Intrigue from Japan: 'Paranoia Agent'

DATE May 5, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Erik Saar and Viveca Novak discuss the interrogation
of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest Erik Saar witnessed the use of sexual interrogation tactics at the
detention facility for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, often referred
to as Gitmo, which was opened in January of 2002. Saar worked as an Arabic
translator at Guantanamo for six and a half months beginning in December of
2002. His first job there was translating the detainees' day-to-day
communications with the guards and military personnel. Then he translated
interrogations and intelligence documents. He's written a new book about what
he witnessed at Guantanamo called "Inside the Wire."

Also joining us is Saar's co-author, Viveca Novak, a Washington correspondent
for Time magazine, who covers legal affairs, terrorism and civil liberties.
Saar asked her to collaborate with him after reading the story she'd written
on Guantanamo.

Well, Erik Saar, let's start with what is probably the most extreme example of
interrogation in your book. And this was translating for--you were
translating for a Saudi prisoner who was being interrogated by a woman in the
American military. What was the goal of this interrogation? What kind of
information were they looking for from this prisoner?

Mr. ERIK SAAR (Former Army Sergeant): Terry, this was a prisoner that was
uncooperative in the past, but as the intelligence team had been confronted
with information regarding this individual, that made us believe that he had
connections to terrorism. And he had been uncooperative for a long period of
time since he'd been confronted with that information. And that evening the
intent of this interrogation was to humiliate this detainee and to create a
barrier through sexual humiliation and sexual enticement between the detainee
and his faith and his religion because the interrogator believed that he
was--this individual was returning to his cell and somehow gaining strength
from his personal relationship with his religion and with his faith. And the
intent was to create a wedge or a divide between the detainee and that
relationship--in one instance, wiping red ink on the detainee's face, which he
believed was menstrual blood, in an attempt to make him feel as though he was
unclean, so, according to the interrogators, beliefs regarding Islam that he
would then be able to--be unable to go back to his cell and pray.

GROSS: Well, the first thing this interrogator did in terms of sexual
humiliation--I mean, he would have interpreted it as sexual humiliation--she
rubbed her breasts against him. Would you describe, like, what she did and
what his reaction was?

Mr. SAAR: Yes, ma'am. She was wearing a tight brown T-shirt, and she took
off this outer top and was trying to tempt him and turned around and rubbed
her chest on his back. The idea was that because he was going to be attracted
to her and aroused by her, she said to him, you know, `How do you feel about
being attracted to an American infidel?'--that somehow he was then supposed to
have a certain amount of guilt that went along with that feeling that made him
feel as though he wasn't being a true Muslim.

GROSS: Then she took a break from the interrogation and talked to a
translator who was Muslim...

Ms. SAAR: Yes, ma'am.

GROSS: ...and developed a different tactic. What was that, and what do you
know about what their interaction was like? Were you overhearing them?

Mr. SAAR: I did overhear them. And the question was--from her to the Muslim
linguist was, `What else can I do to create the sort of wedge and make him
feel as though he cannot return to his cell and pray?' And she was instructed
to--or she was given the advice of suggesting--telling the detainee that she
was menstruating. So then we went one step further, and when we returned to
the interrogation booth, that was when the example of wiping the red ink on
the detainee's face and telling him that it was menstrual blood--that's where
that occurred.

GROSS: And what was his reaction to that?

Mr. SAAR: His reaction was violent. He came out of his chains. His
ankle--one one of his ankle shackles came loose. He spit at us. He was
screaming. And I believe that was, in a way, the reaction that she was
looking for.

GROSS: You say it was this interrogator's goal to create a wedge between this
Saudi prisoner and his religion because she thought he was getting strength
and sustenance from his faith. Was it part of policy at Guantanamo to keep
people from their faith?--because there's been, you know--we've been told that
every effort has been made to let the Muslims pray several times a day. The
call to prayer is given over the loudspeakers.

Mr. SAAR: Right.

GROSS: Every Muslim is given a copy of the Koran to have...

Mr. SAAR: Right.

GROSS: ...in the cell with them.

Mr. SAAR: Right.

GROSS: I mean--and, you know, the Bush administration is so pro-faith.

Mr. SAAR: Right.

GROSS: So is this idea of creating a wedge between a prisoner and his faith
part of policy?

Mr. SAAR: Well, everything you mentioned, ma'am, is correct, and all of that
does exist in the general population. But what I'm referring to are tactics
that were used in the interrogation booth with certain detainees that I think
normally rose to the level of a pretty significant priority. So that was
where--and I do believe that it was a matter of policy to use these
techniques. They weren't hidden from anyone. A number of individuals knew
that sex was used as a weapon in the interrogation booth to interfere with
this relationship.

So on one hand, ma'am, there was a concerted effort and I do think, by and
large, as a camp--the camp as a whole attempted to provide an environment
where the detainees can practice their faith. And all of the concessions that
you mentioned were, indeed--they were definitely there. I'm not denying that.
But the fact that in the interrogation booth we determined that it was
appropriate to use these tactics, which I would also add were entirely
ineffective--and, actually, a number of individuals and a number of
professionals on the island outside of the military also complained about
these tactics. For example, the recently declassified FBI e-mails cite that
not only are these tactics unethical, but they're ineffective.

