COMMENTARY | Janeane Garofalo, it seems, is fed up that she has nothing new to say that is terrible, she lashed out in a recent podcast against Joel Surnow, the current showrunner of the show “24” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Garofalo appeared in season seven of the hit TV series about a terrorist hunter named Jack Bauer, played by Keifer Sutherland. One of the most detailed accusations against the actress was that Surnow had created the character of President Alison Taylor, played by Cherry Jones, as a vehicle to scare people about the possibility of Hillary Clinton becoming president.
There are many faults in this opinion.
The first character of President Taylor appeared in the first season of seven, which began in January 2009, after the 2008 election in which Hillary Clinton ran for the first time. Clinton had already been nominated to be President Obama’s secretary of state and the idea of being president for a while would be far from the best.
Second, President Taylor isn’t all that scary at all as he was portrayed in “24.” He made some mistakes, as all the presidents did on the show. But if it was meant to hint at Hillary Clinton’s presidency, the writers aren’t doing their job very well.
Of course, there was a woman in 2009 who was named as a possible future president. At the risk of causing horror at Garofalo’s whiteness, he was then Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin, late vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket. To follow Garofalo’s paranoid view of the television program, one might think that Surnow is preparing the way for Palin’s presidency by portraying a tough and decisive woman in the Oval Office.
On the other hand, it is more likely that Surnow was just trying to tell a good story by introducing new and interesting characters. By the way, the first president in “24” was an African American President Palmer, another tough and decisive leader, who by no means he is just likened to the present holder of the Oval Office. Of course, when “24” first aired, Obama was an obscure state senator and the idea that he was going to be president in a short period of time was ridiculous, even as a machine gun show on TV.
