9/11: Cultural Responses

Reading the articles and watching the Naudet film for class today, I made many connections to the past readings we’ve done, primarily based on the idea of a “victim hero.” The United States after 9/11 is portrayed in the media to be innocent just based on the nature of the fact that something bad happened and it became the victim of an attack. The “Portraits of Grief” in The New York Times contribute to this. They tell the stories of citizens killed in 9/11 and portray them all as good, family-loving Americans who were innocently going about their daily lives when they were killed and became victims. These people also become martyrs for the cause of patriotism and democracy, embodying the role of a victim hero as “civilians who could be and were readily identified with a national cause” (Simpson 34). 

            Because the subjects in “Portraits of Grief” died in 9/11, they are remembered in obituary as good people. Nothing bad is said about them. They are portrayed as good, American people, which makes their death an attack on the American way-of-life. The reality is, the people killed in 9/11 were likely all different types of people. There were some who probably were not good people, and their beliefs and connections to patriotism and democracy probably varied between people. Yet, after their death, all the victims of 9/11 are portrayed to be the victims of people who hate the United States and the heroes and symbols of patriotism.

            The film also highlights the Toxic, Progressive, and Redemptive Narrative. The Toxic Narrative is shown in the film through the graphic imagery of the fire, ashes, towers falling, and the victims coming out of the buildings. This demonstrates the terror of that day and how it was genuinely a disgusting act with no excuses. The Redemptive Narrative is seen through the people on the street saying, “God bless you” to the firefighters entering the burning building. The Progressive Narrative is seen through the firefighters. They create the image of heroism in the dark time, showing stories of normal seeming people doing extraordinary things. The images of these rescue workers are a form of comfort culture. The ability of the public to believe that there are heroic workers out there is comforting; if there is ever another terrorist attack, it is comforting to the public to know that there are people out there who can help save them. 

            The film also demonstrates the bonding nature of 9/11 to the country. One firefighter says to a Naudet brother, “yesterday you had one brother, today you have fifty.” This quotation is very symbolic of 9/11 on a larger scale. The events, despite the fact that they only touched the lives of a few thousand people and a handful of cities, bonded the country in a moral and temporal sense. Watching the towers fall on the news connects the country in time and bonds them over a feeling of shared victimhood. The United States shares the role of the victim and bonds over the tragedy that is perceived and argued to be an attack on patriotism itself.