(
Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment statement: This entry is not a place to discuss the rights, wrongs, wisdom or otherwise of
The War On Terror, especially The Iraq War. That conflict is covered here because of its now-certain role in the whole thing and it doesn't yet have enough examples to warrant its own setting. The term "Islamist" is used as a recognised descriptor of fundamentalist Muslims and "Al-Qaeda" in speech marks to refer to the entire disparate movement, not all of which is Al-Qaeda. Hezbollah are included despite being Shia as they want to destroy Israel and they're lumped in by writers as well. Iran is here for more or less the same reason, even if the Israel-destroying appears to confined to just the government or is held by no-one, depending on your views on the accuracy of the translation and interpretation of بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود. Let's not get onto the spelling issue...)
9/11 to the present.
The War On Terror is the current setting for all American
Present Day media, although how much it features in a given work of media varies considerably. There are multiple levels:
It's not really there The situation isn't really mentioned at all. It's either not relevant (as in the
Speculative Fiction genre), or it's pretended it's not happening. This does not bar the show from making comments via metaphor though.
- The Stargate franchise. They've got bigger problems to deal with, such as the Wraith.
- The new Doctor Who. See Stargate.
It gets cursory mentions The thing is there in the background, it's acknowledged it's happening, it affects the plot somewhat, but ultimately doesn't directly affect the plot on a day to day basis.
- Alias is the prime example of this. While the increased world tensions are mentioned, people get threatened with the Patriot Act and there's one trip to Afghanistan, the rest of the series is chock full of non-Islamist terrorists and there is never a direct "Al-Qaeda" plot during the entire show.
- A notable incident is a case in Series Two, where Sydney, as part of a disguise, is wearing a heavily metal-studded shirt. Her comment: "When I last went through JFK, they literally made me take off my shirt". Guess what ends up happening...
It turns up in a few plots A common one for the
Cop Show that otherwise has to deal with its third
Serial Killer of the season. This includes attacks on veterans, possible involvement of someone in Islamist terrorism and asylum seekers.
- Without A Trace is an example here. In one case, an Iraq veteran went missing, some of the team headed to Iraq... then it turned out the guy was killed while doing an armed robbery and the war was nothing to do with it whatsoever. Also had a guy mistakenly shot dead because they thought he was a terrorist by virtue of the books in his library and the fact he looked like he had a gun.
- The Bill is in this category. It's an interesting example. Despite being set in an area with a considerable number of Muslims, it has not yet done a straight Islamist terrorism story ("Moving Target" was a vendetta over Iraq artefacts).
It turns up a lot Islamist terrorists turn up a lot, but there are people as well.
- Spooks, the first example of "terror TV"- a series explicitly set post-9/11.
- NCIS. The first trip of the show to Guantanamo Bay pretty much completely skipped over the entire issue of the camp's actual existence and what happened there, but it must be remembered this was early 2004.
- The original pilot for Heroes featured an Islamist terrorist with radiation powers who would probably have threatened to cause the nuclear explosion prophecized to destroy New York City. The plot was thankfully dropped before the show aired.
It's the entire point of the series
- 24 is usually cited when people use the term "terror TV" and Islamist terrorists feature in four of the six seasons thus, while the third season has a Big Bad annoyed over US foreign policy. However, the first season was conceived pre-9/11 and has the Kosovo War as its Back Story (the S3 Big Bad is partly motivated by the fact he was left to be captured there).
- S2's second part involving "three Middle Eastern countries" now appears to be a rather heavy-handed, slightly inaccurate, but pretty prescient metaphor on what was then the approaching Iraq War. (The Bombers On The Screen use is great, though)
- The Grid was a Mini Series on an Islamist plot to explode a gas tanker near Chicago.
- Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, though it is careful enough to mask everything with fictional names and by adding USSR... uh, Russian ultranationalists into the equation.
- Star Trek Enterprise did this with a Sci-Fi allegory; applies only to the 3rd Season.
The full-scale conflicts
Afghanistan
Quite a few
Non Interactive Video Media examples, including a number of Afghan ones, but nothing stands out.
Lions for Lambs went down badly with critics and the public alike, as well being criticised for the title being an apparent misquote of the
World War One expression "lions led by donkeys".
Studio 60 featured Tom's brother being kidnapped in Afghanistan in it's closing five-parter, then ended in
Fairy Tale style.
Iraq
Outside of Iraq itself, movies and TV (there's a few novels out there and a number of computer game mods on the conflict, the latter of which raises the moral issue of playing games involving an ongoing war) that directly deals with the conflict and is actually set in Iraq is few and far between. The first attempt at a TV series in the US,
Over There, flopped arguably due to treating it like "Vietnam set in Iraq." In contrast, the 2008 HBO miniseries
Generation Kill is based on the 2004 book of the same name about an embedded reporter's experience with his unit of Marines and has at least one character played by his real-life counterpart (Sgt. Rudy Reyes as himself).
All the movies are pretty obscure. A good past example that may serve as a guide for the future (due to general perception, accurate or not, on the Iraq War) is
The Vietnam War. It took four years after the fall of Saigon for the first widely-known (
Go Tell The Spartans isn't that well known) period and area set film to come out and that,
Apocalypse Now, is also
Heart of Darkness in Vietnam.
Full Metal Jacket wasn't until 1986.
Appears as
Back Story quite a bit, especially in
Brothers And Sisters, where
Blonde Republican Sex Kitten Kitty, trying to prevent her brother going to Iraq, tries to bribe the Senator she later gets engaged to and performs on an on-camera volte-face. One can't help feel someone's going
Strawman Political on this one (supporting a war until it directly affects you).
Iran
While Iran is somewhat a separate issue, Iranians don't speak Arabic but Farsi and they're Shias, they're lumped in these days because of two main reasons. One: the apparent threat, real or otherwise, of the regime in Tehran. Two: they're brown, live in the Middle East and can be reasonably depicted as hating freedom.
The War On Terror, IN SPACE!
There are a couple of shows out there that use their settings and plots to make points, usually rather
Anvilicious, on the War On Terror:
See
Post Nine Eleven Terrorism Movie for the subject of terrorism in some depth. Also see
Turn Of The Millenium. Not to be confused with the Australian comedy series
The Chaser's War On Everything.
