What does the enemy look like?
If you were to ask Jack Bauer, of "24" fame, he could tell you any number of things, but his response would likely focus on a few key characteristics: dark, shifty and Muslim.
In his eight seasons as a Counter Terrorism Unit agent, Bauer found himself face-to-face with a number of questionable individuals; many of them were Arab Muslims and all of them were vulnerable to Bauer's off-the-record torture tactics, which included electric shock and waterboarding.
Invariably, the suspect—whose guilt was never in question—revealed a key piece of information to a near-rabid Kiefer Sutherland to save the day.
Enter "Homeland." Written, incidentally, by two writers who worked on "24" during its 9-year run, the show stars Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin (with 24 years and a good haircut distinguishing him from the inimitable Inigo Montoya) as CIA agents for a new decade.
If the political climate immediately following 9/11 shaped "24"—the show premiered less than two months after the national tragedy—it also, in turn, shaped the perceptions of impressionable young viewers like me with regard to what a terrorist looks like.
I remember watching Bauer interrogating villain after villain for several seasons, and feeling a sense of urgency, vulnerability, and, ultimately, relief as the reassuring figures at CTU saved Los Angeles and the rest of the country from Islamic terrorism.
After a couple of seasons, my family stopped watching the series because of its unsubtle glorification of America at war and the incessant repetitiveness of the plotlines. Our response was linked, perhaps, to the revelation that the show was a favorite of the Bush administration. The enemy in Jack Bauer's world remained reassuringly identifiable—and non-American.
Would that it were so easy for Claire Danes' "Homeland" character Carrie Matheson. Her mental health issues notwithstanding, she's a killer CIA agent in the strategic sense, embracing unconventional warfare and behaving more like a diplomat and a spy than a volatile soldier crusading for American ideals.
In "Homeland," radical Islamism and terrorist leaders in the vein of Osama bin Laden remain the target, the most elusive of which is a man named Abu Nazir. Nazir is humanized, however, late in the season we see his relationship with his young son. But let us not forget the enemy in our midst!
The season begins with the revelation that Carrie, haunted by her inability to foresee the events of September 11, has information regarding an American prisoner of war who has turned against his country.
This man may or may not be Sergeant Nicholas Brody, who returns to the United States after spending years in brutal captivity. Immediately we know he came into contact with Nazir's men (if not Nazir himself), who tortured him. It is unclear at first if Brody is actually working for the terrorists.
Brody is a white, red-haired, American-bred family man. And he's complicated. He converted to Islam while imprisoned, to cope with the trauma of his captivity.
A sympathetic imam and his wife play a role later in the series, and one of Carrie's colleagues is Muslim. None of these people resmeble caricatures of the Middle Eastern terrorist.
I doubt "Homeland" could have been made 10 years ago, without the precedent of "24." The show is a corrective for the take-no-prisoners (except for torturing purposes) attitude espoused by Jack Bauer. It is also an intellectual puzzle for America, 10 years after the 9/11 attacks and our initial involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
What are the repercussions of our involvement in the Middle East? What kind of grass-roots response do we foster in the generations growing up in war-torn Baghdad?
While "24" concerned itself only with the present—and only 24 hours of it, at that—"Homeland" cautiously examines the past with all its complexity and mistakes, and what that past means for the defense of our future.
Caitlin Hurwit is a member of the Class of 2012.