The next story

The next story tells how Barbara Williams met Robert McCall. I think it's pretty good! Lots of action, lots of sex (no, only kidding, only a LITTLE sex). The one after that follows Barbara on a mission to Miami. Coming soon to a website near you...

Still not posting...

I haven't posted in a LONG time...still working on my stories. You can read the first one at:

http://www.fanfictionwriters.com/Fics/browse.php?type=categories&catid=31&offset=0

My pen name is Alison Keating.

What's going on?

I haven't posted for a few days because I'm working on an EQ story about saving Mickey in Cyprus. Man, I've learned a LOT about Cyprus in the last day.

Shockers in EQ

I was thinking this afternoon about things that shocked me in EQ. I've already mentioned the torture scenes in Prisoners of Conscience. I have also been shocked sometimes how McCall reacts to killing people. For all the talk of his leaving his old life behind, he certain still has part of it in him. (I probably ordered my posts wrong in this blog -- I should have posted my thoughts on Prisoners of Conscience last, because perhaps it is the answer to these earlier issues?)

I don't have the episode list in front of me so for the moment I won't have the names of episodes but here goes. Perhaps the most disturbing for me is the episode where he is helping the woman who was raped by three men in the subway station. At the end of the episode, McCall figures out that the woman's friend is probably in danger and rushes to the station to help her. Indeed the three men are at the station and they are harassing the woman. As he is running down the stairs, McCall meets the woman running up and tells her to keep running and don't turn back. Next we see the three men draw various weapons, then the camera returns to the woman. We hear three shots. The writers set up the story line so that McCall was forced to shoot them. Was that necessary? One could easily think of other scenarios where he did not have to gun them down. Did they feel they had to pander to the part of the audience that tuned into the show to see (or hear) shocking violence? Later he is affected by his actions, telling his woman friend that his profession is "killing people." I suppose it fits into his trying to figure out who he is, but still...

At least in that episode he feels remorse. There are others when he is completed cold blooded about killing. Think of the terrorist Zahndt in the A Community of Civilized men (the title of course pointing to the irony). McCall and Zahndt, who insists that he and McCall are alike, play a little game, McCall pretending he is complying with Zahndt and Zahndt doing the same. McCall wins. As he is defusing the bomb, the young woman says, but he (Zahndt) is getting away. McCall says, no he's not, after which Zahndt is blown to smitherines by a bomb McCall has planted. McCall shows absolutely no emotion. Later he cannot explain himself to the young woman, unsure if he is like Zahndt or not. He is only weary.

Then there are the mafia sorts that McCall kills in a car bomb at the end of the episode about Yvette. He has set them up, and cleverly puts the bomb meant for Yvette and Philippe into their car. Again without emotion, McCall watches them drive away in the car, knowing that the bomb will kill them, which it does a few seconds later. He simply turns and walks away.

Are these people so terrible that he does not have to feel anything when they are killed? Or is this an example of his deadened sense of right and wrong? Clearly the writers have made them terrible people and we do not feel he should not have killed them, in the context of a fantasy TV show. But it just doesn't seem to fit into his new life. I suppose the answer is that he hasn't left the old life yet.

Reveiw of China Rain, posted on TV.com

In the pilot, ex-super spy Robert McCall is sometimes uncertain how to proceed and makes errors in judgment. In China Rain, he is in complete control and uses contacts and methods from his sordid past to craft the perfect strategy to save the kidnapped boy.

The night club scene in China Rain establishes this side of McCall’s persona for the series. This becomes evident immediately as he walks through the club. In his perfectly-cut, dark, conservative suit (with the signature lapel pin), this slightly overweight, fifty-something man should feel glaringly out of place among the young Chinese dressed in the latest 1986 fashions. But he is not. McCall is supremely self-aware and self-confident, and anything but out of place. And everyone knows it. This is someone to watch out for.

In the ensuing conversation with night club owner and former associate, Tommy Lee, McCall’s reveals new sides of his interaction with the world and Edward Woodward reveals his range of acting skills. With small gestures, voice modifications, and facial changes, his tone varies from (albeit false) cordiality, to quietly menacing, to still calm but clearly threatening. For example, a few words and a tightening of his voice reveal how dangerous he is when they talk about an incident from their past. How is his hand, she asks? He replies that he saw Paul Lau a year ago in Hong Kong. Did he ever found out whether Lau had given him up? McCall returns in a low voice filled with menace that he (Lau) is still alive, isn’t he?

