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What Does 9/11 Mean? Not This


As we approach the sixth anniversary of 9/11, I recently read two articles that both use that tragic day as a dividing line in the entertainment world, two articles that, like matter and anti-matter, cannot coexist in the same space without causing complete annihilation — at least, of the grey matter in my brain.

If you believe journalist Kate Taylor, who writes in the Globe and Mail about discovering Seinfeld recently, post-9/11 we’ve been awakened and aren’t as able to process anything that focuses on trivial minutia ("You can also observe that these are people who can afford to worry about pizza cooks who don't wash their hands because they aren't worrying about terrorist attacks"). So I guess that’s why now, important movies such as I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and The Simpsons Movie are blockbusters, and the top TV programs are American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

If you believe filmmaker Tom DiCillo, who talks to the New York Times about how his movies are too important for the unwashed masses, yadda yadda yadda, post-9/11 we’ve been numbed and aren’t able to process anything meaningful or emotional ("Look at the movies people are watching. They’re about nothing. You invest nothing. People can’t invest real emotion because it’s too terrifying”). So I guess that’s why post-9/11, we watch silly movies like The Passion of the Christ and A Beautiful Mind, while pre-9/11, important movies such as Titanic and Home Alone were king.

The Best Years of Our LivesNot to mention that World War II must have been a walk in the park, which is why Americans could emotionally engage with the war-related themes of The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, enough to propel it onto the top 100 all-time American movie box office earners (adjusted for inflation).

9/11 has changed the audience’s appetite? Show me the information that would suggest that’s true, data that would not hold up if you made the same argument for any random year being the year everything changed.

Collateral DamageImmediately post-9/11, things did change, as Americans and Hollywood tried to regain their footing. Movie images of the twin towers were digitally removed from skylines. There were suggestions the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Collateral Damage would never be released because the public couldn’t stomach the terrorism theme. When it was, mere months later, it seemed more likely we couldn’t stomach another lousy movie.

Today, that same public laps up 24’s terrorist themes every week. We watch dumb movies and TV. We watch clever movies and TV. Just as we did on Sept. 10, 2001, except now, very occasionally, those stories try to make sense of the aftermath of the day after that.

What does it mean, to say a movie or a show isn’t about anything, anyway? Even The Simpsons Movie has at its core a message not just about Spider-Pigs, but about family and community. Does a movie have to have pretensions to greatness or obscurity to be meaningful?

SeinfeldSeinfeld famously called itself a show about nothing, but it was really a show about everything that makes us the neurotic human beings we are. In our daily lives, even post-9/11, most of us don’t walk around talking about the impact of world events on our psyches and politico-economic systems. We don’t face situations like being stranded on a tropical island. We talk about bad customer service and make snotty comments about other people. We search endlessly for a good parking space. Seinfeld wrote about the small scale of people’s inner lives, in all their messy, selfish, trivial glory. That’s no small achievement.

Can you really say that Seinfeld wouldn’t work post-9/11 because it focuses on pizza makers not washing their hands, when we have more important things to worry about now? How about when you introduce the fact that the fart- and sex-joke filled Two and a Half Men is the top sitcom today?

Can you really say that movies used to be more meaningful pre-9/11, when we’re talking about pre-9/11 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Jurassic Park versus post-9/11 Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Shrek 2?

If you really think you can, excuse me while the remainder of my brain explodes on you.

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About Diane Kristine Wild

  • daryl d

    Excellent article, Diane!

    In reality, 911 only affected people for three or four months. Then, everybody want about being their usual selfish selves. Why would it have an effect on what entertainment we watch?

  • CB_Brooklyn

    For the real 9/11 evidence, one must look at Dr Judy Wood‘s research of directed energy weaponry at the World Trade Center, and attorney Jerry Leaphart’s legal proceedings with the government.

  • Jon Sobel

    I really enjoyed this article and how it pointed out how people substitute important-sounding pronouncements for real thought. Bad things happen, and people crave entertainment. Those two facts will never change; they’ll always be somewhat related, and somewhat independent, just as they always were.