Society - On Commemorating the Horrific
Sep. 12th, 2002 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demiurgentSo, I'm writing my reaction to 9/11/2002 the day after. I guess my feelings weren't what I thought they would be, and I guess I need to say something about it all. Something I feel like wasn't represented yesterday.
On almost every channel, from Comedy Central to CBS to UPN, there was significant coverage and rememberances. Some of them were memories of courage. Some were assertations of our patriotism. All were designed to give us pause to remember, and to affirm all we have done and all we will do. There were lots of American flags and reminders of how good we have it here. Some of it was remarkably well done. Some wasn't. Local news teams talked about how we've stepped forward. People who were trapped in rubble talked about their experiences. Images of the towers with flags superimposed over them, or in silouette, were projected on all sides.
This... wasn't what I wanted. At all. I don't want to remember September 11. I want to have learned from it. I want the world to be made better by the sacrifice of it. But I never want to relive that horrible day again.
I was obsessed, in the weeks after 9/11. I watched CNN video clips of the attack over and over again, desperate to understand why. I worked with my neighbors. I did what I needed to do. And slowly I moved on, and a scab slowly formed over the horror, the fear, the outrage, the pain, the trauma of that awful, awful day. It became a part of my life, as it's done with all of us, but it was a part that I didn't have to think about all the time, every day. I could let it lie, and let the wounds heal, and reach a point when I can examine it once more without pain.
Turning Enterprise on last night, I didn't want long segments in between acts on the heroism of muslim firefighters. I didn't want images of twisted rubble and steel. But there they were. Anywhere else I turned, there they were. Ugly horrible images were counterpointed with airbrushed TV anchors looking earnestly in the camera and saying nothing worth saying. A literal orgy of patriotism and revelling in the horror was seen on all sides. I practically expected Used Car commercials to offer 9/11 savings.
I didn't want to forget it had happened. I don't want to forget it happened. When I got home, I put out a candle, and thought about my Nation and about sacrifice. If they had played a soft refrain, and put some blanket message ("...TV38 joins you and yours in remembering the September 11 attack....") I would have been fine. But this constant need to glory in destruction coupled with a hungry need to pretend we have had real resolution and closure... no. No, it was just goddamn wrong.
Weirdly enough, David Letterman did the best of anyone I saw, last night. He dispensed with all the usual jokes in the opening, did a very tame top ten list, and spent most of the episode interviewing former President Clinton, who did well as well. When talking about last year, Letterman briefly touched on what that terrible day had been like... and then talked about what his life and his city had been like since that day. And he refuted the claim that "nothing will ever be the same." New York City has been recovering, he said. Our lives have been getting back to normal. We're telling jokes about rats and urine and dirt again. The nation's hating the Yankees again. We have much work left to do, but we're getting over what's happened. And we're doing it together.
And then, after a moment of silence featuring the Statue of Liberty, the twin towers behind them -- no music, no message, just the unmarked towers rising into the air, with all the immediacy of videotape, he acknowledged and moved on.
I wish every show had done that. I wish every network had done that. I wish we didn't have to revisit horror in the name of celebrating it.
And I wish it had never, ever happened.
On almost every channel, from Comedy Central to CBS to UPN, there was significant coverage and rememberances. Some of them were memories of courage. Some were assertations of our patriotism. All were designed to give us pause to remember, and to affirm all we have done and all we will do. There were lots of American flags and reminders of how good we have it here. Some of it was remarkably well done. Some wasn't. Local news teams talked about how we've stepped forward. People who were trapped in rubble talked about their experiences. Images of the towers with flags superimposed over them, or in silouette, were projected on all sides.
This... wasn't what I wanted. At all. I don't want to remember September 11. I want to have learned from it. I want the world to be made better by the sacrifice of it. But I never want to relive that horrible day again.
I was obsessed, in the weeks after 9/11. I watched CNN video clips of the attack over and over again, desperate to understand why. I worked with my neighbors. I did what I needed to do. And slowly I moved on, and a scab slowly formed over the horror, the fear, the outrage, the pain, the trauma of that awful, awful day. It became a part of my life, as it's done with all of us, but it was a part that I didn't have to think about all the time, every day. I could let it lie, and let the wounds heal, and reach a point when I can examine it once more without pain.
Turning Enterprise on last night, I didn't want long segments in between acts on the heroism of muslim firefighters. I didn't want images of twisted rubble and steel. But there they were. Anywhere else I turned, there they were. Ugly horrible images were counterpointed with airbrushed TV anchors looking earnestly in the camera and saying nothing worth saying. A literal orgy of patriotism and revelling in the horror was seen on all sides. I practically expected Used Car commercials to offer 9/11 savings.
I didn't want to forget it had happened. I don't want to forget it happened. When I got home, I put out a candle, and thought about my Nation and about sacrifice. If they had played a soft refrain, and put some blanket message ("...TV38 joins you and yours in remembering the September 11 attack....") I would have been fine. But this constant need to glory in destruction coupled with a hungry need to pretend we have had real resolution and closure... no. No, it was just goddamn wrong.
Weirdly enough, David Letterman did the best of anyone I saw, last night. He dispensed with all the usual jokes in the opening, did a very tame top ten list, and spent most of the episode interviewing former President Clinton, who did well as well. When talking about last year, Letterman briefly touched on what that terrible day had been like... and then talked about what his life and his city had been like since that day. And he refuted the claim that "nothing will ever be the same." New York City has been recovering, he said. Our lives have been getting back to normal. We're telling jokes about rats and urine and dirt again. The nation's hating the Yankees again. We have much work left to do, but we're getting over what's happened. And we're doing it together.
And then, after a moment of silence featuring the Statue of Liberty, the twin towers behind them -- no music, no message, just the unmarked towers rising into the air, with all the immediacy of videotape, he acknowledged and moved on.
I wish every show had done that. I wish every network had done that. I wish we didn't have to revisit horror in the name of celebrating it.
And I wish it had never, ever happened.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-09-14 08:37 am (UTC)If you didn't hear this poem by Andrei Codrescu on NPR, you'll appreciate it:
http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/sept/911poem/index.html
Hope you're feeling better. We miss you.
Lisa (Mrs. Bankie)