Passive Victimhood

Rating: Null/10 (2 November 2008)

"The resolve of our great nation is being tested, but make no mistake, we will show the world we will pass the test." - George W Bush
Post 9/11 cinema seemed to witness an increase in at least three types of films: those that portrayed families under siege by faceless terrorists ("War of the Worlds", "Mist", "Cloverfield" etc), those which attempted to appeal to the heroism, courage and duty that large scale national catastrophes elicit ("United 93", "World Trade Centre", "Spider Man", "Ladder 49" etc) and those which openly attacked US foreign policy ("Lions for Lambs", "Syrianna", "Redacted", "Rendition", "In the Valley of Ellah" etc).
Of these films, Paul Greengrass's "United 93" and Oliver Stone's "World Trade Centre" were two of the first to directly address the events of September the 11th. Both focus on the actual disaster, both attempt to be gritty and realistic, both focus on ordinary Americans and both pretend to avoid sensationalism.
But what ideology do these films serve? Observe, for example, how both films seem to focus on exceptions to the norm. Of the four kidnapped planes, "United 93" focuses on the only one which failed to reach its target. Similarly, "WTC" tells the story of the only 2 members of the Port Authority Police Force who made it out of the WTC rubble alive. In terms of historicism, these films mimic Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and "Private Ryan", two other faux-realistic films about exceptions (the Jews who survived, the son who lived etc) which turned violent carnage into personal triumph for the purpose of national regeneration.
In "United 93", we have the passengers of a hijacked plane knowing they're about to die. They thus decide to storm the pilot's cabin and bring their plane down before it hits its target. They, apparently, make a sacrifice so that others may live "free". This notion of national duty and personal sacrifice is mimicked in "WTC". The effect is that both films mythologise 9/11 as a moment of American triumph, rather than a national failing. "United" deals with American heroism in the skies and "WTC" deals with American heroism on the land. Both serve to rebuild national identity: ie, we are a nation of victims, attacked by irrational "savages". If we hope to prevail, it is our duty to respond with heroism, solidarity and self-sacrifice, the very "United" of the film's title.
In his writings, Jacques Ellul examines the workings of Judeo Christian myths. He says that post WW2 political propaganda will increasingly appeal to both feelings of guilt and sorrow. Soldiers, firemen and citizens will become dead Christs, their suffering mythologised and used as emotional tools to, unintentionally or not, draw the support of the public. As the end of "Private Ryan" proclaims - a film which rapes pre-WW2 history as expertly as this current crop of Gulf War 2 films distorts post-WW2 history - we must "earn this", because "they" went through "hell for you". And so we pin ribbons on our heroes and build altars to our everyman Christs, praising them for protecting us from "evil". But the truth is we owe our uniformed Christs absolutely nothing.
By focusing their narratives on "exceptions to the rule", these films serve the purpose of preventing us from asking truly important questions. They avoid any context, political or otherwise, and are content to simply focus on ordinary people being affected by the sudden and violent intrusion of History. But it is a History without a Cause. It is History without Context. It is History without Meaning or Motive. That the majority of the hijackers belonged to a repressive country and puppet state armed and backed by the United States is ignored. That - as social scientists like Robert Page and others demonstrate in their analyses of all major terrorist acts over the past half century - terrorism is never religiously motivated but always designed for reasons of autonomy or national liberation, is likewise ignored.
The result of such things are three fold. Firstly, such art helps to bolster a virtual threat; an invisible, spectral enemy. The covert message of such mythology is that this omniscient threat of Terror legitimises our obscene measures of self-defence.
The second result of such art is to convey a sense of national victimhood. Such victimhood is itself a contradictory force. It provides us with the moral basis for retaliation and power accumulation...and yet such a power can only be acquired once one feigns weakness. Thirdly, in the guise of apoliticism, such art engenders a very specific type of passivity and acceptance. When the monster attacks, one just does one's duty. Such a reaction is automatic, even sacrificial, because trust (and a righteous belief in one's self, one's government etc) is understood.
Bizarrely, both films also exude strange, almost spiritual overtones. Terrorists are portrayed as angels of death, spectral enemies who sweep down from the heavens, and the directors also refuse to show planes actually crashing into buildings. To confront the actual crash almost seems too painful, too sacrilegious.
2/10 - Worth no viewings.