When I first saw the trailers for “United 93″ my first thought was surprise that they actually made a film about 9/11, followed by reasonable assumption that it would be marred by the percieved need to give the US audience some brain-candy in an inappropriate context. Well, according to Ron Rosenbaum at Slate, I was half right. Turns out “United 93″ is actually one of THREE films, all focusing on the same plane. All three confirm my suspicion, as Rosenbaum notes.

Some excerpts:

Could it be that the three films are a symptom of our addiction to fables of redemptive uplift that shield us from the true dimensions of the tragedy? Redemptive uplift: It’s the official religion of the media, anyway. There must be a silver lining; it’s always darkest before the dawn; the human spirit will triumph over evil; there must be a pony.

That’s always been the subtextual spiritual narrative of media catastrophe coverage: terrible human tragedy, but something good always can be found in it to affirm faith and hope and make us feel better. Plucky, ordinary human beings find a way to rise above the disaster. Man must prevail. The human spirit is resilient, unconquerable. Did I mention there must be a pony?

9/11 is no different. Flight 93 has become 9/11’s pony.

In other words, these films are the result of two of my pet peeves of popular media (overwrought “we care a lot” gravitas in news stories on disasters & the “feel-good story” in movies) mating. Call it mean if you want, but IMO if you need CNN or Hollywood to “uplift” your spirit you should consider jumping off a cliff. While we’re sitting around hugging each other, our government is merrily starting World War 3.

Another problem with this kind of thing is that it always ends up warped into a confirmation of whatever the hell the more vocal among us already believed:

The visual media are not the only ones eager to hijack the hijacking for their redemptive ideology. Both pro- and anti-war camps have seized upon Flight 93 in one way or another. For the former it’s the justification and the model for any and all aggressive responses to 9/11. The invasion of Iraq as the rush to the Flight 93 cockpit. For the latter it’s the myth that’s been misused by the former to justify the Iraq war as a response to 9/11 (according to an AP report in 2004, a Navy Seabee Iraq support base in Kuwait was called “Camp 93″ and an Amnesty International spokesperson attributed Abu Ghraib-type mistreatment of prisoners to anger incited by inappropriate linkage between 9/11 and Saddamists).

We don’t need the 9/11 narrative to prove the Iraq war was wrong, you can actually manage just fine with a completely strategic criticism. That the hawks invoked 9/11 is actually beside the point, considering that most of them were agitating for the invasion back in the 90’s. For the purposes of neo-imperialism, 9/11 was the equivalent to that barge hitting one of the levys in New Orleans during Katrina: the flood of bullshit was coming sooner or later even if it didn’t occur.

…of course, Flight 93 has been hijacked by conspiracy theories as well, which range from the highly developed “it didn’t crash, it was shot down” scenario, to “the flight landed safely” or was a “drone” of some kind (like the other planes, needless to say).

By now, I’ve come to sort of a truce between the conspiracy theorists & the usual story. Whether the attacks occured because we were simply caught off guard, or because it was allowed to happen on purpose, or even ordered is for the purposes of future strategy an academic question. There’s a chunk of logical reason for each, even for the ordered-it-to-happen-one (I am NOT saying I think that’s what happened, only that it’s not as far-fetched as most would think! Go plug “Northwoods” and “Cuba” into a Google and you’ll find out why…). The important part is that regardless of how it happened, the government is using it to their advantage — which they would’ve done anyway.

Although, there does appear to be one thing in the “United 93″ film that hits the mark (whether it actually happened or not is an open question). Another Slate column, this one a direct review of “United 93″ itself, takes note of it, though they seemed to get a different point from it than I would:

In every other scene, [writer/director Paul] Greengrass maintains an almost maddening neutrality�a neutrality that shades at times into what might feel to some viewers like sympathy with the devil. In a late scene, Greengrass crosscuts between the hijackers’ final prayers (”Allahu akbar”) and those of the passengers (”Our Father, who art in heaven”). The scene’s implicit message�that terrorists and victims alike turned to their God in those awful final moments�would seem to contradict the film’s ostensible mission: to honor the passengers who rebelled and stormed the cockpit. (emphasis mine)

“Sympathy with the devil”? More like a reminder that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, religion is not an unambiguous net positive. It’s entirely plausible that as the passengers prayed before saving lives the hijackers prayed in hopes of ending even more, both using their personal interpetations of sacrifice before their chosen deity.

Sadly, I doubt that kind of food-for-thought will be swallowed…