GROSS: So...

Ms. VIVECA NOVAK (Time Magazine): And, Terry, the--if I could jump in,
there's a passage in the book where Erik--you know, we describe Erik's
reaction to this meeting, where all the intelligence personnel, the
interrogators and the linguists were called in. And there was a JAG
lawyer from Washington who had come down and had a PowerPoint presentation,
and he was explaining to them, you know, why the Geneva Conventions did not
apply to these detainees--a very unusual meeting for the Army to hold because,
as Erik says, the military doesn't do explainers. They just tell you what's
going to happen.

And this was kind of a signal that, you know, this was a huge deal for
interrogations and the old rules didn't apply. But the problem was nobody
knew what the new rules were, and nobody had experience with new rules because
all Army interrogators are trained, you know--they have it hammered into their
heads that they are to abide by the Geneva Conventions. And, you know, I
think that's where a lot of the problems started. And even at Abu Ghraib,
where conditions were much, much worse, I think, the detainees there were
supposed to be covered by the Geneva Conventions. And yet, you know, why did
the things happen that happened there? I think it was, you know, largely
because of the confusion that had been sowed by the various directives on the
handling of detainees at Gitmo.

GROSS: Viveca, the story that we just heard about the female interrogator who
used her sexuality as a tool in the interrogation, the chapter about that
was--there was an attempt to remove it from the book when an early draft was
submitted to the military, as Erik Saar was required to do. First of all, if
you could just explain why he had to submit the book and then just, like,
describe why officials asked for it to be taken out.

Ms. NOVAK: Well, the--he submitted it actually even before we met. He
submitted an early version of an account of his memories from Guantanamo. He
had signed an agreement, as other soldiers in this world are required to sign,
saying he wouldn't reveal classified information. And it isn't always clear
what's classified information, so he had submitted this to see what would be
allowed. In the end, we got permission to publish, you know, the account of
this interrogation.

But what happened is that, I think, early on--and we didn't find this out
until later, but early on the officials down at Guantanamo had wanted to
disallow publicizing this anecdote. And in Washington, the office that is
responsible for the final sign-off on this kind of thing went back to them and
said, `Are you sure that, you know, you can come up with a good legal reason
to prohibit this from being published?' The only reason we know that is that
somebody--some disgruntled Pentagon person, I guess, leaked this account, nine
pages of what Erik had submitted, to an AP reporter, who in January of this
year published the account of this interrogation.

And we learned through that that the pages she had gotten had a slip of paper
attached to it from Pentagon headquarters in Washington, you know, writing to
the people at Gitmo saying, `Are you sure that you have the legal authority to
redact this material?' And that's when we learned that originally they had
not wanted this to be published.

Mr. SAAR: And, also, Terry, I'll add that--in fairness, I should say that
when the Pentagon's version--when their vetting--in their vetting process in
determining what is and is not classified, their only mission is to determine
what is and is not classified. So they don't concur with--they try to make it
very clear when they give the document back, in fairness, I should say, that
they're just saying that this is not classified. They're not saying--taking
an opinion on the issues per se.

GROSS: Right. So the fact that they're letting you publish something doesn't
necessarily mean that they agree that it happened. Is that...

Mr. SAAR: Correct.

GROSS: Right, right. OK.

Ms. NOVAK: It just means that they don't think they could defend their
decision to redact it if they were sued.

GROSS: Erik Saar, do you care to speculate how high up in the chain people
knew about some of the more extreme methods of interrogation...

Mr. SAAR: Well, Terry...

GROSS: ...at Guantanamo?

Mr. SAAR: Well, Terry, I do know from my colleagues that they had no reason
to doubt that individuals very high up the chain of command knew, especially
some of the extreme techniques that were being employed, because they have
certain measures that they have to take as interrogators to get approval for
those techniques. I mean, this isn't something where a junior soldier just
walks into an interrogation booth and says, `This is the tactic I'm going to
use today, and whatever I think looks good, I'm going to kind of freelance,'
because they have policies and directives that they have to follow. And they
know full well that if they choose not to follow those, there are far-reaching
ramifications for that decision.

GROSS: My guests are Erik Saar, who worked as an Arabic translator at the
detention facility for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, and Time
magazine correspondent Viveca Novak. Their new book is called "Inside the
Wire." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Erik Saar and Viveca Novak,
co-authors of the new book "Inside the Wire." And it's about military
interrogations at Guantanamo. Erik Saar worked as an Arabic translator and
military intelligence specialist at the detention facility in Guantanamo for
six and a half months starting in December of 2002. Viveca Novak is a
reporter for Time magazine, where she writes about legal affairs, terrorism
and civil liberties.

Now, Erik, I want to make it clear that you say, you know, this interrogation
that you just described, where the interrogator used her sexuality as a tool
to try to get the Saudi prisoner to talk, was not typical. And you give an
example of a woman interrogator who you felt was really excellent and had a
real gift for getting prisoners to speak to her with a degree of comfort.
Could you talk about what her technique was?

