Avoiding 9/11 Movies

I’ve not going to see any of the 9/11 movies about to be released. Here’s why:

They’re all about making money.

The trailer for the movie “Flight 93” features director Paul Greengrass mugging for the camera as he tells of his earnest, heartfelt desire to make a movie about the worst day in many American’s lives. But films only get made in Hollywood because they stand to generate dollars. And you can bet Greengrass is earning a hefty sum for this venture. As if to hide the fact, the trailer actually ends with an appeal for audience members to donate to a fund for victims, implying that Universal, the distributor, is also donating. Oh?

How much are they donating? And how much of his probable millions is Greengrass donating? I don’t buy it for a second. With all due respect to the families of the victims, I wouldn’t want my loved ones turned into two-dimensional caricatures by the Hollywood story machine.

Ridiculous, bloviating pundit Heather Higgins, Chairperson of the Radical Right anti-feminist think-tank Independent Women’s Forum, shrieked on the Bill Maher show that the stories of the victims of 9/11 need to be told--because the victims are heroes. And this sentiment has been echoed by many supporters of the upcoming films.

But if the stories of the victims are so important, why not hire one of the Burns brothers to do a thorough documentary? A movie dramatization is going to use the faces of actors and the words of writers to approximate what happened, and that’s not good enough for me. I don’t want to hear phony, over-dramatized dialog. I don't want faces of actors associated with those important events. I’m not interested in the guesswork of screenwriters, particularly because I am one. I know the difference between fact and fiction, and it’s significant.

I worked on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center for 2.5 years, and knew more than a few victims of the attack. I personally don’t want the feelings of that day dredged up and stoked by the likes of Greengrass or Oliver Stone. They are excellent filmmakers, but their theories and imaginings of what happened and what was said on 9/11 are of no interest to me, and only serve to cheapen and commercialize the truth of my own experience. I already know what happened.

No thanks. I’m not putting my money into the pockets of filmmakers who, at the end of the day, want to profit from this tragedy. I’m a fan of capitalism and have nothing against people working to feed their children. But in this case, I can’t help but be disgusted by the profit motive behind these movies. This is a line that shouldn’t be crossed.