Viewers next find more out about the job McCall has resigned from and his disgust about it: his mission was providing protection for Tommy Lee’s heroin running (no reason is given why the company would be doing this). Tommy taunts him by saying he did everything for the ring but earn the money. Revulsion showing on his face for the heroin running, but also with himself for having facilitated it, McCall immediately changes the subject to the reason he is there: to find a little Chinese boy. Tommy Lee cannot believe that a man like McCall has come here for some Chinese kid. But yes, that is why he is here. What’s in it for her? There’s nothing in it for her. She’s got enough nothing already. Now his tone turns even more menacing when he spits out that it’s for OLD TIMES; she understands immediately that he can be very dangerous to her. Suitably frightened, she gives him information. When it isn’t enough for McCall, she says that she owes him, but not enough to go to war. In yet a different tone, he snarls that HE is the war she has to avoid. Knowing she indeed wants to avoid this man’s enmity, she reveals a secret which leads to his finding the boy.

There are other aspects of this episode that are noteworthy. The view of McCall in the darkened apartment listening to the businessman’s telephone conversation from a perspective outside a rain streaked window is an example of cinematographic excellence. We learn about McCall’s methods through his meticulous planning of the police diversion and his use of former colleagues to find information. And, perhaps most noteworthy, the episode introduces the interaction between McCall and Mickey with some of their most memorable banter. QUOTATIONS NOT CHECKED: (Mickey: I figured you were looking for some waco to put his hand in the fan…) and their wry humor of their interchanges interchange while planning the rescue (McCall: I have set up a diversion. Mickey: Why do we need a diversion, why don’t we just go in and wack them. McCall: Mickey, there is a 5 year old boy up there. Mickey: Oh, we might need a diversion. McCall: I have set up a diversion.)

This episode also has one of my favorite endings. McCall carries the little boy in his arms into the apartment where his mother has been waiting and praying. Her back is turned when he puts the boy down. The boy says Mama and the mother turns as the boy rushes into her arms, underscored by the fantastic EQ music. McCall is finding out how it feels to do a good deed and smiles slightly. Maybe he can be redeemed after all.

More on Prisoners of Conscience

At the end of the last post I started to discuss Payne. The first time we see him, he's watching the building where Antonio is reading his poetry to Waldo's class. Since we don't know who he is, and he is wearing a heavy coat and has white hair, he actually looks like McCall (and during the confrontation between McCall and Payne at the end, Payne asserts that he and McCall are alike--more about this later).

Next we see of Payne in Antonio's cell. He is a grandfatherly looking man dressed in black who claims in a soft voice to be Antonio's "friend" but carries a cattle prod. Then we see Antonio in shadow being tortured with the cattle prod. As the scenes in the cell continue, the young man is wearing fewer and fewer clothes, his protection from Payne being symbolically stripped away. Scene by scene, Payne comes physically closer and closer to Antonio. He reads Antonio's poetry to him, before slipping on rubber gloves to continue the torture. Finally, Payne holds an almost naked Antonio in his arms in a pieta-like pose, caressing and kissing him, and telling him if he reveals the names, Payne will give him an easy death.

At the end of the episode, McCall confronts Payne, whom McCall spent half his life seeking. Payne contends that what McCall has found is an old man with only enough strength to keep fighting anarchy; McCall says what he has found is a murderer. Payne goes on to tell McCall his side of McCall's father's murder: They were friends (remember his was a friend to Antonio, too), but the father was a man of Victorian honor who came to tell Payne that he would be pressing charges against Payne's group, then turned his back to leave. Payne "tried to give him a fighting chance" by telling him to turn around, but the father believed that Payne would not shoot him in the back and kept going. This Payne calls "committing suicide".

Calling him a bastard, McCall aims his gun at Payne. While McCall decides whether to kill him, Payne contends that McCall is more like Payne than his father, implying that McCall will pull the trigger (or maybe saving his own life by forcing McCall to rely on the honor system of his father?). Instead of shooting Payne, McCall shoots the wall next to him. The older man says: You're just like him after all." Tears in his eyes, McCall smiles and says, "yes."

