“So what exactly does a state department supply chain logistician do?"
When we first meet Jack Ryan,
he might remind us of John Krasinski's most iconic character --
cubicle-bound Jim Halpert.
He bikes to work, has an unassuming, affable demeanor,
and spends his day behind a desk.
“I’m an analyst."
“My job is to speak to clients, uhm, on the phone.”
This isn’t how we tend to think of a traditional high-octane action hero.
Jack Ryan doesn’t have Bond’s cool gadgets and way with the ladies,
Dominic's hot rods, or Jack Bauer’s ferocity.
“STOP WASTING MY TIME!
GIVE ME THE NAME!”
But the CIA analyst isn’t just the everyman he appears to be.
"A 1621 treaty with the Wampanoags gave the Pilgrims protection
against this tribe from what's now Rhode Island--"
"Narragansett."
"That tribe would be the Narragansett."
He’s got some exceptional skills:
“In my opinion, he’s sort of our James Bond for America;
less Sex, but he’s our James Bond.”
[Laughter]
a strong moral compass,
keen intelligence that enables him to quickly synthesize data,
and savvy for today’s tech-driven landscape.
“Jack Ryan’s one of those characters where he’s sort of an action hero
and sort of just a regular guy, which i really love.
I mean there’s something about Jack Ryan
that I think is such a great hero for right now."
He doesn't have a cape,
he doesn't have stuff flying out of his hands-
he's just a guy with his brain and his instincts
and he's trying to figure things out.”
This version of Jack Ryan shows us
that today’s conflicts require a different kind of hero.
So let’s take a look at the updated skill set that Jack
shows we all need to take on our complex, digital modern world.
“There is a little part of us that should all feel like we could be Jack Ryan.”
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Go check it out, it’s what Jack Ryan would do.
In some ways Krasinki’s Jack Ryan is the opposite of the old-school action hero.
He’s defined by his brains, not his brawn.
“Intercept...
Shouldn’t we follow him and see where he’s going?”
He’s a careful decision-maker who values methodical, intelligent planning,
not acting on impulse.
At the end of episode 1,
while the agents question a suspect with torture and intimidation,
he learns more by having a smart conversation with a supposed bodyguard.
So Jack’s character sends the message that,
in a complicated world like ours, brute strength can only take you so far.
“I need to see what it is that’s motivating them.”
“What motivates them?
Same thing that motivates all of them, death to the west.”
He’s a reluctant hero, who has to be dragged into action
“I’m an analyst, I don’t interrogate people,
I write reports.”
and doesn’t want to pull the trigger.
“If you pull your weapon to shoot, you shoot.”
He’s capable in a fight but... hardly invincible.
A far cry from the macho heroes who hold it all in,
Jack shows the emotional toll that combat can take on a human being.
He’s haunted by his war experiences.
And he doesn’t feel self-conscious when his masculinity is threatened.
“He’s kind of like a type B, type C, kind of guy.”
And unlike so many action heroes who ooze confidence,
he’s insecure in romance, fretting over how to ‘get the girl.’
“You wanna have sex with this woman?
Be confident, sexy.”
Aside from his smarts,
Jack’s morality is most central to his character.
He’s unwilling to compromise his integrity
“I believe you can make a difference...
without having to make those kind of compromises.”
He doesn’t want to harm anyone he considers innocent.
“Mr. President, uh, there is an 11 year old
boy also at that compound, Suleiman’s son.”
When Suleiman carries out an attack, Jack feels personally responsible.
"Could've stopped it."
He feels the guilt of every death he couldn’t stop.
And it’s not just that he values morals over muscles;
being a moral person actually helps him be more effective at his job.
“If we took the brother now, it would take what,
hours, days, to get him to talk?
No.”
Ultimately, it’s important that Jack’s not an automatic superman,
born with innate crime-fighting talent-
apart from his exceptional mind, he’s a pretty normal guy
who shows that, to be heroic in today’s world,
you don’t have to be a buff, suave man’s man.
