Should there be plays about 9/11?

[Amanita]

That's what a 9/11 family group is asking:
http://www.911families.org/June%202010.html
You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it, it's called "Before your very eyes".

The play deals with 9/11, and the group "9/11 families" asks the question "Should there be plays about 9/11?"
What do you think?

Personally, I'm not offended by 9/11 being used as a subject for art, whether that art be written or visual. I'm an artist and writer myself, currently working on a 9/11 related piece.

It makes me uncomfortable to think of anyone arbitrarily declaring any subject "off limits" to artists or writers, 9/11 or otherwise. One- who gets to make that ruling? Do the most offended among us get to make the rules? If not them, then who? And who decides just what treatment of a given subject is offensive? One person's awful is another person's thought-provoking.

Even if somebody were to rule 9/11 out of bounds as creative idea fodder, then how could they enforce it? Or what gives any group the right to try and enforce such an edict? In Canada and the US, freedom of speech and expression are rights. And that freedom includes speech that isn't neccessarily PC or popular.

My other concern with attempting to shut down artistic works or speech you don't agree with is this:

When you try to suppress bad ideas, you may also be surpressing good ones as well. Stop somebody from writing a play or story, or doing art which makes fun of 9/11, and you may also be shutting down somebody else's well thought out tribute or exploration at the same time. Is that really what we want to happen?

[Red Panda]

More people died in Vietnam or WWII and nobody bats an eye at plays, tv, movies, games, whatever about them

[AdminAssistant]

It isn't even the first play about 9/11; The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute opened in December 2002. No subject matter should be off limits to art. If the art is distasteful, then the market will bear that out. People, especially serious New York theatregoers, will not attend a play that treats 9/11, the victims, or New Yorkers with disrespect.

[Amanita]

And plays aren't the only controversial media dealing with 9/11. Remember the movies "Flight 93" and "World Trade Center"?
As I recall, there were complaints about those too. People were saying "It's too soon!"
I went to see "World Trade Center" with a friend, and we both enjoyed it, thinking it was very well done in terms of storytelling.

I've mentioned I'm a cosplayer- I've seen costumes and costume ideas based on 9/11, believe it or not.
One really cute one was a couple who dressed up as Angel Twin Towers for the Greenwich village halloween parade in october, 2001. I actually traded some emails with one half of the couple, and he said that he and his wife got two destinct reactions. One was people running up and hugging them. The other was drunken twits running at them making plane noises.
He also told me why he and his wife did it- they were tired of having all positive images of the WTC erased from everything, while at the same time it was nothing but wall to wall footage of the towers falling, whenever you turned on the TV. As though the buildings had never existed, aside from their wretched fate.

Now for the horrid ones- I've seen the photos on the 'net of people who think it's cute to dress their kids up as suicide bombers. And a friend of mine looking for halloween costume inspiration was perusing some costume idea sites, and found some doozies. Squished firefighter complete with spatula (to scrape him up with), and a two-person idea- dress one person up as a skyscraper, and the other up as a plane. Have the plane chase the skyscraper around all night. I'm sorry, but that's just crass.

We actually discussed this on a cosplay forum, and I mentioned that I had thought of doing an angel towers costume of my own. I would probably not ever do it, as I would have to find a partner, and knowing me, the costumes would be elaborate and expensive.
I got absolutely torched by some of the forumers. I was told that because I am Canadian, I have no right to contemplate such a thing, as there is no context here in my hometown for it. (Hmm..what context is there for dressing as a Japanese character outside of Japan, then?)
I was also accused of disrespecting 9/11 for even thinking about it.

That last one hurt- you see, for years I have participated in online discussions regarding the future of the WTC site, and belonged to various citizen's groups dedicated to rebuilding, such as Team Twin Towers. In some of these online discussions, I have seen REAL disrespect of 9/11- trolls posting some pretty hideous things making fun of the victims and rescue workers. Remember that documentary filmed inside the WTC as the firefighters were there in the building? You can hear some pretty disturbing stuff- the sound of jumpers. Apparently that's hilarious to some folks, and they just loved to share that. (WTF). On the other hand, myself and others have actually had civil dialogue with some of the 9/11 families where we traded ideas and opinions.

I think in regards to 9/11 and the right to touch it, what pisses me off is that there seems to be a "privelege" mentality at work- the belief that only certain people have the right or privelege of speaking out about, having an opinion about, or doing art or writing related to 9/11. Didn't lose somebody down there? You don't get to say anything. You weren't physically down there that day? You have nothing to say, either. Not a New Yorker or even an American? You don't get to say anything- there's no "context" for you to be saying or doing anything.

[HYHYBT]

Treating it as off-limits, or even the usual sort of special treatment it gets, only magnify its impact.

[jackfaire]

I was actually shocked the first positive image I saw of the Twin Towers, buildings btw that I had no idea existed prior to 9/11, was on a sci fi show where it was an alternate timeline.

I think that I understand people not wanting to see something themselves and they should thus choose not to watch it but I have always found the very idea that these people feel they have the right to tell me a grown man what I may and may not watch to be offensive.

[Amanita]

Yes^. I hate to trot out "then the terrorists have won!", but it's true. If their act holds so much power that it is "not allowed" to play with it in any way, then they HAVE succeeded in changing us, and not for the better. Is this what we want? Imagine how pissed off they would be if they saw us laughing at them.

I'll add something else- the towers were no strangers to work and capitalism. But they were also no strangers to fun and play. It was after all, fun and play which humanized them to many people. The restaurant and observation deck turned into huge, crowd pleasing, fun attractions. And two illegal but playful acts also improved the tower's relations with the people- a highwire walk between them, and a climb up the side of one tower.
So if the towers were well aqquainted with playfulness and fun, then why can't we pay tribute in a manner that's playful and fun?

