September 11 attacks

"Such knowing, referential obliteration probably began with the apocalyptic terror of 2005’s War of the Worlds, in which Steven Spielberg at least had the decency to use the entire movie as an allegory for our feelings of post-9/11 dread and hopelessness. Since then, though, the weighty underpinnings to those scenes in War of the Worlds have fallen away as city-wrecking summer movies like Transformers: Dark of the Moon seek only to up the ante from the destruction featured in whichever summer spectacular came out the year before. In last year’s The Avengers, the splintering of New York City was cause for lighthearted super-banter. Only one bittersweet nod to our post-9/11 outlook remains: Action heroes used to prevent disasters, but now, they can only avenge them."

"Characters in blockbusters these days rarely ever comment on the titanic amounts of destruction they (and we) are witnessing. We’ve seen buildings smashed onscreen since Godzilla trampled on Tokyo in 1954 (and I have no doubt we will again when the Godzilla reboot is released next year), but now there’s a coldly pornographic attention to detail that implies that the only lessons imparted by 9/11 were technical ones. It’s as if more time and effort were spent on simulating a toppled skyscraper than in telling you why you should care about the people trapped in it. It’s not until the very end of Man of Steel’s third-act battle, where the stakes grow smaller and much more intimate, that Superman truly seems to become emotional about the lives in danger, and that’s a moment that blockbuster filmmakers could learn a lot from: There’s no need to robotically kill faceless millions when a single character in jeopardy will always prove more galvanizing. Instead of trying to top the mayhem in Man of Steel next year — instead of continuing to mine one of the worst days in American history for a series of wowser trailer moments — can we give the pummeled buildings a break and find creative new obstacles for our heroes to overcome? Please, let’s have a summer-movie spectacle we don’t have to wince at."

"Executive producer Howard Gordon worked on two fictional shows that have come to symbolize how 9/11 affected and inspired TV storytelling: Fox's 24 and Showtime's Homeland. On 24, which debuted just a few months after 9/11, Kiefer Sutherland's stalwart government agent, Jack Bauer, would do whatever it takes to stop a bad thing from happening. Gordon says, particularly after the show's first season, Bauer became a proxy for America's post-9/11 anger at terrorists and any incompetent or corrupt government officials who made it tougher to stop them. But over the years, producers heard from advocates for Muslims and military officials who said storylines featuring a Muslim family in America as a secret terrorist cell and scenes of Bauer effectively using torture to extract information were encouraging prejudices and misinforming viewers. The concern: That a focus on American and Christian perspectives was leading to damaging story choices."

"The two-year period immediately following 9/11 was an era in which the media was defined both by its jingoism and patriotism and also by its aversion to images of violence and destruction. The images of gleeful destruction the ’90s had reveled in (think Independence Day and Armageddon) disappeared almost overnight, and the few stragglers that crept by (like 2003’s The Core, which destroys both Rome and San Francisco) were quietly buried. War movies were essentially nonexistent, with most offerings at the multiplex leaning toward fantasy and family-friendly fare. Until Steven Spielberg pioneered the 9/11 visual parable through heavily codified imagery with 2005’s War of the Worlds, scenes of realistic mass destruction temporarily all but disappeared from the media landscape, a far cry from the explosion-riddled works of Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, and their disciples that we enjoy today."

"But although most pop culture reactions to 9/11 were passive, there were a few that actively addressed the tragedy. The October 3, 2001, episode of The West Wing titled "Isaac and Ishmael," written and shot within two weeks of the attacks, takes a "why can’t we all just get along?" approach to terrorism, with the wise and pithy main cast explaining to a bunch of high school kids how terrorists are bad but Muslims aren’t. The South Park episode "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants," which originally aired November 7, 2001, treated Osama bin Laden as a harmless buffoon. Despite being critical of American foreign policy, it ultimately avows loyalty to the USA, ending with Stan gently planting a small American flag in Afghan soil and saluting it with a soft, sincere, "Go, America," followed by, "Go, Broncos." Marvel Comics presented its take on the attacks in Spider-Man Vol. 2, issue No. 36, called "The Black Issue," which presents the tragedy as something that brings not only the heroes together but the villains as well. Yes, this act of terrorism was so heinous it even made Dr. Doom cry. Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) may be the only one of these early depictions that doesn’t bother trying to find some meaning in the tragedy; rather, it simply tries to move on. It is, for that reason, one of the strongest of any cinematic attempt to deal with the aftermath."

"When 9/11 occurred, the tendency to use science fiction to portray life under late capitalism as deadening entrapment within enervating systems of control was radically transformed within popular SF imaginings. As Slavoj Zizek notes, the mythologized hard kernel of the real exterior to Western commodity culture was experienced directly when terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers. Suddenly the seeming-outside of the late capitalist milieu came crashing inward, and this catastrophe itself was immediately commodofied and propagated as consumer spectacle."

"9/11 was undeniably a paradigm shift. Its effects would ripple throughout the next decade and continues to impact the world today. The superhero industry’s response to the unjust tragedy was felt immediately. Those who went to the movies to escape the ubiquitous news coverage on Sept. 11, 2001 would have seen a trailer for “Spider-Man,” which would be released in the following May. The trailer, which featured Spider-Man trapping a helicopter of bank robbers in a web strung up between the Twin Towers, was quickly pulled out of circulation along with posters featuring the towers reflected in his eyes. The nation, still reeling from the horrors of 9/11, flooded the theaters the following year, hitting a record high for U.S. admissions—1.64 billion moviegoers—in 2002, according to the 2006 U.S. Theatrical Market Statistics. Spider-Man raked in the highest domestic growth of 2002, beating well-established franchises “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” (“All Time Worldwide Opening”). The nation clearly hungered for a figure who could save the country—or, in this case, at least defend New York."