Assignment 6 Final Draft Following the horrific events of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States has been unable to completely restore our trust in Middle Eastern nations and people for fear that they will plan another terrorist attack against us. In a post-9/11 world where Americans have become accustomed to associating Middle Easterners with terrorists, season 2 episode 1 of the television series 24 conveys this concept of otherness and the othering of Middle Easterners through its manipulation of time to show the dehumanization of Arabs as a threat to society and to stress the immediacy with which Americans must act against to such dangers.
In this scene, 24 employs film analysis elements including windowing and time stamps to manipulate time in a way that emphasizes the immediacy of these actions and alters time as if it were real-time in order to show how Middle Easterners are often “othered” in a post-9/11 world. After the President of the United States has learned of the impending terrorist attack that is to occur in Los Angeles later that day, he says to a colleague that “there is a terrorist with his finger on a trigger, and [they’ve] got to get him.” While he is giving this statement, the episode employs a windowing effect in which the president is speaking in the top half of the screen and a Middle Eastern man, named Reza Naiyeer, is presented on the bottom half while he is driving in a convertible and speaking Arabic on the phone. The use of windowing in this scene helps present time as compressed by placing these two separate events simultaneously in the same screen, thus leading the audience to believe that these two events are related and that the Middle Eastern man is a terrorist involved in the anticipated attack. The placement of the president on top of Reza in this compressed windowing effect also exemplifies a portrayal of good versus evil where the U.S. President is glorified as a hero while the Middle Eastern man, in a post-9/11 world, is dehumanized as a villainous terrorist. This transition and simultaneity of characters and their relative time to one another mirrors the concepts of demonization and personalizing the war discussed in the documentary Militainment, Inc. In Militainment, Inc., Roger Stahl, a professor at the University of Georgia, observed that throughout the War on Terror, Suddam Hussein was constantly portrayed in the media as the bad guy while President Bush was the good guy. Media outlets often portrayed this idea of dehumanization by displaying the two men together on a split screen to create the illusion of one man versus another. Therefore, 24’s use of windowing in this episode once again portrays two powers against one another with the Middle Eastern man characterized as the enemy. As Reza later steps out of the car, ominous music plays in the background as he walks towards a house and the audience is left seeing only his backside. The ominous music helps to villainize Reza and gives his character a negative disposition, which further encourages the audience to classify him as a terrorist and a threat to society. The immediacy of this forbidding music following the split screen of the president and Reza serves as a reassertion of the assumption that Reza is a terrorist. Because the events in the windowing effect already generated suspicion of him being a terrorist, the direct focus on Reza with threatening music playing in the background adds to this supposition. A time stamp indicating that it is 8:22 am also appears in the bottom center of the screen as he steps out of the car and walks towards his fiancé’s house. At this point in the episode, Reza is the first Middle Eastern man that has been introduced, therefore giving the time stamp the role of emphasizing his existence as an “other.” Together with the ominous background music playing while Reza is approaching the house, the time stamp gives the impression that he is responsible for something terrible that is going to happen. These two elements help reinforce the concept of “orientalism” in the viewers, the idea discussed by Professor Michael Szalay in which in a post-9/11 world, Middle Easterners are seen as a threat to civilization. The timing of this event creates a sense of anticipation as the audience further associates Middle Easterners with terrorists in a post-9/11 world and anticipates what actions could occur next.
Similar to the previously discussed scene, this subsequent scene in 24 also aims to villainize Middle Easterners by using elements of windowing and time stamps to reaffirm terrorist assumptions often made in a post-9/11 world. The president is informed that, in a worst-case scenario, the impeding terrorist attack on Los Angeles could result in a daunting 2.5 million estimated casualties. As the president is left alone to process this new information, a close up of his face shows a distressed look as he analyzes the huge challenge before him. The close up of the president’s face then zooms out to create another windowing effect in which the president’s face is displayed on the top half of the screen while another Middle Eastern man, knocking on what seems to be a closed out store space with butcher paper covering all the windows and doors, is in the bottom half of the screen. The simultaneity of these two events once again leads the audience to believe that the Middle Eastern man, who at that moment seems to be engaging in suspicious activity, plays a role in the imminent terrorist attack that is causing the president so much distress. Because he is engaging in mysterious activity and is alienating himself into this abandoned facility, this second Middle Eastern man in the episode is being portrayed as an “other” whose looks and actions pose a threat to those around him. While the simultaneity of these events is important to emphasizing this concept of otherness in a post-9/11 world, the orientation of the windowing effect is also crucial to understanding the different roles these characters play in society. Throughout the episode, including in this scene, as two events are occurring at the same time and are given a windowing effect, the president is placed on top of a Middle Eastern man. This emphasizes the notion that these public U.S. figures represent the good characters in these situations while those on the bottom are the evil, thus making the Middle Easterners seem below and less virtuous than U.S. characters, further promoting the concept of “orientalism” in which Arab peoples and cultures in comparison to those of the U.S. to seem dangerous and are associated with terrorism. This scene also parallels the previous windowing scene with the president and Reza, therefore developing a connection between these Middle Eastern men. The use of windowing and the ominous development of the characters suggests that Reza and the other Middle Eastern man may be in alliance with one another, further solidifying our assumption that they are terrorists. When another Arab man lets the man enter into the seemingly abandoned store, the lighting immediately shifts to a dark overcast as they walk through an empty hallway while a time stamp indicates that it is 8:36 am. The display of the time as the two men are walking into the operation room in which the bomb is being built emphasizes the urgency of time and swift pace they need to work with in order to carry out their attack. In the center of the dark and fairly empty room lies a large box shaped facility in which a man is cautiously constructing the bomb the group intends to use later that day. As the two men converse in Arabic, one asks the other when the bomb will be ready and the other responds by hastily answering “Soon.” Their dialogue of the bomb is the first time in this episode when the audience is able to distinguish with certainty who is involved in the terrorist group. Therefore, their discussion of time in this scene is crucial to emphasizing the stereotypical association of Middle Easterners with terrorists and separating them into the category of otherness. This scene not only serves as a reaffirmation of the assumptions made about Middle Eastern men as threats in a post-9/11 world, but also makes the audience come to the conclusion that Reza is indeed a terrorist and is possibly in connection with these other Middle Eastern men. Since this scene confirms that these Arab men are terrorists involved with the anticipated attack on Los Angeles, it causes the audience to consider most, if not all, Middle Easterners as terrorists threats.
Furthermore, the catastrophic events of 9/11 have caused Middle Easterners to be dehumanized beyond repair and have also cemented their public image as threats to society. In a survey conducted shortly after 9/11 by Deborah J. Schildkraut, an American Behavioral Scientist, “66% of Americans said it would be acceptable for law enforcement officials to stop and search anyone who looked Middle Eastern in order to prevent another attack.” This evidence shows how the damage of 9/11 extends past the destruction of American property and lives. It also inevitably leads people to assume the worst in Middle Easterners and take extra precautions around them for fear that they might conjure up another terrorist attack, thereby “othering” Middle Easterners in a post-9/11 world. In conclusion, U.S. relations with other Middle Eastern nations and people have experienced a rapid downward trend following the 9/11 attacks. Americans more often than not feel skepticism and animosity toward Middle Easterners as we go through the process of othering them for fear that they are a threat to society. Season 2 episode 1 of 24 conveys this concept through its manipulation of time to dehumanize Middle Easterners. However, as the series progresses, we learn that Reza is not a terrorist but his white fiancé, one of the least suspecting characters, is. This plot twist shows how it is easy to fall under the assumption that Middle Easterners are threats to society, especially when characters in 24, such as Reza, are villainized for an extended period of time.