Lots of specials on T.V.; movies in the theater; second-release movies on broadcast TV. 9/11 is now an acceptable source of material for both fiction and documentary. Appropriately serious, of course, but all the same, we’re seeing airplanes hitting towers. For the longest time — since about a week after the attacks — there were very few images of the damage; only rarely would you see the film of the planes hitting the towers. I guess five years is a sufficiently long time for us, as a people, to be shown those images again.
Not that any of us have ever forgotten. I’ve got no photograph here, much less video, but you’ve got the image seared into your brain and can replay it again and again. You may not care to. But perhaps it’s not entirely a bad thing that you be confronted with that image if you’ve been avoiding it.
