In response to The Patriot Acts

Sherry Yuan

Section A01

Week 6

The docile patriot sees a monster in anything that associates with terrorism. I feel something that might associate with terrorism has become either over-elaborated or manipulated. This reminds me of an example from the TV show West Wing. In this show there is a proposed terrorist and an officer from the White House that are interviewed throughout. With an agenda to create an environment of the pure innocence of the United States, the TV show has children interview the terrorist. The questions are very simple but revealing. But this format brings out an obvious bias in how we look at terrorism. At the same time, the terrorist being interviewed is a stereotypical Middle Eastern Arab. This is doing two things at once. One, it says that we can oversimplify who we look at as possible victims. I learned that bias can ruin conclusions and that is exactly what the West Wing is doing. Second, our terrorist based TV shows are giving us an expectation of terrorism. This is appealing to our fear to Middle Eastern people. I think we should try to understand more than afraid of them.

Q: What are the alternatives to the presenting issues about terrorism publicly?

THE WEST WING -- NBC Series
The photo is from “Issac and Ishmael” episode written by creator and producer Aaron Sorkin for the 2001 season.