The Deep Truths of Bad TV
I've been watching the Jack Ryan series on Prime (i.e., Jim from The Office joins the CIA.) I'm a sucker for a spy thriller, even though it's pretty bad. Not just a little bad actually, but really bad. But somehow, in its badness, it offers a pretty interesting window into the state of the world.
For instance, I'm not sure if it's because of bad writing or bad acting, and I suspect it's a combination of both, but the main character, Jack Ryan (played by Jim from The Office), has the depth of a piece of paper. In one scene he's questioned by a French official about his job with the CIA. She asks him how he can stomach working for the CIA knowing what they do. His response? He thinks it's better to try to change things from the inside.
Obviously, this is about the most hackneyed of responses you could find. But what's interesting is that because the character is not at all believable, because the writing and acting is so bad, the stupidity of his response seems obvious. In other words, I suspect that the audience doesn't really empathize with the Jack Ryan character. And when I was thinking about it, it made me realize that this isn't only because of the poor quality of the show, but about the times we live in.
For instance, the Jack Ryan films (starring Alec Baldwin and then Harrison Ford) were never major action flicks when I was growing up (they weren't Schwarzenegger or Van Damme movies, for instance), but they were pretty big, and I did see them all. And they were actually pretty good. But this sort of boy scout in the CIA act could work in the 90s in a way I don't think it can work now, even if the current show was written and acted with greater skill.
Back then, I, and I suspect many in my generation who were the target audience for these movies, were pretty ignorant about world affairs. I had no idea about what the CIA actually does, so the premise of the movies could work - someone working from the inside, trying to make the CIA a moral actor. But part of the reason this boy scout act doesn't work now is because you'd have to be living under a rock to think well of the CIA.
This is why the special agent hero of the Bush year's was Jack Bauer. I never watched the show, but for many, that was a believable image of the CIA (or whatever covert agency he worked for). Or rather, it was a fantasy image of the CIA, but one that reflected the reality of waterboarding and extraterritorial rendition. Jack Bauer was someone who would do anything, no matter how grizzly, inhumane, or illegal, in order to "get the job done." Into that world, Jim from The Office comes off as antiquated. Against Jim's protest for "ethics" in the CIA, Jack Bauer would be knee deep in intestines.
Obviously, this all might mean that we've simply become acclimatized to the brutality of American foreign policy, so that things like international law come off as a quaint veneer. In other words, with the veil lifted, we might merely have come to accept Jack Bauer diplomacy as our reality. And for many in this country, this seems true. But I don't think that's what this show is revealing. Instead, I think it's helping demonstrate that when this veil was lifted, many of us are actually engaging in a more nuanced analysis of the world, one in which we look for a real sense of morality, rather than the painted on veneer of Jack Ryan.
And I think we get a sense of this through the main antagonist of the show, Mousa Bin Suleiman, played by the actor Ali Suliman. Granted, he fits the bill for the standard "Islamic terrorist" who has served as the main villain in all spy thrillers ever since 9/11. Jim from The Office even calls him "the next bin Laden" in the shows first episode, in one of the most cliched pieces of writing the show has to offer.
But, while the CIA characters talk about him (and really about everything) in the most cliched of ways, this character is actually the only well written character in the entire show. In some ways, the entire show entails a narrative of his life, told in flashbacks.
Without spoiling too much, we get a really elaborate story of his life. Born in the Beqaa Valley, he and his brother survived an aerial bombing when young, and which also served to bond these brothers. Later in life, they travel to Paris. Both of them are smart and ambitious, and Bin Suleiman gets an education in finance, but French racism make it difficult to find a job in banking. Later, in a case of low level police harassment, Bin Suleiman is sent to jail, where he "finds" religion, and becomes a devout Muslim. But none of this—not the bombing, not the racism of French society, not police harassment, and not life in prison—radicalizes him. If anything, his newfound faith seems to make him into a more caring and compassionate man.
Instead, what this show really offers is a story of the modern Middle East. Born into violence, many became immigrants in the West. And then, facing racism, many immigrants found it difficult to make a reasonable life for themselves. And sometimes, this racism and lack of opportunity led to conflicts with the police, so that many also found their way to jail. And in jail, as is often the case, individuals find religion as a way to cope. So, the show offers a personal and individual story of one man, but one that offers a lens into the experience of millions of people.
The show doesn't really dramatize how he became radicalized, but it does say that it happens while he's fighting Assad in Syria. We're not told why he's there, but presumably, after being released from jail in France, he returns to Lebanon. And when war breaks out in Syria, and perhaps guided by his new religiosity, he enlists to help the freedom fighters in their struggle against Assad. So, we encounter a figure who has endured tremendous personal hardship and who has managed to remain a decent human being throughout it all (and who might even have become a better human being through his newfound faith), but who is somehow "changed" in Syria.
I'm not 100% sure of the geopolitics of the situation, but if I were to explain what the writers were thinking, I suspect it’s this. Bin Suleiman's formative experience was of being bombed in Lebanon as a boy. After a bit of googling, I suspect that this was a 1982 Israeli bombing of Syrian anti-aircraft positions. As I mentioned, this didn't radicalize him, but it only bonded him to his brother, with whom he was with. But, if this experience is juxtaposed with the lack of American air support in the Syrian civil war, we might have an explanation. Syrian bombing of rebels was devastating, and air support might have greatly mitigated the civilian casualties. And if I was a person who had lived through one aerial bombardment in which I was an innocent victim and another situation where there was a humanitarian need for aerial bombardment but that not forthcoming, I might draw some conclusions about American foreign policy. That is, I am a civilian victim of US sponsored aerial bombardment, but I am also a witness to a humanitarian crisis in which US sponsored aerial bombardment could have helped but wasn't forthcoming.
With all this said, I think that my point is merely that while this show wants us to sympathize with Jack Ryan, the character is so thinly written that I don't think anyone does. And this is the same for every character in the CIA, who mostly reminded me of the kind of character you get on the parodies of cop or spy procedurals that you get on The Simpsons (it means he gets results, you stupid chief!). How could you tell a story in 2018 in which an audience sympathized with the CIA as an agency for good? But, in order to tell a believable story of modern terrorism, the show's writers, either intentionally or unintentionally, had to spend a lot of time explaining the backstory of the terrorist, because in 2018, you can't just offer a caricature, because the audience is too well informed. As a result, the terrorist is the most believable and sympathetic character while the CIA agents comes off as parodies.
This is a lot to read into what is basically just a bad show. But I think it might also be one of those cases in which a disposable piece of pop culture actually reveals, unintentionally, a great deal about this moment in time. To tell a story about good guys at the CIA, you have to resort to parody. And to tell a story about bad guys who are terrorists, you have to tell an elaborate and sympathetic story of radicalization.
And this seems like a good thing.