[Daskinor]

I personally believe people who have problem with this, simply do not want to be reminded about "9/11."


And I find that to be just sad. No art should be off limits simply because a few are unwilling to process the emotional impact.

[Salesmonkey]

What is drama for if not to celebrate bravery, remember tragedy, and remind us how precious life is? Also remember, good drama WINS and bad drama FAILS. There is tons of war fiction we've never heard of- because they weren't any good. This is a case where the market will be the arbiter of taste, not a particular group.

[HYHYBT]

I was actually shocked the first positive image I saw of the Twin Towers, buildings btw that I had no idea existed prior to 9/11, was on a sci fi show where it was an alternate timeline.

Funny; the first I ever knew about the existence of those towers was reading an article about their destruction... in 1984 or 5. It was in Smithsonian magazine, and was basically the same idea as "Life After People," describing (and illustrating with paintings) the imagined future of the WTC, the Gateway Arch, and Grand Coulee Dam. There was a full-page illustration of one decrepit tower standing next to the pile of rubble that had been the other, an image that, tied to the in-the-dark appearance of a matching pair of tall shelving units in my room, kept me from sleeping well for a while.

The magazine, obviously, was wrong, as the towers were destroyed by planes rather than by the river flooding the basement and eventually rusting away the supports.

Not really relevant to anything; but I wish I'd managed to keep that issue.

[Amanita]

^Funny, I remember reading a similar scenario in a book on the '93 WTC bombing. Had the bomb ruptured the "bathtub" foundation wall which held the groundwater and the river back, water would have rushed into the basement, and begun to eat away at the support columns of the buildings. Eventually the columns would have lost their ability to resist the awesome wind loads that those buildings withstood every day of their lives.

Those were incredible works of engineering- anything that can take a 500 mph sucker-punch and remain standing for an hour or an hour and a half is A-OK in my book.

[suchislife2]

to be honest, I don't really like the idea of profiting out of death. I mean, real people died, real people lost family members, sons, daughters, mothers, husbands, dads, and wives. I do understand the fact that we need to understand what REALLY happened, what people went through. And learning what happened in WW1 and WW2 and so on is interesting, and sad at the same time. To me if it's to do with learning and NOT entertainment, I am with it. We need to know what REALLY happened. BUT if it is for entertainment I am against it unless ALL profits goes to those who lost someone in the insident.

The twin towers only happened a couple of years ago, and it didn't take too long before people were trying to profit off it. I find it wrong that anything movie/show would be created from it at the moment. Families are still greeving. I may not have been touched personally but I still am not ready to see a movies about it. With all the "glits and glam" of hollywood added to it.

[Amanita]

If you're not ready to see a movie about 9/11, that's perfectly fine. If anyone else isn't, then that's fine too.

But at the same time, what gives anyone who is offended the right to dictate to others what they can see, or what art can be made, or how said art can be used?

Consider the words of a lady who did lose somebody on 9/11, who posts on a forum I visit. She has gone on record as saying she's not offended at all by the street vendors around the WTC site, who sell pictures of the buildings on fire. Why not? Because the Twin Towers were all about capitalism.

As I've said, the Twin Towers were also well aquainted with fun and entertainment.

[jackfaire]

I don't really like the idea of profiting out of death. I mean, real people died, real people lost family members, sons, daughters, mothers, husbands, dads, and wives.

See I see no point not to. We make profits off movies about every other aspect of life yet somehow death is off limits.

Why? Is it some sacred right that only people belonging to an exclusive religion go through? No it is something that will happen to all of us.

Some of us will die in funny ways that you can't help but laugh about. Others will die in ways considered tragic as it was for no good reasons. Still more of us especially in more developed countries will have a straw death.

We all die. None of us knows when even someone told "You have this much time to live" has no more idea than the rest of us. No matter what your faith death happens.

Giving all the profits when your movie is about death to people that were victims of that type of death you might as well give all the profits for Look Whose Talking to everyone that was born.

Every movie about suicide give the money to the surviving family members.

Nothing in life is sacred except for life itself and it is a thing to be celebrated if that means a play about something like 9/11 so be it.

[AdminAssistant]

Um, this particular play is Off-Off-Broadway so I wouldn't worry about any kind of profit anyway.

Not to get all theatre-geeky-theoretical, but once upon a time an English playwright said, "...the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." Basically, theatre is a reflection of life. Or, as one of my professors used to say, "Art is a product of the society from which it comes."

9/11 was by far the most important event of this past decade, at least for this country. It shaped an era of politics, kicked off two wars, and has had a traumatic effect on our culture. We would be remiss to ignore 9/11 in our art, as it is a part of our history. The idea that all profits have to go to families is ridiculous, IMO. Any event in human history is fair game for artistic expression. This isn't even getting into the fact that all art is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. I don't want to infringe on an artist's freedom of speech and expression by requiring them to receive permission.

Oh, and just to respond to another point that someone mentioned, there were a ton of World War I/World War II plays back in the 1920's-1950's, most of which have fallen completely out of fashion. I haven't even heard of recent productions of Idiot's Delight or What Price Glory, two of the best of that era. I can't think of any based around the Korean War, and the Vietnam War happened during an explosion of performance art and collective pieces - thus being represented in things like Hair and Viet Rock (Miss Saigon came much, much later, and is so horrible that I hate to mention it.)

.....I could go on and on and on about this particular topic, but I'll give it a rest.