We're All Heroes Now

Just read this interesting article (probably have to go through some sort of advert deal to get to it, sorry):

"Heroes" was the most-watched new show on network television this year despite its demanding plot lines and stretches of subtitled Japanese. Its season finale, which aired May 21, dominated the 9 p.m. time slot. What explains the show's popularity, especially with younger viewers? I think it is that, like the Fox thriller "24," "Heroes" is a response to Sept. 11 and the rise of international terrorism. But while "24" skews to the right politically, "Heroes" seems like a left-wing response to those events. In fact, it functions as a thoughtful critique of Vice President Dick Cheney's doctrine on counterterrorism.

The whole article makes some interesting points. A couple of things to add: The episode 'Five Years Gone' shows the 'Dick Cheney' reaction to the fall out of the explosion and it is of course an exaggeration of the actual Bush Administration reaction to 9/11 (in the show this is shown leading to genocide). Wouldn't it have been more adventurous to simply stick to the way the Bush administration has already undermined freedom? In the show the problem has become universal (ie. the stigma of being branded a potential terrorist is not on any one race/ religion, but applies to everyone: we are all (potential) terrorists now), consequently it would have been a more radical critique to stick to the script of Bush/Cheney in this new, universal situation.

It would have also been interesting to play up the significance of the 'camp of wealthy and powerful figures, clearly on the political right'. While they are definitely an integral part of the show and also shown to be hugely influential in the attempt to elect Nathan Petrelli, isn't the use of Micah to rig the election an eventual cop-out? The money is not in itself enough to swing the election, the powers of the Heroes must be used. Of course here there is probably a nod to the Bush victory of 2000, but even that must seen as a distraction from the real conspiracy of money in American (and elsewhere's) politics.

The other point to make is that the problem with American liberalism is demonstrated in very pure form in the show: the fact that the world is complicated makes the liberal prone to inaction. This is something that the right has always known, that action is necessary. It was certainly inherent in that other TV bastion of liberal values The West Wing – the world is complicated so action can never be justified from every moral angle – there is always grey. The right is prepared to take the action it deems necessary, the left dithers. We see this in Heroes where it is precisely the figurehead of the cabal of right wingers, Nathan, who must come in to save the day. In the article this is seen as 'apparently conveying the Gandhian message that compassion and brotherly self-sacrifice are more effective in preventing terrorism than naked ambition and hard-line tactics.' But is it? Isn't it more that in the name of its values of compassion the left must take a lesson from the right and take the risk of acting?