Mr. SAAR: Yes, ma'am. And that was as different government agency that
happened to be working on the island. And I do want to be very clear that
this was not something that everyone who was at Gitmo participated in and
that, you know, were down there on a regular basis abusing prisoners. That's
really not what I'm saying. There were elements within our government that
disagreed with these tactics, and a civilian agency chose to employ different
interrogation methods. And, actually, they really didn't even refer to them
as interrogations; they called them interviews. And they were attempting to
build a rapport with a detainee and establish a certain level of trust whereby
they would then be able to get the detainee to at least begin talking. And
when that occurs, at least the interviewer or the interrogator has the
opportunity to exploit the information being passed to him or her.

GROSS: Would you describe what her technique was?

Mr. SAAR: Her technique was simply to build a rapport with the detainee, to
establish a level of trust, to try to find some commonality and understand the
culture of where the detainee grew up, to understand his family, his
background and thereby get him to begin to talk to her and then exploit his
information.

GROSS: What are some of the other things you witnessed during interrogations
that struck you as extreme techniques in their being overly coercive, overly
painful so as to be or to approach torture? Can you describe some of the
other things that you think crossed the line?

Mr. SAAR: I could say some of the examples of interrogations I participated
in and then others I knew about, through my colleagues who both worked in
interrogations and translated interrogations--I could say that, in general, in
the broad scope of the fear-up approach of where an interrogator was putting a
detainee in a stress position, meaning that he was chained to the floor and
forced to hunch over and exposed to cold temperatures and exposed to sleep
deprivation and things of that nature--I mean, I think that, overall, all of
these factors, all of these circumstances, for me are what created the picture
that this was un-American. But maybe for some listening, more importantly, I
might want to also point out that these are tactics that were ineffective.

I mean, one of the things that was enormously frustrating to me as a soldier
and as someone who had some experience in intelligence was that we had a cadre
of individuals on the island, including, for example, FBI special agents, who
had an enormous amount of experience in the intelligence community and had
been working in counterterrorism, some individuals for a decade because they
had been working on counterterrorism since the first World Trade Center
bombing. And these were individuals who disagreed with the use of these
tactics, saying, `Look, this doesn't need to be--these tactics don't need to
be employed. And, in fact, they're counterproductive if, in later
interrogations, we want to go back and somehow try to build a relationship
with this detainee. You've now burned that bridge, so we can't do that.' So
there were a number of factors that really contributed to me reaching the
decisions that I made.

GROSS: There have been reports of a lot of suicide attempts on the part of
detainees at Guantanamo. Did you see a lot of suicide attempts while you were
there?

Mr. SAAR: I did see the results of a number of suicide attempts, and we
responded on the first team that I was on, when I dealt with the detainees on
a daily basis, to suicide attempts fairly regularly, to be honest with you.
And when I contrasted what I saw, in terms of how many suicide attempts we
responded to as linguists, to the public affairs information that was coming
out of Guantanamo Bay regarding how many actual suicide attempts there were,
the numbers definitely didn't match up. And I realized later, during my time
at Guantanamo Bay, that the reason for that was because the Pentagon had
determined that a number of these examples that I would term as suicide
attempts--they ended up not calling them suicide attempts because they
referred to them as something called self-injurious manipulative behavior.

GROSS: And what does the `manipulative' mean in self-injurious manipulative
behavior? That they're injuring themselves to get attention or to evoke
sympathy?

Ms. NOVAK: Yeah.

Mr. SAAR: That was the perception to us; that they decided to stop
categorizing them as suicide attempts because they believed that the detainees
were attempting to manipulate the system. Some of them wanted to go to
isolation. They believed some of them, they thought, just wanted more
attention from the mental health professionals. So they said, `These weren't
valid suicide attempts. They were really attempts where they had no chance
whatsoever of really killing themselves.' Therefore, they determined that
they should label them as something else.

GROSS: And did you think that there was, at the very least, an element of
truth to that?

Mr. SAAR: An element of truth in the sense that some of the attempts were
feeble because of the means in which detainees had to use to try to kill
themselves. In other words, they were really trying to rig very--they were
trying to hang themselves, and it was very difficult for them to do that. So
in terms of the military's argument that they didn't really have a very good
chance of actually killing themselves, that might have some credibility. But
whether or not they really intended or would have hoped to kill themselves I
don't think is something that the military really could ascertain.

GROSS: A lot of the prisoners have been sent back to their countries from
Guantanamo. What were some of the reasons for releasing them?

Mr. SAAR: I'll answer this, and then maybe Viveca could actually add a little
bit, probably based on her background. But I believe--from my experience, I
think a number of them were released because we didn't know why they had ever
been picked up. And the government has said that they're not--no longer a
threat to the United States. But to be honest with you, as someone who spent
time there, I don't know that they were ever a threat to the United States.
And I think we had a number of individuals, when I was there, even shortly
after I joined the intelligence team in February of 2003, that we
knew--despite the fact that the camp had only been open a little over a year,
we already knew that there were individuals that we were going to end up
sending back to their home country because we couldn't ascertain that they
were picked up on the battlefield and we didn't know that they actually posed
a threat to us, and we found no holes in their story. But, I don't know,
maybe Viveca could add other reasons why they may have been sent home.

