2000s In The United States

"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."

"[[Ziad Jarrah|[Ziad] Jarrah]]'s objective was to crash his airliner into symbols of the American Republic, the Capitol or the White House. He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93."

"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."

"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."

"The assassination of the Austrian crown prince by a Serbian nationalist was the trigger for the conflict, not the underlying cause, comparable in modern times to the explosions of 9/11 that provided the pretext for the war on Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Syria and the Yemen and the total destabilisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The post 9/11 wars have lasted longer than the First and Second Wars put together."

"Like all "acts of terrorism" (easily and unsubjectively defined as organised violence against civilians), September 11 was an attack on morality: we felt a general deficit. Who, on September 10, was expecting by Christmastime to be reading unscandalised editorials in the Herald Tribune about the pros and cons of using torture on captured "enemy combatants"? Who expected Britain to renounce the doctrine of nuclear no-first-use? Terrorism undermines morality. Then, too, it undermines reason. … No, you wouldn't expect such a massive world-historical jolt, which will reverberate for centuries, to be effortlessly absorbed. But the suspicion remains that America is not behaving rationally — that America is behaving like someone still in shock."

"What happened on September 11? On September 11 — what happened? Picture this: two upended matchboxes, knocked over by the sheer force of paper-darts. Only it was much, much worse than that. In fact, words alone cannot adduce how much worse it was than that. September 11 was an attack on words: we felt a general deficit. And with words destroyed, we had to make do, we had to bolster truth with colons and repetition: not only repetition: but repetition and: colons. This is what we adduce."

"It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment. Until then, America thought she was witnessing nothing more serious than the worst aviation disaster in history; now she had a sense of the fantastic vehemence ranged against her. … For those thousands in the south tower, the second plane meant the end of everything. For us, its glint was the worldflash of a coming future. Terrorism is political communication by other means. The message of September 11 ran as follows: America, it is time you learned how implacably you are hated. United Airlines Flight 175 was an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile aimed at her innocence. That innocence, it was here being claimed, was a luxurious and anachronistic delusion."

"Our best destiny, as planetary cohabitants, is the development of what has been called "species consciousness" — something over and above nationalisms, blocs, religions, ethnicities. During this week of incredulous misery, I have been trying to apply such a consciousness, and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then species shame, then species fear."

"September 11 was a day of de-Enlightenment. Politics stood revealed as a veritable Walpurgis Night of the irrational. And such old, old stuff. The conflicts we now face or fear involve opposed geographical arenas, but also opposed centuries or even millennia. It is a landscape of ferocious anachronisms: nuclear jihad in the Indian subcontinent; the medieval agonism of Islam; the Bronze Age blunderings of the Middle East. … The champions of militant Islam are, of course, misogynists, woman-haters; they are also misologists — haters of reason. Their armed doctrine is little more than a chaotic penal code underscored by impotent dreams of genocide. And, like all religions, it is a massive agglutination of stock response, of cliches, of inherited and unexamined formulations."

"We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions. A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status. A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all — in pain as in prosperity — has gripped young and old."

"[Terrorists] didn’t get that idea from my opera, don’t worry. They got the idea from Star Wars. Remember the first one? Two guys fly a plane in the middle of something and blow that up? The only difference is, in ‘Star Wars,’ they get away."

"Knowing that he was close to death at the age of 34, he asked that an autopsy be performed after his death to determine whether his pulmonary fibrosis was a result of his time at the World Trade Center site. Detective Zadroga’s autopsy revealed that his lungs were full of ground glass and noxious chemicals. The WTC dust that he breathed in contained asbestos, benzene, jet fuel and other carcinogens. Detective Zadroga’s death was the first to be officially linked to the toxins present at the World Trade Center. New York City firefighters and police officers who responded that day, and/or worked on the debris pile afterwards, lost an average of 12 year’s lung capacity. They were not the only ones breathing in that air. Residents, office workers, construction workers removing the debris, and students and teachers were all exposed to the same toxins."

"I fear that this is only the tip of the iceberg. There were approximately 400,000 students, teachers, residents, office workers, responders and volunteers in Lower Manhattan on 9/11, and during the eight months following the attacks, when the air was thick with carcinogens. Unfortunately, only 80,000 have registered with the WTC Health Program, which provides free annual medical screenings and health care to those certified with 9/11-related illnesses. Should these screenings detect cancers or other illnesses, survivors are eligible for compensation and long-term health care."

"What happened on 11 September was without parallel in the bloody history of terrorism. Within a few hours, up to 7000 people were annihilated, the commercial centre of New York was reduced to rubble and in Washington and Pennsylvania further death and horror on an unimaginable scale. Let no one say this was a blow for Islam when the blood of innocent Muslims was shed along with those of the Christian, Jewish and other faiths around the world."

"September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life."