How Did 9/11 Affect American Tv & Film
In this essay I will be discussing whether or not 9/11 has affected American tv and film, or has tv and film been affected by the widespread use of the internet following the years after 9/11. I'll also be looking at why films were cancelled and edited, why old films where censored and how Hollywood tried to go lighter on their content.
On September 11th 2001 the American people were getting ready to go to work or where at work when all of sudden all 4 of Americas main news channels, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, interrupted their normal tv schedule and started to show what was happening in New York. For many people what they were seeing on tv they thought was just an accident until the second tower was hit at 8:56 10 minutes after the north tower was hit by flight 11. The attacks against New York and Washington caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous US effort to combat terrorism that still goes on today. Some 2,750 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 in Pennsylvania, when the passengers attempted to retake the plane, all 19 terrorist died. What happened on that sunny day in 2001 would change the course of tv and film but many people wouldn’t know it at that point.
The attacks of September 11th shaped the way we would watch tv for the rest of our future but one key aspect of tv would never be the same and that was the news. On September 11th it wouldn’t of mattered if you were a news reporter for NBC or a small town newspaper reporter, they were faced with the same crisis that they never had experienced before or could have imagined. The decisions that were made in newsrooms across America and across the world have left a lasting change in how the news covers stories to this day. A key concept that has changed is sensitivity in reporting, the attacks didn’t need any creative writing to make them seem worse than they actually were. In the days after the attacks the ABC News president, David Westin, ordered that video footage of the jets hitting the towers not to be repeated over and over so it wouldn’t disturb viewers, especially children. This would turn out to be a massive decision, considering the amount of times that the American people had been witnessed to the footage of Challenger the space shuttle that exploded or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Before the September 11th attacks if a news room had a good video they would usually exploit it to get their viewing figures up, but after the attacks and even today news rooms are re-examining coverage of violent stories, such as mass shootings or even terrorist attacks. Some news rooms are even deciding when they get a video available to them, is it too sensitive to put on tv.
People would argue though that it isn’t 9/11 that has changed the way we see the news but it is the increase in technology. In the 18 years since the September 11th attacks smartphones like iPhone and Samsung have become very popular because of their recording capabilities and the ability to upload footage to the internet immediately. Mobile phones can take photos and record videos and post them online and in the rush to get a story, news managers have to make the decision of how to use this form of communication. A key question for news outlets especially in 2019 is whether or not they only use images that have been sent directly to them or whether they use whatever they can find on the internet without a regard to privacy or ownership which in 2019 is a very big issue. The same is true for posts on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which you have to remember didn’t exist back in 2001, so people couldn’t record the attacks and then suddenly post it on one of these platforms for the world to see easily, which compared to now how people are doing this all the time and it is hard to keep up with what is real and what is fake.
Muslims within American tv has been a massive issue over the years whether it be in the news or in reality tv. Once the American people saw the faces of the September 11 attackers they were very quick to target all future attacks on the people of the Middle East or of Islamic belief. News organisations chose to actively fight that stereotype or saw an opportunity to go along to with it. Fox News channel has been accused of playing to Americans fears of Muslims. And others in the media industry are criticized for assuming that all terrorist acts since the September 11th attacks are committed by Muslim people but they then act surprised when the attackers in some violent acts, like the 2011 attack in Norway, turn out to be white and Christian. Other media outlets have taken a different stance, using Muslims in their own communities to interview about their faith and spiritual rituals. And coverage of a threatened Islamic Jihad has now been replaced with stories explaining things like Ramadan, the holy month. In terms of reality tv Muslims have only been accepted in American tv shows and there has been a notable increase in Middle Eastern Americans on US reality television since 2009. To list just few: Rima Fakih was the first Arab American to win the Miss USA Pageant, she then went on to train to be a professional wrestler on the USA network’s reality show, WWE Tough Enough. Sahar Dika was the first Arab American Muslim to be cast on MTV’s The Real World. And Selma Alameri was on the cast of ABC’S The Bachelor. The reason the American people have won’t fully accepted Muslims on their televisions is because they don’t want them to be on there as Muslims they want them to get rid of the religious connection to Allah and become Christian Americans.
After the September 11th attacks many producers of entertainment realised some changes were needed to be made for example in the Spider-Man trailer it saw him web a helicopter between the two towers of the World Trade Centre that trailer was the scrapped and that shot was deleted from the film and instead a shot of spider man hanging of a pole next to a waving American flag was added. Another example of changes being made was in the Disney animated film Lilo and Stitch, in the original scene it saw Stitch flying a 747 airplane, weaving in and out of sky scrapers, this sequence was changed so that Stitch flew a spaceship, with the buildings turned into mountains. The most heard about example of something being changed or cut is in the episode of Friends that was supposed to air on the night of September 11th, the third episode of season 8 originally included a subplot in which Chandler makes a joke about there being bombs at the airport, which leads to him and Monica being detained as they try to leave for their honeymoon. It was then removed and was never to be shown.
In the years after the attacks it was noticeable that there was an absent of down-to-earth action. The likes of The Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter and Pirates of The Caribbean became the big franchises, offering something different to what was being shown on the news. The big releases in 2002/2003 are pretty much across the board this sort of family-friendly fare. Controversy would still arise every now and then, but for a while the industry went in a very inoffensive direction. Another way movies changed is that the Middle East became a key setting in films like Iron Man. In a scene where we find Iron Man in Afghanistan, with a al-Qaeda-esque terrorist group holding him hostage he then blows up all their weapons which some viewers say has no relevance to the film but it was natural, for films following 9/11, to follow the news.
In conclusion I think that 9/11 did affect American tv and film for the years that followed the attacks which is understandable because viewers don’t want to be reminded of an event which shaped the course of a nation’s history. I do believe however it has affected it in a positive way, with news outlets now having to censor what they show meaning that they are being more responsible what they show to their viewers.