Ms. NOVAK: Well, what I found, as a reporter kind of following this, was--you
know, I had various sources who were talking to me off the record from the
Pentagon and elsewhere, intelligence sources, who were saying that, you know,
a number of these detainees are now on the growing list of individuals who
should be sent back, who we really, you know, don't need to be holding. But
they weren't released, and their, you know, releases kept being postponed.
And, you know, people started telling me that, you know, it was for political
reasons; that it didn't look good to have a big release of, you know, a
hundred detainees. That wouldn't look good for the administration because it
would show so dramatically how many were picked up in error. And things were
just--you know, they were dragged out and dragged out. And it took, you know,
the Supreme Court case that was decided in June of last year for the Pentagon
to be forced to give these detainees a chance in federal court to bring their
case to challenge their detentions.

And I would also--I wanted to add to something Erik said before about--you
know, we've been talking about these different interrogation techniques and
the different sorts of things that the detainees were put through. I think
we're also losing sight of perhaps the most extreme form of abuse that we put
these people through, which was the psychological torture of not knowing your
fate. We're keeping these people for years. They never know if they're going
to see a lawyer. They didn't know if they were going to be charged with
anything. Many of them didn't know why they were there. But just that
open-endedness is, I think, very, very tough on the psyche.

GROSS: I want to thank you both very much for talking with us.

Mr. SAAR: Thanks, Terry.

Ms. NOVAK: Thank you.

Ms. SAAR: Erik Saar and Viveca Novak co-authored the new book about
Guantanamo, "Inside the Wire."

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, Amy Sherman Palladino, the creator and executive producer
of the popular WB TV series "Gilmore Girls" about a mother and daughter who
are best friends. And John Powers tells us about the Japanese animated TV
series "Paranoia Agent," one of the best and strangest programs he's ever
seen. It's out on DVD.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Amy Sherman Palladino discusses her show "Gilmore
Girls"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

In FRESH AIR critic Ken Tucker's book about what he loves and hates about
television, he singles out The WB series "Gilmore Girls" as having one of the
best mothers in TV history. The series is about a single mother and her
teen-age daughter who are best friends. My guest, Amy Sherman Palladino,
created the series, is an executive producer and has written many of the
episodes. "Gilmore Girls" is popular for its relationships, its witty,
fast-paced dialogue and its constant references to popular culture. The
mother in "Gilmore Girls", Lorelai Gilmore, got pregnant when she was 16,
decided to have the baby and not marry the father. Although she's lucky to
have a great relationship with her daughter, Rory, she never had a good
relationship with her own parents. They're wealthy and Lorelai thinks of them
as snobbish and selfish. But she's beholden to them for funding Rory's prep
school education and loaning her the money for Yale.

"Gilmore Girls" is in its fifth season. The third season has just come out on
DVD. In this scene from the third season, Rory has just come home to
Connecticut after spending the summer in Washington, DC. Lorelai is played by
Lauren Graham; Rory is played by Alexis Bledel.

(Soundbite of "Gilmore Girls")

Ms. ALEXIS BLEDEL: (As Rory) I'm so glad to see you.

Ms. LAUREN GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) No, I'm glad to see you.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) I'm never leaving home again.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Oh, that's my emotionally stunted girl. Hey, I got
you gifts.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) What? I'm the one that left town. I'm supposed to get
you gifts.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai): Oh, but I got here early and there was nothing to
do except feed Gummi Bears to the bomb-sniffing dogs, which apparently the
United States government frowns upon.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory): You got in trouble with the government while you were
waiting for me?

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Just a little.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) How much is a little?

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Learn Russian. OK, here you go.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Wow! A Hartford, Connecticut, sweatshirt.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Nice, huh?

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Hartford, Connecticut, notebook; Hartford, Connecticut,
pencil set; Hartford, Connecticut, shot glass...

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) And beer mug.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) ...Hartford baguette, Hartford bear, Hartford
sunglasses...

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) You like?

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) I love.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) All right. Let's go. We'll get your bags and then
we'll hit the road. And then I can't wait to hear all about Washington. And,
by the way, I got you out of dinner with the Gilmores tonight. I thought you
and Dean might enjoy a little Peaches & Herb time together.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Oh, thanks. What'd you tell them?

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) That you get home tomorrow.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Big fat lie.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Yes, which proves how much I love you. The fact
that I was willing to lie to my own parents, who I never lie to, just so you
could have a night of happiness is proof positive of my deep, undying devotion
that I have for you.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) I appreciate that.

GROSS: Before creating "Gilmore Girls," Amy Sherman Palladino wrote for
"Roseanne" and "Veronica's Closet." I asked her about creating the characters
of Lorelai and Rory.

Ms. AMY SHERMAN PALLADINO (Creator, "Gilmore Girls"): At the time that I put
"Gilmore" on the air, teen-age girls on television, in my view, were reflected
in sort of two categories. They were the pretty cheerleaders who were popular
but secretly anorexic, or they were the angry, dark-haired, Doc Marten-wearing
disenfranchised girls who hate the cheerleaders but secretly want to be the
cheerleaders. And it didn't really--there really didn't seem to be any room
in the middle. There didn't seem to be any room for the girl who, you know,
wasn't having sex at 12 1/2 and wasn't dressing like a whore and wasn't, you
know, dying to be popular, or there wasn't a girl who was sort of comfortable
in her skin and sort of had her life and didn't really belong to any group and
kind of was OK with that, and that books and reading and education and her
future was the most important thing, way more important than boys. It just
felt like where's the other girls?