As I've mentioned before, an ongoing theme in EQ is the clash between morality and immorality in politics (in the broadest sense) as represented in the intelligence community. This could be posed in different terms, as a clash between Good and Evil, or the clash between good people and evil people. Through the show's four years, McCall fights his personal battle on this front: is he a good person or an evil person? If he does enough good deeds now, can he redeem himself for the evil he did before? Does doing evil make a person Evil, or does doing good make a person Good?

It seems that neither McCall nor those around him know who he really is. Is he still the ruthless "hired gun" he used to be, even if he now uses the gun to help people? Or has he changed after recognizing the evil that he did in his past? Scott asks him why he still carries a gun if he's left his earlier life "Prelude"; the assassin Zahndt believes he and McCall are the same, they are "A Community of Civilized Men", and when the daughter in that episode asks McCall is he is really like Zandt, he says "I don't know." Philippe Marceau tells McCall that Manon said this about him. In "Lady Cop" McCall tells Control that the evil (Evil?) is still in him, and in "Nightscape", after killing the three rapists, he tells his woman friend that his profession is "killing people." There are many more examples. (Control's response to this and other comments McCall makes on the subject is worthy of a completely new discussion, so I will save it for later.)

Prisoners of Conscience presents the viewers with an example of true Evil, and allows McCall to finally understand himself better. The Oxford Dictionary definition of Evil is: "Adj: deeply immoral and malevolent; noun: extreme wickedness and depravity," and this is a definition of Payne. He rejects McCall Sr.'s "Victorian code of honor" but replaces it with nothing but saving his own skin. He makes his living torturing people in what he calls "battling anarchy" but the torture scenes make the statement that he loves torture for torture's sake, even in a sexual way -- caressing the victim's almost naked body, kissing him on the cheek (I won't go into the Christian symbolism...) Going back to the definition of Evil, this scene could define the word depravity. Watching it 20 years after it was first aired, I am surprised that it was allowed to be aired, such is the malevolence that emanates from Payne. Payne is Mephistopheles, cajoling, finding people's weakest points, tempting them, on the outside mild and pleasant but still the Devil.

In Prisoners of Conscience, which was the 6th to the last episode of the series,McCall seems to find answers. As such, it would have made a wonderful LAST episode. Viewers see in Payne a man who is truly Evil, and McCall recognizes in his confrontation with Payne that he is NOT like Payne. Like his father, he has a substantial moral code. Perhaps he can find peace with himself.

Meanderings about Prisoners of Conscience

Today they're showing the semi-finals of the Australian Open in a few minutes so I don't have much time to write til later. (Before I was a semi-professional dog agility competitor, I was a semi-professional tennis player!)

I picked Prisoners of Conscience as my first episode because of its themes: Conscience, Responsibility, Morality, Good and Evil, and Honor. (If I had footnotes, I'd put this in one: There's also clearly the theme of fathers and sons, but I won't comment on that because I don't quite understand the obsession men have with their fathers.) The backdrop of this episode is the policy of the American intelligence community, and thus its overall foreign policy.

The Chilean poet Antonio, who has become very close friends with the American professor (English? Film studies?) Waldo Jerrell, is kidnapped off the street in front of Waldo. Of course Waldo turns to McCall to help find Antonio. When a picture of Antonio with a black ribbon tied around it is found in his otherwise empty apartment, McCall recognizes the calling card of Randall Payne, the man who killed McCall's father thirty years before and whom McCall tracked for 20 years until the Company told him that Payne was dead. He meets with Control to ask how Payne could still be alive, and finds out that the Company had been using Payne's organization, known as CNI (a Blackwater-like group? unclear), for the last 10 years and that he is now involved in Chile.

For several seasons, we have heard about McCall's past actions in Chile. In "Prelude" (first episode of the second season) it comes to light that McCall helped organize and execute a coup which resulted in the fall of the elected government and put a brutal dictator into power. This is an allusion to the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile and its backing for many years of the dictator Pinochet. In "Prelude", an American journalist is tortured in an attempt on the part of the Astice (sp?) (=Pinochet) government to find who might be undermining its rule. Control says in that episode that the dictator is trying to stabilize the country before human rights can be taken care of; if you've lived in the US long enough, you've heard this argument many times by government officials. Ironically, this is the same argument made by Control in "Prisoners of Conscience" to justify the Company's using Payne's organization, but it is two years later. Nothing has changed.

