I was on that plane

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2006)

My brother mentioned seeing United 93, just like he did the newest Star Wars Movie, it was the newest "must see" film in theaters. So, as we walked into our 12:45 p.m showing of the movie, I remember wondering what agenda Hollywood would try to push this time. Would it be another War of the Worlds, glorifying the military as our last line of defense? Or maybe a Titanic, with a great love story in tragedy? We walked into the movie 5 minutes late, and were surprised to see it had already started. I would learn later, that along with following realistic time constraints, the movie did not have credits. The dramatic irony was intense. We all knew what happened- but we wanted to know how, or did we? I found my curiosity was at odds with my strong sensitivity to the tragedy. I could take knowing the planes were hijacked. In fact, while it was difficult to re-watch the CNN news broadcast of the two planes that hit the twin towers, It was gut-wrenching and near impossible to sit through what happened inside flight 93. The two planes that hit the buildings were just that- planes. At this point in the movie, we can only stomach what we see unfolding on flight 93, and cannot fathom the lives lost on the other two planes or in the twin towers. I remember wishing they'd stop going back to the plane camera- that they would just leave it in the control room. I didn't want to know, but I did. In the same way we are all curious about death- and yet deathly afraid of it. We watched as people boarded a plane that seemed like any other. We watched as people very much like ourselves relaxed, drifted off to sleep, and engaged in carefree conversations about future plans. At the ending of the movie, it said there were no survivors on the plane. What I know seems to defy that statistic. I feel as though I was able to escape that crash today. That I was sitting on board that plane with each of those passengers, I was the girl crying and praying in the corner, and somehow I survived. No one else did- but I did. Watching each of the passengers talk to their loved ones- all wanting to tell them just two things: 'I love you" and "goodbye", two words we've all had to tell someone who means the world to us at one point in our lives. The one comfort I usually find in sad movies is that I can say "this is just a movie"- the degree of separation is my comfort. Not today. This was not just a movie- this was real. When we sat down in that theater we boarded United 93. My fear is in the repercussions of this movie. It is powerful. It will jar you. I will never forget walking out of the theater, getting halfway down the exit portal, when I hear a muffled, high- pitched, cry coming from right next to me; my brother had finally broke down- he could contain it no longer. And as we walked out of that movie theater, crying like we had just learned of the passing of a close relative, gravity seemed a bit heavier than usual. People just like us, got on that plane- and died.
This changed the way we see death. We're so desensitized to it. We saw struggle. We saw blood. We saw a passenger break the neck of a hijacker. We felt what it was like to be in a situation where you knew you were going to die. You begin to ask yourself how you would act, what you would do. Would you be that girl crying in the corner, or one of the men that bull rushed toward the cockpit?
I can see this movie causing hate crimes. Since I have been to see the movie, my awareness of middle-eastern-looking Americans has been heightened. The actors who portrayed the hijackers looked Americanized; they were wearing suits and polo shirts, not turbans or robes. What will the response be by the American people? Will our emotional paranoia drive us further into hatred for people who resemble these hijackers? Can we contain this hatred? Can we only honor those who died only five years ago- without feeling the need to do something about it? This seat on United 93 has left us all with the same traumatic feeling of an American who survivedan American who will not let his fellow countrymen die in vain.