So it was also a real chance for me to put that other kind of teen-ager on
television. So you almost work backwards from that. What kind of pers--well,
mother has this kind of kid? And it obviously had to be a very smart woman, a
very bright woman. You wanted to get them close in age because that's how you
sort of bridge--you really bridge that gap. And, you know, she--Lorelai never
felt like her parents understood her. So she wanted to really make sure that
this kid felt understood, respected, nurtured and free to be whoever it was
she was going to be.

GROSS: The "Gilmore Girls" is famous for its fast and witty dialogue. The
dialogue is so fast that from what I've read, there are many, many more pages
per episode of the "Gilmore Girls"...

Ms. PALLADINO: Yes.

GROSS: ...than for the average hourlong TV show. So why did you start
writing that way, you know, with an emphasis on fast, witty dialogue?

Ms. PALLADINO: When I'm with my friends, we almost talk over each other.
We--you know, and especially when there's a connection with somebody and you
know them, you can anticipate where they're going. And for somebody like, you
know, a mother-daughter, like Lorelai and Rory, they almost have the same
brain. They're going to finish each other's sentences. It--the speed of
their speech almost indicates a little bit--it tells me a little bit about who
they are and how close they are. I also personally believe that comedy works
better fast. I don't--I think that all of the comedy that I admire--you know,
the Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn--you know, there wasn't a space of air
between those people talking. And you just--you loved them and you--it felt
natural and it felt real and it moved and you were energized in an hour and a
half, you were--boom, you had some entertainment. You went out for a cup of
coffee. It was perfect. You know, the old Woody Allen movies, you know, was
the same way. You know, people just talked over each other. Sometimes the
camera couldn't even get to them before lines were off camera. I just
personally feel like comedy dies slow.

GROSS: Another thing that the "Gilmore Girls" is famous for is lots of
references to pop culture: books, movies, TV shows, recordings. Every
minute, there seems to be a reference to something. So let me just play an
example of that. This is from the first season, and Lorelai and her daughter
Rory are in the car together talking. Here we go.

(Soundbite of "Gilmore Girls")

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Why didn't you mention the dance?

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) 'Cause I'm not going.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Oh. But why aren't you going?

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Because I hate dances.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) Good answer, except you've never actually been to a
dance.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) So?

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) So you really have nothing to compare it to.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) No, but I can imagine it.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) That's true. However, not really. Since you've
never actually been to one, you're basing all your dance opinions on one
midnight viewing of "Sixteen Candles."

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) So?

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) So you should have a decent reason for hating
something before you really decide you hate it.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) Trust me, I'll hate it. It'll be stuffy and boring,
and the music will suck. And since none of the kids at school like me, I'll
be standing in the back, listening to 98 Degrees, watching Tristan and Paris
argue over which one of them gets to make me miserable first.

Ms. GRAHAM: (As Lorelai) OK. Or it'll be all sparkly and exciting and you'll
be standing on the dance floor listening to Tom Waits with some great-looking
guy staring at you so hard that you don't even realize that Paris and Tristan
have just been eaten by bears.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) What guy?

GROSS: OK, so we've got at least two different songs in there plus a movie.
And those are the more overt references. I mean, like in one episode that I
think you wrote, Lorelai is--I think she's at her parents', like, recommitment
ceremony, and there's a photographer coming and someone says, `Oh, the
photographer's coming,' and she says, `I am a camera,' a Christopher Isherwood
reference.

Ms. PALLADINO: Right.

GROSS: And then in a recent episode, Lorelai's boyfriend is changing his mind
about something and she says, `My mother, my daughter, my mother, my
daughter,' a reference to "Chinatown." So, you know, the references are
sometimes overt and sometimes, you know, they just go by and you don't even
know if it's a reference or not. So how did you start just kind of sticking
in so many--how did it become a thing?

Ms. PALLADINO: Well, you know, it became a thing accidentally. It
wasn't--you know, I didn't set out to say, `And we're going to be the pop
culture reference show. You know, here's my card.' It just sort of happened.
It came out of--you know, these are modern girls. You know, references are
all around them. They read a lot. They listen to a lot of music. They watch
a lot of movies. They watch a lot of television. It's just--you know, it's
going to seep into their vocabulary. It's going to be part of their brain. I
personally talk like that a little bit.

And then it just got fun, you know. The most fun was when--'cause the studio
and the network have been so great about it, but they did once ask me to take
out an Oscar Levant reference 'cause they said, `No one here knows who Oscar
Levant is, and no one on The WB--watching The WB's going to know who Oscar
Levant is.' And I said, `Maybe three kids are going to go back and find out
who Oscar Levant is.' They're going, `There's not three kids who are going to
know who Oscar Levant is.' And I was like, `I won't take it out!' And I
fought so hard for my Oscar Levant reference, and I won, and I felt so
empowered that I just figured, oh, now all bets are off. Now it's open
season. And we just really enjoy it. We don't even think about it. And
sometimes we wind up taking references out, 'cause by the time the scripts are
done, it's like we--you know, it's, `Holy moly, that's a lot of references.'
So we wind up stripping some of them out.

GROSS: One of Rory's friends, Lane, is a character who really loves music and
pop culture, and she kind of defines herself and other people by their taste
in pop culture. Can you talk a little bit about how--creating her?

