SPOILER ALERT: Will discuss a movie's plot and ending!
The events of 9/11 cling to the memories of anyone who calls
him or herself an American. A day so drowned in grief and laden with horror is
something that even our generation can recall. Everyone’s remembrance of that
faithful day is different, but yet somehow the same. In one instant the whole
country was united—watching, waiting, hoping it was all some cruel, sadistic
joke playing out on television.
Some perspectives of the event are purely memories, others
more carefully thought out. In The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” section, one
can find both.
John Updike describes the day with power that resonates. “We
clung to each other as if we ourselves were falling,” he says of the moments
after watching the south tower fall and, consequently, thousands of untimely
deaths. Updike designates the day a resolute nightmare. He explains one thought
that haunted him—flying—but comes to the conclusion “fly again we must” since “this
is a country worth fighting for.” The following day New York, and the United
States, tried to return to normalcy—not forgetting the previous days tragedy
but learning from it and moving on.
A different perspective, the one of Susan Sontag, focuses
more on the media. The most disturbing idea brought up in her article is the
way the media are working to “infantilize the public.” As a well-educated,
involved woman, I am disappointed that the media took it upon themselves to “protect”
us from the events. Sontag continues to describe how the duties of a public
office now seem to be “confidence-building and grief management.” If that’s how
they see it, why don’t we elect psychologists? As she calls it, the public
needs to be asked to bear the burden of reality.
These two perspectives are both new to me, but the subject
matter is not. One of my favorite movies, Remember
Me, features a big reveal at the end. The movie sets up a carefree romance
between two college-aged students, but throughout the movie there are many
conflicts. By the end of the movie, you are so attached to the main character
Tyler that it is despairing to find out that the building he is standing in is
the World Trade Center and that the date is in fact September 11th. The movie helps to make real the pain that is
so abstract to younger generations.
As Remember Me proves, the impact of 9/11 is
everlasting. Updike touches on this with a paragraph about security—giving up
freedoms for more of it. Having job shadowed in our own capitol, I heard of how
9/11 changed their security. Along with this, there are the obvious freedoms we
exchange for the ability to fly. Although some of us may not notice these
little things, they are all around.
I think that the best way to move on from the grief that 9/11
represents is to honor the 3,000 men and women who lost their lives. The 9/11
Memorial is the embodiment of this—representing how far we have come as a
nation since that devastating day. I visited New York in the fall of 2012 and stayed at a hotel that overlooked ground zero. It was a brilliant yet eerie site. It will continue to be a place of remembrance for years to come.
If you have not seen the 9/11 Memorial, it is worth watching this video.