It is evident that the US government is condoning the actions of Payne. So who is Payne? (It's kind of silly that his name is Payne, since what he inflicts is pain, but we'll leave that one alone.) It seems to me that he is a representative of Evil, although there is certainly no consensus on the show whether Evil as a malevolent force exists, or if it is evil, the bad that men do. More on this soon.

Prisoners of Conscience

I just finished watching Prisoners of Conscience, the episode when we find out about McCall's father and meet the man named Payne, who killed him. For me, it is the most difficult episode to watch because of the scenes in which Payne tortures the Chilean writer, Antonio. (Chile seems to have played a very large role in McCall's life....) I am going to write tomorrow about the portrayal of several themes in this episode, like evil, responsibility, and honor.

In this episode, the attempt to get Antonio to name names parallels the fate of Waldo, the professor who now thinks of Antonio as his son. During the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when fear of communist was a collective hysteria, people in many parts of American society were pressured by congressional committees to name "communists." One large target was Hollywood, where Waldo worked. If they did not name the names, they were black-listed and even sent to prison, as happened to him.

There is a line in an earlier episode when a character says about a nasty incident, "yes, it can happen even in America." And it can be done by Americans, sanctioned by their government. But we've thown the sob's out and Guantanimo is about to be shut down. There are still good men and women in this country, and thank goodness enough people who recognized, finally, what terrible deeds had been done by the Bush administration.

First thoughts

Popular culture researchers generally agree that all pop culture has an ideology, whether those responsible for the product are conscious of their point of view or not. For example, as I wrote earlier, many think that 24 clearly supported Bush administration ideology on the so-called war on terror, including on torture. But who determines the ideology? An TV show is made up of, in the case of the Equalizer, 88 separate episodes. How does a populate culture product like this communicate a ideology? Is continuity possible?

I believe there are three types of continuity of thought or theme possible in a TV show: continuity within an episode; continuity between/among episodes, i.e. making sure story lines are continued correctly; and continuity of message within the synchronic (i.e. at the time) historical context. I am also going to be talking about a diachronic (i.e. moving into the future) historical context.

When it comes to continuity within an episode, writers must be expected to make no errors.

Continuity among episodes is harder. It would seem that episodes written by the same writers would have greater continuity than those written by different authors. I wonder if writers watched back episodes, or were given cheat sheets or something like that with details from earlier seasons?

Continuity of message, what I am most interested in, can also be affected by different writers. Did they buy into the message? Did they understand the message? Did they think the message might get in the way of the action or entertainment value? For example, there was always a LOT of violence on the show; it is what the show was known for, in many ways, even though there was also a lot of talk about how bad violence was. This would seem contradictory. Did writers think they had to include the violence because it was what was expected by some fans, even if it did contradict the message?

Finally I have to point out that what authors intended and what viewers understand is not necessarily the same. Reader response theory contends that the reader makes her own message from the evidence she finds in the text, no matter what the author intended. Thus if Kiefer Sutherland (who is of course not a writer, but who did respond to this question) believes that 24 is just a TV show (and by implication doesn't matter), reader response theory would say that what doesn't matter is what Kiefer Sutherland thinks. What matters is what tools the show provides consumers to create their own vision of the world. 24 provides some very strong tools. Do people then use the tools to create a vision of the world in which torture and terror are acceptable? Or do they say, it's only a TV show, none of this is real? (Think of what people say when they observe an actual catastrophic event: it looks just like a movie...)

Back to the inauguration....

Introduction (yep, I'm an academic)

I've written a lot over the years about popular culture and its historical context. In writing about the Equalizer, I'm continuing this theme, but also stepping outside my earlier parameters.

As a professor of German culture and literature, I wrote about German-language (i.e. German and Austrian) popular culture, specifically in the era between the two world wars, 1919-1939 (more or less). Almost all leading German-language artists left Germany, then Austria from 1933-38, so I also wrote about the works and life of German artists in exile, mainly in the United States. The works I dealt with were popular literature (serialized novels, mass market literature) and films.

I have never written about contemporary American popular culture, nor have I ever written about a television show. I'm not going to do any research (I don't think), so what I'll put on my blog is simply what I think.