Ms. PALLADINO: Well, she defines people definitely by their taste in music.
Lane is based on my best friend, Helen Pai, much to Helen's chagrin. Helen is
this adorable Korean girl who was raised in a very traditional Korean, very
strict Seventh-day Adventist home. And she was purely an American kid, rock
'n' roll, Duran Duran fetish, just really like as rock 'n' roll as they come,
but she was raised in a household that didn't allow rock music or dancing or
jewelry or--you know, very, very strict. And she had to sort of carve out a
secret life for herself. She had--all of her posters were up in her closet
'cause she couldn't put them out, 'cause she couldn't have her parents see
them. So--and she loves her parents very much and respects her parents very
much, so this hiding this music obsession was not about rebelling; it was
about trying to be respectful but still trying to have a little bit of her own
self.

And I always loved that concept because Lane--because Helen has one of the
best relationships with her parents of anyone I've ever met. She sees them
all the time. She just adores them. And I wanted to do something similar
when we created Lane. And then eventually, of course, she grew up so it all
came out, and now she's in a band. And, you know, Lane is one of those people
that really--music is her life and good music, quality music. That's
basically what Lane is, and Lane became our real music focus of the show to
really get sort of our music opinions out there in the world.

GROSS: My guest is Amy Sherman Palladino, creator of The WB series "Gilmore
Girls." Here's a scene from season two when the character Lane finds her
calling.

(Soundbite of "Gilmore Girls")

Ms. KEIKO AGENA: (As Lane Kim) I'm gonna be a drummer!

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) You're kidding.

Ms. AGENA: (As Lane) I went into that new music store today. I don't know
why I went in. I just had to. Something told me, `Lane Kim, there's
something in there that you need to see,' and there it was. It was red and
shiny and--so excited I can't breathe.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) That's amazing.

Ms. AGENA: (As Lane) I know.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) So how you going to do this?

Ms. AGENA: (As Lane) I don't know.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) How are you going to buy a drum set?

Ms. AGENA: (As Lane) I don't know.

Ms. BLEDEL: (As Rory) And even if you do buy a drum set, where are you going
to play it?

Ms. AGENA: (As Lane) I don't know. I don't know any of this. But I will
figure something out because I am Keith Moon, I am Neil Peart, I am Rick Allen
with and without the arm, because I am rock 'n' roll, baby! I'll call you
later.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Amy Sherman Palladino. She's
the creator and executive producer of the "Gilmore Girls." She's also done a
lot of writing for her show.

We've been talking about the relationship of the mother and the daughter in
your series. What about your relationship with your mother? What has that
relationship been like?

Ms. PALLADINO: Really dear.

GROSS: Would you compare it to any of the characters on the show?

Ms. PALLADINO: My upbringing was very, very different. My father's a comic.
My mother was a musical comedy Broadway dancer who came out here and then had
a children's theater group and trained me a lot in that. And she's now got
her one-woman show, and she's back out there struttin' her stuff. So I grew
up in a much different sort of--a little bit more hippie sort of comic,
sitting around, you know. I didn't go to college, so education was not at all
stressed in my household at all. It was more about, you know, dance class and
get to auditions and drum a lot and things like that.

So I think that everybody has universal problems with their parents, and there
are times where I have found myself in a Lorelai-Emily situation with my
mother simply on the fact that we're having a conversation and we seem to be
talking at each other, not to each other. But it's just a completely
different situation. My parents are--you know, they're still in the same
house that I grew up in, and I just saw them last week, so we're cool.

GROSS: What are their names? Might we recognize their names?

Ms. PALLADINO: My dad's name is Don Sherman. My mom's name is Maven Hughes.
My dad is currently king of the cruise line. He's Mr. Saturday Night. He
does stand-up on the cruises, and he's gone, like, 110, you know, months out
of the year. It's astonishing to me. It's great. You know, they travel all
over the world. And he's a very--you know, my humor comes from my dad. It
comes flat-out from hanging around a house where comics hung out and made each
other laugh for a long time. You know, I grew up on this. So it was sort
of--you know, I have zero other skills. I have no other way to support
myself. So if this didn't pan out, I was in a lot of trouble.

GROSS: So did your father actually tell you how to tell a joke? Did he
actually, like, criticize you when you would tell a story or a joke and give
you suggestions about how to make it sharper?

Ms. PALLADINO: No. No, it's just--it's something you absorb. You listen,
you--you know, I grew up on, you know, "The 2,000-Year Old Man" albums, you
know, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, because my dad had them; you know, Lenny
Bruce, because my dad had him and, you know, Bob Newhart albums 'cause my dad
had them. And comics hanging out at my dad's house, and that sort of that
Jewish kind of New York rhythm, even though I was, you know, born and raised
in the San Fernando Valley. You know, it's something you sort of absorb and
you can't get rid of.

My dad, however, did teach me that in television, it's all about the pitch.
If you go into a room of executives and you make them think you know what the
hell you're talking about, even if you don't, you're done, you're golden. And
he's absolutely right. You talk a lot, you make them laugh, you leave; you
know, maybe they have no idea what you said, but you sure seemed sure of
yourself. It's worked very well for me.

GROSS: Is that how you got the "Gilmore Girls"?

