Just a Bit Tasteless....

So I know that I haven't posted in a long time and there has been a lot going on in the world, so I do hope to get caught up over the next few weeks. With all that is going on in the world it is strange that I have chosen this topic, but for some reason it is really annoying me so I decided to put the perverbial pen to paper.

Today I saw for the umpteenth time a preview for the new movie "World Trade Center". I don't know if I am alone on this, but it seems extremely tasteless to make a movie about an event where so many people lost their lives. Yes, I know there have been many movies made about the American Revolution, the Civil War, and of course Pearl Harbor. But none of these movies were produced less than five years after a life changing, world altering event. It is as if our capitalism knows no bounds. Let's generate a huge amount of profit by exploiting the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Wow! I am so excited to buy a ticket. I mean really, have we not seen enough documentaries on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, not to mention the repetitiveness of the network news channels. I have probably seen the second plane hit the tower no less than a thousand times. I am so glad that someone has put together a dramatic "human interest story" for us to all relate to.

Guess what? We lived through this disaster. And relived it day after day, week after week, and month after month for the five years that followed this tragic attack. This terrorist action has been used as an excuse to invade a soveign nation, to dramatically bloat the deficit, and to strip American's of fundamental rights guarenteed by our great Constitution. Not to mention degrading our reputation amongst the powers of the world and ensuring instability in the Middle East for the next century. So why not play out this drama on the big screen? It simply seems like too small a venue to portray the overwhelming emotion of the moment. The feeling of a country once thought invincible, attacked for the first time on it's own soil by a foreign enemy. Making a movie about this a mear few years later belittles the experience. It makes it seem as if this was not the massive and life chaning event that it was, and rather a mere blip in on our pop culture radar.

So often the right wing of our country tries to justify their defiling of the Constitution and the cancellation of our individual rights as a necessary step in a "Post 9-11 World". Perhaps it is time for this same political machine to speak out against a movie that trivilizes the experience as just another of our pop culture adventures. I certainly hope the American public sees this film as the propaganda that it is. Intended to solicit feelings fear and resentment that lead to irrational policy decisions. This is the only way in which the right will be able to continue to play the "9-11 Card."