The 4400

[miriam_e]

I watched the entire 4400 last night on video sent to me by a wonderful friend.

Cool show in very many ways. But full of propaganda. Wow! None too subtle either. It starts with America's latest secret police (Homeland Security) being the heroes. And then there are all the messages that it is a 'good' thing that nobody has any rights anymore! The 'good guys' threaten a person with "in the good old days I had to get permission to get a phone tap or have a reason to detain you or stop you getting on any airline anywhere in the world, but this isn't the good old days". The new secret police are able to abduct anybody they want with impunity. One of the secret police gleefully rams a gun in the face of one of the bad guys and tells him "you don't have the right to silence; you don't have the right to an attorney" etc. And seeing all the security guards lined up firing guns at people on a public road because they suspected them of badness was chilling.

The one journalist who is able to operate beyond the control of the secret police is portrayed as a baddie with her insistence on freedom of the press. One of the other baddies is a guy who comes in to investigate the secret police's actions.

It is weird that justice is never mentioned. All they want is to find out what happened and they consider people as just pawns to be used as they see fit in the pursuit of that knowledge. Human rights should not exist, and freedom of the press is a bad thing, and the secret police should remain beyond accountability. Scaaary.

That is not to say there weren't any good messages. Two of the heroes are an interracial couple deeply in love. And social rejection of people just because they are seen as different is shown as awful. The little girl with precognition who says "I don't want this; I want to be normal, like you" is told "Normal people like me want to be special like you".

But on the whole, the sub-text is actually scarier than the main science fiction story itself. The SF storyline was a good one though, with some neat twists. I just wish it hadn't been woven in with such dangerous propaganda.

Comments

[faemortel.livejournal.com]

That reminds me i still need to get copies of the tomarrow people.. any way you can hook me up with whomever had those?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Hi possum. Sorry I have taken so long to reply. My net connection keeps freezing. :(

I'm not editor of SpacedOut's magazines anymore and haven't had much contact with them since I moved to Queensland. I can contact them if you want... or I can give you their email address. (I might not be in their good books anymore after dropping out of editorship.) Who was it that you asked about Tomorrow People?

The Yahoo group that SpacedOut discuss stuff on is at spaced_out@yahoogroups.com
Join by going to http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/spaced_out/

[thorfinn]

Mrr... I think that the point of the secret-police fu is precisely that it is scary as is. They play it that way because that's the way that Homeland Security actually does think. They genuinely think that it is a good idea for them to be able to do that sort of thing in the name of security.

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

It starts with America's latest secret police (Homeland Security) being the heroes.
Funny, I didn't see it that way at all. When I watched it, with a few exceptions, I saw the 4400 as being the heros. I thought the police were far to heavy handed and that it was a way of showing that anyone could be subject to this invasion of privacy. (Since anyone could have been abducted)

And when the little girl said she wanted to be normal, I took it as not really wanting to be 'normal' but not wanting the responsibility that came with knowing the future.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Interesting take on the little girl.
I just loved that character -- the almost-tragic seriousness and maturity beyond her years. Very cool idea.

It was an odd show because it had so many heroes. As you say, many of the 4400 were presented as heroes. But what scared me so much was that the secret police were shown as heroes too at the same time as casually negating all the rights that western society takes as the basis for civilisation. That this took place in a show in itself was not what bothered me; the way nobody questioned this and how it was presented as normal and necessary was what scared me. It seemed to me that they were using an otherwise cool story for the basest propaganda purposes -- getting appalling ideas into peoples' minds under the radar. Sadly I expect to see much more of this kind of thing coming out of USA in the future... and Australia too... this is not good.

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

I saw it as a negative commentary on what IS happening in the US right now. People's rights were being stepped on and everyone let it happen...to me was a way of saying...wake up America, this is what's happening to you right now.

[(Anonymous)]

hi I was going to use a drawing from you site on my greatestjournal and I wanted to ask if I could. I know on your site it said okay but I wanted to make sure.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Do you mean greatestjournal journal?
It is probably OK, but it would be nice to have a little more info than "I want to use [unspecified] picture on [unspecified] site for unspecified purposes".

What will the site be about? I mean, is it homophobic? does it promote religion? is it in praise of guns? does it attempt to justify racism? is it into non-consensual sex? If it is about any of those things then forget it, baby!

But for almost anything else I'll probably be happy for you to use a pic.
Just give me a bit more to go on, huh?

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

You're not the only person to pick up on that one. It's becoming a common theme, with both charitable and damning views expressed, depending on the show. Channel 7 is running one on late night TV at the moment, and I can't think of its name, that tells us that a blend of the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security is just fucking great.

Watch America become much more like Israel...

I think the only cure for this is to go and laugh at Team America: World Police.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Weird thing is, USA looks like it wants to be USSR.
Worries me that Australia under Howard is determined to become the chewing gum stuck to USA's boots.