Ms. PALLADINO: The "Gilmore Girls" was a complete freaky fluke, 'cause I went
into a pitch and I had, like, four ideas very well-thought-out, you know.
You know, and I'm pitching them and they're bored and their eyes are glazing
over and they're looking at their watches and they're thinking about their
lunch meetings. And then I said, `And I have this last idea. It's kind of
like--you know, it's like a mother and daughter, but they're more like friends
than mother and daughter.' And they're like, `That's what we want!' And that
was the pitch. That sold it. And I walked out of the room and I went, `I
have no idea what that is. I don't know what I sold. What does that mean?
Where do they live? What do they do?' And people were like, `I don't know,
you gotta come up with that.'

So I turned to my husband, who's a writer, and cried, and he said, `Well,
let's--we're going away on vacation.' And we went away and we stayed in this
beautiful inn in Connecticut, the Mayflower, and it was like, `Oh, she should
work at an inn and she should live in Connecticut.' It just all sort of
happened on the trip. So it was a very unusual situation.

GROSS: So you were married to your husband, who was also an executive
producer on the "Gilmore Girls" before the "Gilmore Girls" got started?

Ms. PALLADINO: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I bagged him early, you know, 'cause gotta
bag 'em while your ass is still holding up, you know, 'cause as soon as you
get that show and you become a little chair-shaped down there, it's not as
hard to bag 'em. But, yeah, he was--he's just a genius writer. He was
actually on "Family Guy" at the time that I got "Gilmore Girls" on the air.
And I was so desperate to have some help because my writing style--it was just
very specific, and it was very--and I just saw these stories so clearly, and I
always wanted people to break girlfriend stories, not mother-daughter stories,
and that was very hard for the writers I had at the time to understand or
comprehend. There was a lot of morals being tacked on to the ends. It's
like, `No, no, no, no one needs to learn a lesson here. Let's just entertain
people.'

So I would call my husband over at "Family Guy" and I would say, `You
know'--and I would, like, break stories with him over the phone while he's
working for another company and another show. And God love Fox; they were
very nice. They let him write a couple of scripts for me and, you know, it
was very hard that first year without having that help. And the second year,
I begged him to leave, and he did. He came over and he's been with me ever
since, and it's just been the greatest working experience of my life.

GROSS: Well, you're lucky, 'cause that's not always easy to work with a
spouse.

Ms. PALLADINO: Well, you know, hourlong is very different from half-hour.
Half-hour, I think we would have killed each other with sledgehammers a long
time ago, because, you know, half-hour writers sit in this room for hours and
hours and hours, and the room smells bad and they eat in that room and it's
horrible. And in hourlong, it's a lot of solitary work. It's--you break your
stories, but then you're writing or you're in an editing room or you're on
stage or you're in a sound mix. So it's a lot of--there's so much to do in
running the show that we can actually go, you know, days and we don't see each
other till dinner, you know, and our offices are right next to each other. So
it's perfect. It's the perfect working environment. It's absolutely
delightful.

GROSS: Why is an hour show a more solitary experience for writers and
producers than a half-hour show?

Ms. PALLADINO: Well, because unfortunately--and I don't agree with this trend
and I think it's not a good trend--the trend on half-hours has become get as
many possible people together in a room, so there's like these enormous staffs
of people, and just have them constantly pitching jokes. And a lot of the
scripts one writer--you know, it used to be you'd break a story, one writer
would go off and write a script, and then that script, when it was done, would
come back to the room and everybody would sort of pitch jokes on it to punch
it up. And nowadays a lot of shows don't even have a writer go off and write
a script; they just sit in the room and they write the script together in
what's very charmingly called a gangbang. And it's just--it's a lot of
voices.

And the thing about comedy is, just 'cause you got 20 people in a room, it may
mean you have 20 extra jokes, but it doesn't mean that script's going to be
any better. If anything, it waters down the process. The more voices there
are to pick from, the less focused, I believe, stories and scripts are. And
if you look at some of the classic, classic shows--"Taxi," "Cheers," "Mary
Tyler Moore," "All in the Family"--they were smaller staffs, they were more
focused voices, and people wrote.

And so, you know, to me, when I got to hourlong, I got to write again. You
know, I got to really sit in the--when I was first on "Roseanne," it was the
old-fashioned traditional method of doing sitcom, and by the time I left
"Roseanne"--I was there for four years--they were gang-banging every script.
So it just--it's, to me--you know, so you're breaking a story, but then at the
end of the day, you get to go off by yourself, it's you and your computer and,
in my case, a lot of old "Buffy" DVDs, 'cause too much silent makes me crazy.
And I just write, and I just write a script by myself, and it's up to me.
It's scarier, but it's a lot more satisfying.

GROSS: Amy Sherman Palladino, thank you so much for talking with us.

Ms. PALLADINO: You're very welcome.

GROSS: Amy Sherman Palladino is creator, executive producer and writer for
"Gilmore Girls," which airs on The WB Tuesday nights. The third season came
out on DVD this week.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Japanese animated TV series "Paranoia Agent," released on
DVD
TERRY GROSS, host:

The Japanese animated TV series "Paranoia Agent" has come out on DVD, and
critic John Powers says that it's not only an amazing show, but a good
introduction to one of the world's most interesting filmmakers.