January 20, 2009 -- First Day of the New Era

OK, OK, I know it's not about the Equalizer or agility, but WOW WOW WOW WOW, we have a man named Barack Hussein Obama as president of the United States!!! Thank goodness, we no longer have a man named Bush as president.

Why some posts about dog agility?

I said in my profile that I might have some posts about dog agility. That's because my two Shelties, biblack Mr. Robby Burns of Allta and sable Ms. Fia, Fee Spirit of Allta, and I compete nationally in dog agility. In fact, 7+ year old Robby won his class at the September, 2008, National Dog Agility Council Championships in Gillette, Wyoming.

Since I left the university, training and competing with my dogs has become my full time passion (other than the EQ, course). We travel (in an Explorer pulling a trailer) about 2-3 weekends a month to agility events (called trials) all over the west. We've also been to Canada and the midwest.

I'll post some pictures in the future. Maybe Robby with his trophies and ribbons from the 2008 Champs. The trophy is bigger than he is!

I'm Not the Only One

Seems like I wasn't the only one who had a negative reaction to Jack Bauer's speech on Sunday night. Here's some info:

http://ca.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idCATRE50C6YW20090113

In this article, you'll see:

"'If you take a look at the debate over physical torture in our country, I thought it was fantastic of Howard to embrace that and bring it into the show,' Sutherland said.

But he and Gordon said the depictions of torture in the fast-paced show were not intended to condone the practice in the real world.

'It is a television show. The results (Bauer) gets help to move the plot forward. It has always been a dramatic device to show the urgency of the situation,' Sutherland said.

But in the new season, Bauer 'certainly raises the moral question of what is right or wrong,' he added."

Hum, I don't know if I can watch it long enough to hear him raise his moral questions. I also find it interesting that he downplays the impact a television show can have on public discourse. It's a convenient cop out: oh, it's only a TV show.

Somewhere in the article one of the men mentions that Jack is getting older and is confronting issues in a different way. I guess we have to wait til he's McCall's age to figure it out. After all, the EQ makes pretty clear that McCall was a Jack in his earlier days. I'm just glad we see him in his later days!

For another highly interesting article on this issue, see

http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/television/story.html?id=1159233

In this article, called "Jack Bauer, meet Obama: With a new 24 season, and a new real-life president, will the super-agent retire his torturous ways?" Sherri Levine makes the point that 24 was always in lockstep with the Bush administrations counter terrorism politics, writing that "... the show has been in keeping with the Bush administration's belief system almost since the show's inception." Referring to Robert Thompson, pop culture "expert" from Syracuse University, Levin writes:

"But the parallels between 24 and the Bush administration go beyond a shared endorsement of torture. As Thompson explains, the show's themes have consistently paralleled 'the operational procedure of the Bush administration' -- that you just do what needs to be done, even if it's contrary to established systems, traditions and laws.

'It's this single-minded idea that we've got to fight these terrorists by any means necessary,' Thompson says. 'It's a show that has been consistent with the attitudes, the rhetoric and the actions of many people in the Bush administration.'''

Too bad we can't Google reaction to some of the Equalizer episodes (yes, I know there are some articles about the show online, but they don't address these kinds of issues). More to come....

Equalizer and 24

Last night I watched 24 for the first time. I wanted to compare the presentation of spies and the CIA and such with the EQ. Jack Bauer was testifying at a congressional hearing about his activities some time ago (since I haven't watched the show, I don't know if these activities were shown on the program). He is asked about his use of torture during these activities, and he tells the members of Congress that he used torture on a terror suspect because he knew that this suspect had planted a bomb on a bus carrying 45 children. In order to save the children, he had to use these methods. When asked if he knew the methods were against the Geneva Convention, he said yes. But when asked if he regretted using torture, he said no. His certainty that the information he gained saved the children is absolute.

My, how simple the decision to use torture seems in Jack's speech. We use torture; the suspect gives up the information; the children are saved. Unfortunately, this A leads to B leads to C is seldom how life is. And according to most experts on torture, doing A seldom leads to B and almost never to C.

