Maybe you were too busy studying for finals when United 93 came out last April. It’s entirely possible that you had the complete intention of seeing Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center when it came out this summer, but you spent too much money on Snakes on a Plane and Invincible. Not a problem: CNN has you covered.
This Monday, in honor of the five-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, CNN will air its news broadcasts from that day in real time for free through its Web site. From 8:30 AM to midnight, even those that don’t subscribe to the video streaming news service, CNN Pipeline, will be able to re-live that day, from the first plane hitting to the umpteenth shot of the towers collapsing.
 United 93 Premier (ABCNews.com) |
Did I miss something? Has so much happened in the five years since September 11, 2001 that we’ve forgotten what happened and need to be reminded? it’s almost as if movie studios and television networks were just itching for a mandatory five-year waiting period to pass. I can see it now: executives leaning back in their leather chairs, cackling as the dollar signs flash in front of their eyes, eerily grateful for the day they have the opportunity to make millions off people’s morbid fascination with death.
There is a reason that many movie theaters in Manhattan taped up signs to warn their customers if they were going to have to sit through a World Trade Center preview. there’s a reason that when I saw The Da Vinci Code before the signs went up, the preview was immediately followed by the sound of multiple people in the theater crying. It was–and still is–a real day.
For all of us who were in New York that day and countless others across the country, September 11 isn’t a movie. It’s not something we should be able to buy a ticket for, or “tune into,” or something that should be used for financial gain by movie studios and television networks.
Actual people died that day; not actors. If I had lost a loved one that day, I wouldn’t want to see anyone making money off of their death. I wouldn’t feel the need to watch them dying over and over again, and I would be horrified to know that others were doing just that.
We shouldn’t be getting entertainment out of September 11, and we certainly shouldn’t be indulging that same “sick fascination” impulse that makes us slow down when we pass car wrecks. Five years isn’t a long enough time to assume that everyone’s wounds have healed from that day, and the anniversary of September 11 should be spent honoring the memory of those we lost, not re-living their deaths.
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