Box office
Only a few short months after the premier of Flight 93, the second film to depict the events of September 11 opens this week. World Trade Center tells the story of the entrapment and subsequent rescue of two New York firefighters inside the rubble of the twin towers.
While I support the filmmaker's right to depict controversial and emotional topics, I find something unsettling about filming stories based on 9/11. Partially, this comes from my views on how historical events in general should be analyzed. Several historians have written books and articles on the dangers of studying recent history. This school of thought arose in the aftermath of the Cold War, when scholars almost immediately began to research, amongst other topics, the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the roles played by Gorbachev and Reagan. In the fifteen years since then, historians have come to realize that a significant amount of time must pass before society can truly reflect on an event. This length of time is defined by practical reasons, such as the declassification of relevant government documents (of which most have a twenty-five year wait period), but also by the need for a paradigm shift. Historians of the 1990s were born, raised and educated during the Cold War, and their views were shaped completely by it. They were unable to separate themselves from their own Cold War mindset and experiences, and their analysis of events reflects this. In other words, time must pass before a person (or society as a whole) can objectively analyze and debate the causes and consequences of history.
This paradigm shift has not yet started in America. No one in American society, be it academia, the press, or even popular culture, as of yet has made a real effort to understand why 19 young men decided to hijack four planes and use them to destroy symbols of American power. However, their motivations are an essential, if not the essential, part of the story of 9/11. What motivates a man to cause destruction and take life? What causes him to do this at the cost of his own life? Simply put, Oliver Stones's film does not even attempt to address these questions, though without them, we wouldn't have the countless tales of firefighter heroism, which the American public seems to enjoy so much.
Likewise, we are continuing to live the consequences of 9/11. The War on Terror, the cause of constant policy debate in this country, is a direct result of 9/11. It has effected how Western Europe acts and interacts with both America and the rest of the world. And lest we forget, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were done in its name. The conclusion of the story has not been written, and we cannot tell the beginning of the story when the end is not yet finished.
In light of this, Mr. Stone's film will be not only incomplete, but inaccurate. Only when we have come to terms with both the causes and effects of 9/11 should we begin to incorporate its tales into the fold of popular culture. To do this beforehand is to sell history short.
While I support the filmmaker's right to depict controversial and emotional topics, I find something unsettling about filming stories based on 9/11. Partially, this comes from my views on how historical events in general should be analyzed. Several historians have written books and articles on the dangers of studying recent history. This school of thought arose in the aftermath of the Cold War, when scholars almost immediately began to research, amongst other topics, the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the roles played by Gorbachev and Reagan. In the fifteen years since then, historians have come to realize that a significant amount of time must pass before society can truly reflect on an event. This length of time is defined by practical reasons, such as the declassification of relevant government documents (of which most have a twenty-five year wait period), but also by the need for a paradigm shift. Historians of the 1990s were born, raised and educated during the Cold War, and their views were shaped completely by it. They were unable to separate themselves from their own Cold War mindset and experiences, and their analysis of events reflects this. In other words, time must pass before a person (or society as a whole) can objectively analyze and debate the causes and consequences of history.
This paradigm shift has not yet started in America. No one in American society, be it academia, the press, or even popular culture, as of yet has made a real effort to understand why 19 young men decided to hijack four planes and use them to destroy symbols of American power. However, their motivations are an essential, if not the essential, part of the story of 9/11. What motivates a man to cause destruction and take life? What causes him to do this at the cost of his own life? Simply put, Oliver Stones's film does not even attempt to address these questions, though without them, we wouldn't have the countless tales of firefighter heroism, which the American public seems to enjoy so much.
Likewise, we are continuing to live the consequences of 9/11. The War on Terror, the cause of constant policy debate in this country, is a direct result of 9/11. It has effected how Western Europe acts and interacts with both America and the rest of the world. And lest we forget, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were done in its name. The conclusion of the story has not been written, and we cannot tell the beginning of the story when the end is not yet finished.
In light of this, Mr. Stone's film will be not only incomplete, but inaccurate. Only when we have come to terms with both the causes and effects of 9/11 should we begin to incorporate its tales into the fold of popular culture. To do this beforehand is to sell history short.
posted by Mr Beerman at 11:12 AM
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