Yet the hero of the show spouts this gibberish. Since I haven't watched the show, I don't know if Jack REALLY thinks this or there is some other motivation. It seems as if he really believes it, so I will take it at face value. And I find it absolutely appalling. The Bush administration has (soon I can use the word : was) justifiably been lambasted for policies which have allowed Americans to use torture, no matter what nice words the administration has used for their practices. As I mentioned above, most experts dismiss torture as a way to find the truth. How can a television show that appeals to so many allow its hero to talk like this?

I could not watch anymore and changed the channel. Later I tuned back in to see what Jack was saying now and heard him opine that nobody who had not been at the front lines could understand what they had to do (or at least he agreed with the terrorist who said this).

Well, back to the Equalizer. When I first watched the EQ, I thought the politics of the show were similar to what I am seeing on 24. But as I tuned in longer, and especially now when I am rewatching it after 20 years, I have understood that EQ's politics were the radical opposite of Jack Bauer and 24. McCall resigned because he had had enough of the dirty tricks and torture and the belief that the ends justify the means, especially the idea that AMERICANS have the right to do anything in the name of their country.

Remember: this was the time of the Iran Contra hearings, with Oliver North also spouting the same justifications that Jack Bauer used (although North was not talking about torture). We knew about the CIA's involvement in many operations that were in the so-called national interest but were often interfering in the internal affairs of another country. McCall wages an ongoing battle against those in the "company"who continued these practices (think: "Prisoners of Conscience" or "Prelude") and time and again implores his friend Control to use his influence to stop at least some of the abhorrent machinations of the company. In the episode "Trial by Ordeal" the existence of an international organization of spies dedicated to freeing prisoners of conscience headed by Control is hinted at.

Jack Bauer or the Equalizer? Choose.

Why the Equalizer?

The television show, The Equalizer (EQ), ran from September 1985 to August 1989 on CBS. When the show first aired, I did not watch because I thought the premise reactionary: A man with a gun helps people in New York solve their problems, and in almost every episode, people are killed. Sounds like a vigilante!

But then a funny thing happened: I finally did watch the show a few times and I was hooked. I thought of my enjoyment of the show like my enjoyment of football: it was (and is) a guilty pleasure. Given my personal and political philosophy, I should not like football, but the truth is, I love it.

And I loved EQ. Of course, I one big reason I loved it was the character Micki Kostmayer, played with sometimes over-the-top craziness by Keith Szarabajka. I thought he was really HOT! After those first few episodes, I taped many of the next 3 seasons of the show on VHS. It's amazing that I did not tape over these original tapes; I had long ago taped over my Miami Vice (another of my favorites) episodes. But for some reason I kept most (but not all) of the EQ tapes, despite the fact that some of them are almost impossible to see because of bad reception in my mountain home. After a few years, USA and A&E broadcast (sometimes terribly butchered versions of) EQ, and I added to my tape collection.

At the end of 2008, 20+ years later, I hauled them out and started watching, and I'm hooked again, party for similar reasons, partly for different reasons. I still think that Micki is hot, but I'm 20+ years older and am more attracted to the main character, 50-something Robert McCall. The unique aspect of this show is that McCall is 50-something, has gray hair, is a little pudgy, and looks and dresses like a banker, yet he is an ex-super spy whom other characters call one of the most dangerous men they know. What a sweet paradox!

Not to say he is hard on the eyes. Although he is 50-something (I won't say "old" because I'm 50-something!), he looks FINE in his fabulously tailored suits with perfectly matching tie, handkerchief, muffler and overcoat, not to mention that interesting little pin he wears on his lapel. (I remember when Edward Woodward, who played McCall, was questioned about the significance of the pin he said it meant nothing, but it was sure fun to speculate.) Back in the day I thought his clothes outdated; now I see them as wonderfully classic, especially in comparison with some of the "hip" clothes other characters wear. (I won't go into how AWFUL women's clothese were then -- eek, how did we WEAR them?)

The OTHER reason I'm watching is that I am fascinated how the show mirrors the political and culture wars of the 1980s. Plus, the writers managed to sneak in wonderfu little references that are fun to ferret out.

I'll soon be posting my thoughts about the show in general and about individual episodes soon.

Why the name?

In the 1980s TV show, The Equalizer, the main character put an ad in the paper offering to help if you were in trouble. The famous line from the ad is "Odds Against You?", thus the name of my blog.

More later.