Essay 1

Camerin Norfleet

Professor Wang

MSP Technology & Culture

10/17/2018

 

 

The World Trade Center’s Disappearance in Media

Media, by definition, is the main meads of mass communication whether it be via broadcasting, publishing, or the internet.  Media itself is always evolving to keep up with the standards of people as the times keep changing (Reeves 1). Sometimes, an event will take place that deeply affects the masses and will require a push back from forms of media.  One of those of events being the attacks on September 11th, 2001. There was a whirlwind of changes throughout film, television and even video game media to make them appropriate for general audiences in the 2000s

On September 11th, 2001, there was an organized 4-part attack on U.S. soil by 19 militants associated with the extremist group al-Qaeda.  The group hijacked 4 separate air planes and use the planes to perform coordinated suicide strikes. One plane had hit the pentagon, one crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, and the last two hit the World Trade Center’s two towers in New York. Three of the planes were controlled by the extremists but the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was taken back by the passengers and veered off course of whatever its original target was.  An estimated 2,996 people were killed in the attacks all together ( History ) .

The Twin Towers is where most of the casualties were located.  At 8:45a.m. The first plane crashed into the north tower. The first reporting’s of the incident were viewing the incident as a freak accident. No one knew what was going on. Exactly 18 minutes after, the second plane hit the South tower, becoming clear that America was under attack.  The impact of the first plane was close to the 80th floor of the north tower. It trapped hundreds of people in the higher floors, unable to get down do to the giant hole that was left in the building.  The second tower collapsed, raining particles and chunks of debris down onto the people below. The North tower collapsed hours later at 10:30am.  An estimated 10,000 people were treated for severe injuries.

This experience was devastating to the United States and there are still many people affected by it to this day. We have a day of remembrance for the attack to remember people who died and to honor the officers that died trying to assist people out of the area. However, it was almost as if the media wanted us to forget the existence of the buildings with some of the changes that took place to their outlets.

The event left a giant scar on the United States leading to the reform of many different films that were popular at the time. In many instances, the world trade center was seen as a traumatizing sight to people leading for the film to go through re-releases.  In the film Spider-Man 2002, There was a scene that showed Spider-Man capturing a helicopter between the world trade center towers. The shot featured Spider-Man battling bank robbers and ultimately capturing them in a giant web between the twin towers.  The scene was edited, and the official teaser was removed from all media platforms at the time.  However, you can still find the piece of footage offered in low quality videos on YouTube. (Nexter 1). Another example would be the film Men in Black 2. The Climax the featured the alien detectives fighting the queen alien had a shot of the World Trade center in the background. The World Trade Center was eventually edited out and the building was replaced by the Statue of Liberty (Owen) .

There were even shows that had banned episodes that are not allowed to be shown in the United states. An example would be in the show Invader Zim. The show is about an Alien, Invader Zim, who pretends to be a human to take down the human race. There are multiple scenes where the city is destroyed or where there are very colorful explosions that take place during the show. In the cases where they couldn’t remove the destruction, the episodes were not allowed to be run in the United States and were only allowed to be aired in Australia.  Another children’s show that had issues was Pokémon. There is an episode where a giant Pokémon destroys a skyscraper (Peters 1). The episode was taken down and removed from broadcast as it resembled to the event a little too closely and may trigger audiences.

There are a lot of examples of shows and other media forms that were changed because of the attacks on September 11th, 2001. In some instances, it makes sense that the shows that may have joked about or showed images of the destruction of the tower were fairly altered or removed. In most cases, the shows that just showed the World Trade Center in shots had to completely remove them all together.    The changes in the children shows, even though it Is nice to reduce the amount of violence our kids are subjected to, seemed very drastic. The World Trade Center had become a taboo subject for shows that were during the time the towers were up. In order to make the television easier to view, the World Trade Center was erased as if It was never there.

 

(2018, August 28). ‘Pokemon’ Censored Some Real Weird Things In America. Retrieved from https://comicbook.com/anime/2018/08/28/pokemon-anime-censorship-moments

 

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks

Nexter.org. (2018, September 11). 9/11 Anniversary: ‘Lilo And Stitch,’ ‘Spider-Man’ and 4 More Films and TV Series That Had to Remove Scenes With Twin Towers. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from https://nexter.org/9-11-anniversary-lilo-stitch-spider-man-films-tv-series-looked-very-different-before-tragedy

 

Owen, P. (2018, September 11). Movies, TV Shows and Games That Were Altered After 9/11 (Photos). Retrieved from https://www.thewrap.com/movies-tv-shows-and-games-that-were-altered-after-911-photos/

Reeves, B., & Nass, C. I. (1996). The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. Chicago, IL, US: Center for the Study of Language and Information; New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.