Dramatizing History

There is a line that should be drawn--and it needs to be drawn by Hollywood, big-time TV stations and anyone else who is debating making a movie, a short, a full-length feature, a tv series, or even a mini-series about history. This "line" that needs to be drawn is something probably most relatively intelligent people feel the need for when they hear of Hollywood making a full-length feature on the the NY Firefighters and their bravery on 9/11 (Oliver Stone's World Trade Center), or a quasi-documentary/dramatization of what happened on one of the planes that crashed into the twin towers (United 93 by Paul Greengrass).

Picture millions of people flocking to the theatre--people who have no interest in history dictated by facts (which is hard enough to decipher as is) , people who are so emotionally attached to an event (ie. 9/11) that they are already seeing history through subjective filters, and generally speaking, people who internalize films on the silver screen as history itself (take Spielberg and his flims like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Amistad, among many others) some of which may be masterpices of film-making but, regardless of their calibre cannot and must not be considered history). Putting something on the big screen and watching it enshrouded in darkness with hundreds of other people sharing in an collective subconscious experience has its risidual effects.

The reason I thought this to be reason enough to write about in my blog is due to a recent article I read. It was about the American TV company ABC and a mini-series they are going to air about the events leading up to 9/11. A mini-series? On regular TV? To be beamed in the livingroom on households around the continent? To be watched over dinner before the kids do homework? Part of me is not surprised whatsoever, and part of me wants to puke at the ridiculous nature of corporate America dramatizing, re-making, glorifying, and packaging and selling this event over and over again. It's the beating of a dead horse, the kicking up of ashes again and again--ashes which have finally begun to settle. 9/11 has obviously been permanently etched in America's (and other western people's) psyche--there is no arguing that, but when I turn the page of a newspaper and read how a second-rate tv channel is going to air their take on 9/11, I can just envision all those people who don't get out enough, who don't have the brain power to see the bigger picture, who are already emotionally attached (and rightly so) to the event, staring blankly at the tv with their brains turned off watching yet another dramatization of 9/11... soon all these glorified images are going to replace any kind of rational fact they might have held on the complicated issue of 9/11. Overseas campaigns, world trade wars, oil, the history between warring nations, cold wars, genocides, and economics will be replaced with black and white, good versus evil, Skywalker and the Light Side versus Darth Vader and the Dark Side.

This ABC mini-series, called The Path to 9/11, is "scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC (owned by Walt Disney Co.) has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary." And therein the problem lies. For, the people who are complaining (including the Clintons) about the entire concept of this show, protest that "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely." The last sentence hits the crux of it all on the head, for, when history is classified as a dramatization, facts are pulled, corners are rounded, words are tweaked, time-lines are changed, and in fact, history is re-written.

Instead of ending with my own sentiments, I'll leave you some quotes by two of head chair members of the Clintion Foundation, who put it more succinctly then I can: "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known... While ABC is promoting The Path to 9/11 as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans.

Check out the article here.