You have to be diligent, pay attention to the details,
and stand by your principles -- and it even helps to be a little nerdy.
“You’re a spy, you’re a CIA agent”
“Officer…
We say officer, the movies get that wrong all the time.”
(Laughs)
This Jack Ryan is similar to his predecessors in a number of ways-
like his strong moral compass
and reluctance to see himself as more than an analyst.
“I am not field personnel, I am only an analyst.”
“You’re not a field man Jack, you never were,
you are an analyst.
Analyze that.”
“No, no, no, I’m, I’m an analyst.”
“I’m just an analyst.”
Each Jack Ryan has reflected something of his era--
“Who are we looking for here, huh?
IRA terrorist or ultra violent faction of the IRA?"
so it’s fitting that today’s Jack
is an expert in cyber security and wire transfers.
He’s like the MacGyver of the 21st century…
his fluency within our information-driven environment
is a big part of what a hero needs in this day and age
"I was just following the money sir."
The digital universe is the modern combat zone,
with different sets of rules than fighting on the ground.
Today’s threats like online crime, drones, and biological warfare
don’t even require the enemy to be present.
The most overtly physical threats in the show tend to be distractions,
in service of more nefarious plots
"We think the pizzeria may have just been a distraction.
He may have been using all of this chaos to sneak a dirty bomb into the hospital."
And the show plays on fears
about the shifting forms terrorism can take in our age.
High-tech battlegrounds call for the Jack Ryans of the world,
more than the Sylvester Stallones.
"You talk to your boss like that, you'll find yourself in a shitty cubicle.
Writing terrorists finance briefs."
"Promise?"
The key to revitalizing a character that many had come to perceive as ‘boring,”
was to mirror him in a more complex villain -- Suleiman.
"I thought you were an analyst?"
"I thought you were a bodyguard."
"We not only have a bad guy,
but we really understand how the antagonist came to be the guy he is."
Suleiman uses his technological skills to lead a terrorist network --
so he represents the dark potential for Jack Ryan’s talents to be misused.
But this villain is made sympathetic in every possible way.
[Speaking Arabic] "In all my life, I have never questioned you...
because you're a good man."
We actually meet Suleiman before we meet Jack,
and we see how he’s been formed by childhood trauma.
In France, amidst rampant anti-Muslim racism, he’s never seen as a person.
"In America, you can still be an African and an American,
you can be a Mexican-American, an Italian-American, a Chinese-American.
In France, there are no hyphenates.
You are either French, or you are not."
In the past, Jack Ryan has been portrayed as the family man,
"I'm after the man that tried to kill my family."
but in this adaptation, Suleiman has the family.
[Speaking Arabic] “Everything I am doing is for you and our children."
And he’s very much in love with his wife, whom he calls “my precious diamond.”
Like Jack, Suleiman understands the importance of technology
far better than those around him.
[Speaking French] “Digital banking and electronic transactions are the future of banking.”
Yet, he’s dismissed by the Western establishment.
[Speaking French] “Relationships and trust...
are the currency which we’ve operated on for over 260 years.”
So Suleiman’s radicalization is caused by the discrimination he experiences.
He attempts to enter the financial system, adopting a western haircut and clothes.
But at an interview, he’s admonished for the tiniest flaw:
a scuff on his shoe.
[Speaking French] "Best foot forward, right?"
This is reminiscent of a story Greer tells about an airline worker on 9-11,
who blamed himself for the attack after not reporting a Middle-Eastern man with dirty
shoes.
“He notices they’re cheap...scuffed up.
They don’t match the first class tickets
or press-collared shirts and new khaki pants.”
When we hear Suleiman tell a poor man that dirt does not make him unclean:
[Speaking Arabic] “Being poor can rob you of many things.
But it must never take away your self-respect.”
We understand that Suleiman has developed his values as a rejection of
Western materialism and prejudice.
