‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and Torture as Entertainment

From 24 To Homeland to Zero Dark Thirty, Hollywood has been profiting off the depiction of torture as sometimes necessary in the ongoing War on Terrorism. The marketing of Zero Dark Thirty was based almost entirely on extensive mainstream media arguments over whether director/producer Kathleen Bigelow and screenwriter/producer Mark Boal were accurate, with no less than three US senators – John McCain (R-AZ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Carl Levin (D-MI) – writing a letter blasting Sony for falsely crediting torture in the Osama bin Laden capture and killing.