Monday, August 08, 2005

Another un-Wanted representation

Last night, on the new TNT series Wanted, the plot centered around three Bosnian Serbs who were sent to execute a man living in the US who was going to testify against one of Milosevic's generals at the Hague. A logical, contemporary plot, right? So, what was so troubling? These three guys, as part of their actions, shot up a bank, killed a woman passerby and her baby (in its stroller), emptied an entire clip from a modified automatic M-6 into the face of the guy they were there to kill, then went to the house of the dead guy's daughter (who had no other relationship to the plot--she came in out of the blue) and killed her, her husband, and her 14-year old daughter. Basically, everyone these guys came in contact with, they killed.

Now, Wanted's entire premise centers around extremely violent criminals, and they play the "kids getting hurt" card because the lead has kids and it gives motivation for character-building scenes. However, I find this type of representation of "the Serb" to be more of the same-old, same-old in terms of stereotypes. The "Muslim terrorists" on 24 in season three killed as many people in the entire season as these three guys did in an hour. That seems to me to be a bit excessive.

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