Introduction: confronting the Abu Ghraib photographs -- Torture, biopower, and the desiring subject -- The nonsensical smile of the torturer: documentary form and the logic of enjoyment -- Torture porn and the desiring subject -- 24 and the torture fantasy -- The biotective versus the detective of the real: truth in Zero dark thirty and Homeland -- Alias and the fictional alternative to torture
Summary
Considering representations of torture in such television series as '24', 'Alias', and 'Homeland'; the documentaries 'Taxi to the Dark Side' (2007), 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' (2007), and Standard 'Operating Procedure' (2008); and torture porn feature films from the 'Saw' and 'Hostel' series, Hilary Neroni unites aesthetic and theoretical analysis to provide a unique portal into theorizing biopower and its relation to the desiring subject. Her work ultimately showcases film and television studies singular ability to expose and potentially disable the fantasies that sustain torture and the regimes that deploy it