The series emphasizes that Jack and Suleiman are two sides of the same coin.
Both are highly intelligent and well-educated.
They were trained to work in finance,
but circumstances led them on different paths.
Both hold strong convictions, and look down on
the less moral people who help them.
"Wow.
Take a break from sex trafficking and drug running for us?”
(Speaking Arabic)"He enjoyed the lavishes of life...
and never cared for your interests.
Crucially, both believe what they’re doing is right --
so this makes the moral dilemmas at the heart of the show
far more nuanced.
“You think you’re the good guy, I’m the bad guy.
Maybe you’re right.
But maybe, if I was born in a nice city in America,
like Cincinnati, I could be the good guy too.”
The show also explores the toll that warfare takes
on the human psyche through the two men.
Both have scars on their back, symbolizing that they’ve been betrayed;
Jack by the boy in the helicopter, and Suleiman by the Western establishment.
Jack’s villain has always reflected the geopolitics of his era,
whether he was fighting the IRA or the Soviet navy.
But this post-9/11 Jack Ryan is a significant departure
from his pre-9/11 counterparts-
now he’s facing an enemy with understandable, justifiable motivations.
His fight is more realistic and less black-and-white --
reflecting an America grappling with the complicated post-9/11 global environment.
These days, we’re far more aware that being the “good guy”
is not straightforward, and perhaps even impossible.
Critics of the show have argued that Jack Ryan perpetuates the ideas that
America’s automatically right or that west is best,
but Jack distrusts orders if he doesn’t think they are right
and doesn’t blindly believe in “the American way.”
"I told you to stand the F-[Bleep] down,
and you went behind my back and froze that account."
What we really see are people on both sides committing evil acts, and doing good deeds.
Ultimately, the biggest difference between Jack and Suleiman
is in their external circumstances --
one is included in his system, and one is excluded,
coming to see the establishment as his enemy.
Suleiman represents the risks inherent in treating people as the “other.”
All of the terrorists in the show are portrayed as victims of their environment,
we get the feeling that they’ve been forced into this position.
People on both sides feel they've been attacked and are retaliating against
evils.
"I regret the death of children and women.
Our children die everyday."
Still, it's important that, unlike his foil, Jack doesn't let his hardships define him.
Just the opposite, these events motivate him to make the world a better place.
“Well I figure it’s better to be on the inside,
maybe be able to change something
than be on the outside and not be able to change anything."
Jack Ryan explores how technology is not only changing warfare,
but how we relate to one another.
Technology can be used for better or worse --
it’s a means of connection or destruction.
The show’s use of drone strikes and electronic banking transactions
send a message that technology is impersonal.
Yet within this inhuman world, characters come to see
that human connections still matter most.
"I'm not crazy-- there's something here right?"
Siblings who miss each other communicate online, and inadvertently ruin a covert op.
A drone pilot uses his human judgment to override protocol
and save Suleiman's wife from being raped.
The technology is still subject to the human operating it,
and we are responsible for what we do with our machines.
“We sit in a trailer 10,000 miles away and we push a button and someone dies.”
So the series concludes that -- like Jack --
we must avoid becoming drones ourselves,
and preserve our human sensibility.
"What about the boy?"
Of course, holding onto your humanity comes with a cost --
the characters’ emotions place them at risk.
The ebola virus is spread through human connection.
Suleiman takes advantage of the president’s friendship with the doctor,
and Jack’s compassion for a young boy led to the deaths of his fellow soldiers.
But his empathy is also what allows him to understand Suleiman,
and know the perfect words to bring him down, again using the man's deepest human emotions:
(speaking Arabic) "I have your son!"
As warfare becomes more mechanized,
it’s increasingly fought by men and women in cubicles.
Jack Ryan is precisely the hero we need in this impersonal era
because when he looks at spreadsheets and statistics,
he sees what’s truly important --
his fellow human beings.
"You did good- real good... for an analyst.
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