“United 93″ and The Outraged
I got into a heated discussion with a co-worker of mine concerning the upcoming movie United 93 that chronicles what happened on Flight 93 on September 11th. To be honest, he was much more heated than I but I digress.
My co-worker’s main point was that Hollywood’s “sickenly liberal bias and lack of morality” is why they would “exploit the heroes of Flight 93 with a bullshit movie so soon”. I replied that there were movies made about World War II during and soon after World War II like Gung Ho! (1943), The Way Ahead (1944), and Go for Broke! (1951). I emphasized that this is nothing new for Hollywood and that many of these movies about WWII, Vietnam, The Holocaust, and African slavery are considered classics by both liberals, conservatives, and dictators like me. To which he replied:
9/11 was the ultimate act of disrespect and hatred toward America. That kind of hatred should never be made into a movie for the world to see.
So let me get this right: since it happened to us it should never be made into movie but everyone else is fair game? No! That is just silly. I’m not and will never make light of the 9/11 attacks and the failed attack of Flight 93. But we have always made movies about tragic events in our history. And if the movie is done right, it can motivate people to make a stand, help soothe the pain of those who lost loved ones, and bring people together. Not all movies are about entertainment. I’ll bet my new tires that most people that go into the United 93 movie are not going to walk in looking to be entertained and will walk out full of emotion. It’s about the experience. I want to see how those people reacted to such a horrific situation. Because they did stop the flight from reaching it’s goal. And that’s a monumental feat for some regular folks to do. I understand the families of the victims not wanting to see the movie. I may have felt the same way if I lost a loved one on that flight. But is Hollywood wrong for this movie. NO!
Glad your still around T-Steel!
You took all the words out of my mouth. From what I heard, the families of Flight 93 gave the movie the thumbs up.
It sounds to me like your friend got himself caught in something a lot of us fall prey to. I know I still do sometimes although I struggle mightily to stop myself… you say something you can’t really defend because you werne’t really thinking hard and were just snapping some stuff off the top of your head, being glib, and then suddenly you get called on it and you don’t want to just back off and say, “okay, I can’t really back that up.” So you start saying whatever you gotta say to try to back up your statement, and then hastily exit the situation.
It’s a common human failing. Funny part is if your friend’s full of pride, now he’ll never back down, but he might later come back and say, “yeah okay, I was overdramatic.”
Cuz, really, you’re right. It’s entirely POSSIBLE that this will be a trash movie full of lefty Hollywood mumbo jumbo, but it’s just as possible it’ll be extraordinary. Or mediocre but unobjectionable.