By 2003, the first year of the war in Iraq, there were 228 instances in which torture was portrayed

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-torture_satjul12,0,6266235.story

Hollywood pressured over torture portrayals

By Aamer Madhani | Washington Bureau

12:57 AM CDT, July 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — Ken Robinson, an Army Special Forces intelligence officer turned Hollywood producer, was working on a short-lived Pentagon drama aptly titled "E-Ring" for a network when two of the show's writers stopped by his office to discuss the details of torture and other harsh interrogation methods. snip

The group's highest-profile target has been the Fox hit "24," a thriller in which protagonist Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, used torture—from staging a mock execution of a detainee's child to shocking a captive—at least 89 times in the show's first six seasons.

[LynnTheDem]

1. America loves torture. The president of the United States of America endorses torture.

America tortures.

We have become the enemy.

[MikeE]

2. You're also seeing a lot of it

You're also seeing a lot of it in the movies, from Hostel, to the whole Saw series. As an artist myself, I think that the majority of people who are making this stuff are really trying to come to terms and deal with it in the only way they can; through their work. I had actually started a piece, (music), and turning the words of the Star Spangled Banner into dialog of someone torturing/being tortured, in a kind of ambient thing. I had to stop working on it because I just couldn't take it anymore. It was making me so depressed. Still the process was cathartic. Maybe I'll finish it someday.