come to realize that good characters can be put in just about any situation and make good stuff happen. (And no, I never really cared for "action" movies without either good plot or good characters.)

A recent recap on Television Without Pity posits (with sarcasm) that the whole thing is a critique of how we're letting the government get away with eroding our freedoms for the sake of security.

Ooh. They've got a point. I wish I could muster enough confidence to attribute that motive to the producers, but I'm not sure I can.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I don't watch 24. But I have caught the last 2 episodes, strangely enough. And, as I watched the "divorced yet still in love couple" fight, then the "girl caught between two friends" fits, and the "president trying to fight away the tears of cowardice"...

I said to myself "It's a soap opera, with one big-ass bomb."

I don't care for soap opera's, as a rule.

I'd love to know the real story, as if it were a suspense thriller. But it's not.

From those two episodes, Bauer isn't a man people turn to out of loyalty or love or admiration - he's a supremely capable and amoral hatchet man. On the other hand, based upon screen time, he's not the star, he's part of an ensemble.

[cellio]

I said to myself "It's a soap opera, with one big-ass bomb."

Hmm. I don't watch soap operas so I may have this wrong, but I thought the canonical soap opera was pretty much completely absorbed in the characters with nothing tending to happen "in the world". In other words, it's all about the love triangles and so-and-so's fight with $illness and so-and-so's descent into alcoholism and so on, but it's not about the larger world. Am I wrong?

I've seen the first and current seasons of 24 (and a little of last season). It seems to be a story of the larger world with character (soap-opera?) elements layered on top. It seems like there's more of that now than there was in the first season.

On the other hand, based upon screen time, he's not the star, he's part of an ensemble.

It's hard to say. Bauer is the constant; other characters come and go around him. Most of the CTU guys, for instance, weren't there last season, and the secretary of defense, his daughter (Jack's girlfriend), and her husband are all new this season. I expect they won't return; next season will be Jack and maybe one or two co-stars and another slate of new people. So while in any given episode Jack doesn't have the majority of the screen time, it's really the Jack show in feel. At least to me. An ensemble is balanced; for example, you might have solid (non-filler) episodes or even arcs that don't even involve some of the major players. I don't see that happening on 24.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Last season there was a rumor that they were going to kill Bauer in the middle of the season. This season, there's a rumor that they're going to kill him at the end.

I doubt they would do that, though. I think Sutherland is far too much the franchise for the producers (including himself, by the way) to risk alienating their audience by killing his character off.

After 24's first season, I felt they should have abandoned the format and either spun off to a new show called "CTU" or else promote some new show with the words "from the people who brought you 24." In a way, they proved me wrong; they can keep using the same formula every year, and I will come back to keep watching.

I almost didn't, though. I decided to give the second season only one episode to convince me to watch. And when I saw Bauer kill the criminal in order to present the guy's head to the bad guys so he would be accepted into their conspiracy as a double agent, I had to keep watching.

[cellio]

This season, there's a rumor that they're going to kill him at the end.

Story-wise it would make sense, particularly if the (ex-, I imagine) girlfriend is the one who pulls the trigger. Business-wise, though, I suspect you're right. They haven't built up any other characters enough to be able to go forward with a new central character, and practically no one shuts down a series because the story is done rather than because the business decision calls for it. (Ok, maybe they could do something with a Tony-centered story, but I don't think it would work very well.)

I haven't seen the second season yet, or most of the third. We started watching (via external prompt) about three-quarters of the way through the third season. I've gone back and watched the first season on DVD, but nothing else so far. I'm not sure if I will; reviews of the second season are weaker than those of the first and I don't feel a strong urge to pick up the earlier bits of the third season when I already know how it turns out.

And when I saw Bauer kill the criminal in order to present the guy's head to the bad guys so he would be accepted into their conspiracy as a double agent, I had to keep watching.

Did he at least angst over it a bit like he did before killing his boss to placate different criminals in the third season?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

No, he didn't angst over it all. In fact, he kept arguing with the people above him that this was an absolutely necessary step if he was going to be taken seriously when he tried to infiltrate the bad guys.

Of course, he made that argument after killing the guy, so it was a done deal, but still...

[jducoeur]

I haven't seen any of this season yet, just the previous ones; adjust accordingly. That said:

On the other hand, based upon screen time, he's not the star, he's part of an ensemble.

No, I agree with cellio -- while he may not have all the screen time, and he's *far* from the most sympathetic character, Bauer is unquestionably the center of the story. Each season has emphasized this eventually: everything ties back to his own past successes and failings eventually, and his personal traumas tend to magnify in the situation.

he's a supremely capable and amoral hatchet man.

The one thing I find fascinating is that he didn't start quite that way. At the start of the series, he still thought of himself as basically the good guy -- sometimes doing the nasty work that others wouldn't, but he clearly thought of himself as the hero. As the seasons have progressed, that's subtly broken down, and I'm still not sure if it's intentional. At the end of season 3, we had a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown, apparently starting to internalize that maybe he wasn't the good guy after all, and maybe starting to question whether it was all worth it.

If they would pay that off -- if they'd let Jack's arc *go* somewhere and come out the other side -- I think the entire series would be worthwhile. I'm just not sure they have any intention of ever doing so, though. *That* is the soap-operatic aspect, which is starting to annoy me. Jack is the central character, and if he stagnates, the overall story really doesn't go anywhere.

(I've begun to realize that I now demand arc in my TV. If the story isn't going somewhere, it's not worth my time...)

[cellio]

(I've begun to realize that I now demand arc in my TV. If the story isn't going somewhere, it's not worth my time...)

I've been noticing that tendency too. I'll still accept episodic TV, but I at least want there to be a larger framework supporting it, with cross-episode continuity and stuff like that. For example, most Trek doesn't have an arc, but there is character growth and change and sometimes a mini-arc. It's when each episode ends with a reset button that I lose interest.

(Well, except that I do have a soft spot for some old classics that pre-date this kind of TV storytelling, like M*A*S*H.)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Having just seen this past Monday's 24, I have to say that the last five minutes remind me of a famous quote from the Vietnam War: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

CTU's philosophy this season seems to be one of desperation. Suspend the freedoms and rights of any and all suspects to protect those of everyone else.

[cellio]

Not just suspects. (That was last week. :-) ) If he has to kill an innocent bystander in cold blood in order to get the information he needs from a suspect, Bauer doesn't even blink. At least last season he did some navel-gazing before murdering a CTU agent to placate the terrorists.

If there aren't consequences from this, I might not be back next season. That would mean the show's just about bravado and gun-slinging.