While hardly alone in the entertainment universe of television and movies in portraying torture, shows like "24" and later ABC's "Lost" were sought out by the human rights activists because of their popularity, both here and around the world. Even in Iraq, such series can sometimes substitute for or trump military training, and transmit a dark message to soldiers.
"Everyone wanted to be a Hollywood interrogator," said Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq who spoke to the creative teams from "24" and "Lost." "That's all people did in Iraq was watch DVDs of television shows and movies. What we learned in military schools didn't apply anymore."
At the infamous Iraqi prison for nearly all of 2004, Lagouranis soon left the military and went to the media to detail the torture, largely ineffective, that was inflicted upon the inmates. He said that his actions -- sleep deprivation, hypothermia, dietary manipulations and use of dogs, all illegal according to American and international law -- were relatively mild compared with what else was being practiced.
"It's an ugly thing," said Lagouranis. "You don't get neat, tidy answers like you do on television."
The Hollywood meeting, a spirited back-and-forth discussion with its moments of defensiveness by most accounts, lasted a couple of hours and was followed by an Italian lunch. For the "24" team, the afternoon served as a rare opportunity for it to debrief real-world interrogators, but it also stirred up television's age-old tension between entertainment and social responsibility.
"The meeting was an eye-opener," said "24" executive producer Howard Gordon. "We hadn't really thought a lot about torture as anything more than a dramatic device."
As a result, Gordon has been filmed for a Humans Rights First video about torture that is expected to be used next fall at West Point and perhaps other military organizations as well. Executive producers from "Lost" also agreed to be in the video, which was shot last month.
Human Rights First, a nonprofit group with an annual budget of about $7 million, plans to continue pushing the point. They are in talks with the Writers Guild of America to bring in its team of former interrogators to discuss real-world experiences with Hollywood writers.