JOHN POWERS reporting:

When Japanese animation, or anime, first began showing up in American
theaters, I frankly wasn't impressed. Every movie seemed to be about some
saucer-eyed girl being violated by a critter with tentacles. But as more
anime films came to the US, it became obvious that Japanese animation isn't
just for geeky teen-age boys. At its best, it has a sophistication that makes
most Hollywood cartoons seem like, well, cartoons.

Although the most famous anime filmmaker is Hayao Miyazaki, who made "Spirited
Away," the most grown-up is just becoming known here. His name is Satoshi
Kon, and he largely shies away from the sci-fi and fantasy themes of other
anime directors. His stuff isn't about robots. Instead, Kon's work
explicitly tackles the crazy anxieties that bubble beneath the seeming
politeness of Japanese life. His latest project is a TV series called
"Paranoia Agent." It's one of the best and strangest programs I've ever seen.
One night, I showed the first episode to friends at a party, and they all
clamored to borrow the DVD.

The story begins by focusing on a young woman, Tsukiko, who's well-known for
inventing a Hello Kitty-like character named Maromi, a big-eyed puppy that's
become a national obsession. Tsukiko's under pressure to come up with another
lucrative character, but just when she's about to buckle from stress, she's
attacked on the street by Little Slugger, a grinning boy of maybe 11 or 12 who
rides around on Rollerblades and wields a baseball bat. Almost instantly, her
case is being followed by the cops, sleazeball reporters and yammering TV
pundits.

But the attack on Tsukiko is just the beginning. Soon, Little Slugger claims
other victims, and "Paranoia Agent" starts opening up like a origami flower in
water. The story encompasses more and more aspects of Japanese life, from
memories of the atomic bomb to its deliriously silly popular culture. And
meanwhile, the exploits of Little Slugger enter the national mythology,
prompting a collective outpouring of speculation and gossip, rather like a
Greek chorus.

(Soundbite of "Paranoia Agent")

Unidentified Man: Golden Slugger still hasn't been arrested, has he?

Unidentified Woman #1: You mean Little Slugger.

Unidentified Man: Oh, yeah, Little Slugger.

Unidentified Woman #2: I heard that his bat is golden.

Unidentified Woman #1: So anyway, the police came to my place, too. It felt
just like I was in a TV cop show.

Unidentified Man: So what did they ask you?

Unidentified Woman #1: Well, they showed me this sketch of the suspect, and
he looked like he was 12.

Unidentified Man: What? He was an elementary school kid? Really?

Unidentified Woman #2: So then he really does have a twisted metal baseball
bat?

Unidentified Man: Did you hear this? He grins right before he attacks.

Unidentified Woman #1: That's so weird.

Unidentified Woman #2: I heard his shoes and bat are both gold. What if his
eyeballs are also gold?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Unidentified Man: It's scary. It's not funny.

(Soundbite of music)

POWERS: Yes, I know, the dubbing is pretty bad. But the DVD also lets you
watch the show in the original Japanese with English subtitles, which is what
I'd recommend. I myself have seen "Paranoia Agent" both subtitled and dubbed,
once to hear the original acting and once just to concentrate on the images.
For Satoshi Kon is a brilliant stylist who weds a gorgeous sense of
composition to a bold willingness to flip between past and present, objective
reality and subjective experience.

Well, "Paranoia Agent" is unlike any TV show I've ever seen. The closest may
be something like "Twin Peaks." It's a logical extension of Kon's three
earlier animated movies, all available on DVD and each of them terrific. His
debut, "Perfect Blue," was a psychosexual thriller about a pop idol haunted by
a fan who can't accept her retirement. His follow-up, "Millennium Actress,"
told the story of 20th-century Japan through the career of a woman movie star.
And his most recent picture, "Tokyo Godfathers," was about three homeless
people who look after an abandoned baby. What all these movies share is a
fascination with the power of psychological projection, be it the worship of
pop icons or the stigmatization of outsiders like the homeless, who come to
represent what society finds threatening.

This same theme runs through "Paranoia Agent." As the story progresses, what
looks like a simple crime story, a young hoodlum whacking people with a ball
bat, grows trickier and trickier, and we start to ask ourselves questions.
Are Little Slugger's victims really victims, or do they secretly want to be
attacked because it offers a kind of relief? Is Little Slugger a real person,
or could he actually be an evil spirit born of repression? And what's his
relationship to Tsukiko's creation, that big-eyed puppy Maromi, whose sole
function in the world is to be soothingly innocent?

At a time when Japanese culture may be best known for unthreatening creations
like Hello Kitty and the flat paintings of Takashi Murakami, Kon does
something daring. He reveals the fear, sadness and pain hidden by the modern
embrace of things that are cute. In fact, for all its wild twists and turns,
"Paranoia Agent" is shot through with a wistful sense of melancholy. Kon has
a keen awareness of human frailty and solitude in modern society, where
individuals are surrounded by people and messages, yet feel utterly alone. In
such a reality, Kon suggests, paranoia isn't just a curse, but almost a
necessity. Fear of Little Slugger is a way of feeling connected to a world
that might otherwise have no meaning at all.

GROSS: John Powers is film critic for Vogue. He reviewed the Japanese TV
series "Paranoia Agent," which has been released on DVD.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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