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Counter-Terror Culture: Ambiguity, Subversion, or Legitimization?

Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL, USA

This article examines themes of terrorism and counter-terrorism in US popular culture, focusing on eight cinematic or televisual works from the pre- and post-9/11 environment. Each of these works explores the dilemmas posed by terrorism, counter-terrorist mobilization, and occupation and resistance in fictional spaces. Three of the works — 24, The Agency, and The Grid — are narratives that attempt to simulate the activities of counter-terrorist operations in, respectively, a wholly fictional Counter Terrorist Unit; the Central Intelligence Agency; and ad hoc intelligence and tactical groups combing CIA, FBI, NSC, and MI5 agents. The other five works are more removed from an explicit attempt to mimic `reality': The X-Files, The Matrix Trilogy, Alias, The 4400, and Battlestar Galactica. In all of these works, the dangers to human rights posed by both overt and covert security operations lie at the core of their narrative structures.

Key Words: terrorism • counter-terrorism • popular culture • X-Files • 24

Security Dialogue, Vol. 38, No. 2, 197-214 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0967010607078538


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