WTC

World Trade Center, the movie, opens today. And I, for one, will not be seeing it. Just like I did not see United 93.

It sickens me to know people are making money off of a movie about such a tragedy. What is wrong with people? Whatever happened to respectfulness? Sensitivity? Plain human decency?

Is it just me? Am I too sensitive?

All I know is, there is no part of me that has even the slightest desire or inkling of morbid curiosity to watch a movie about 9/11. Or to watch actors paid to play the part of real people who died and those who lived thru that worst of all days. Not now. Not yet.

I go to movies to be entertained. And there is nothing entertaining about what happened that day. Waking up and watching the horror unfold on television that morning was almost like a movie. But it wasn’t. And shouldn’t be. Not yet. It just feels too soon to me. Much too soon.

But Hollywood just couldn’t wait. Not even five years. And if you think it has anything to do with something other than money…

I picture the producers and directors sitting around, fidgeting. Like a group of men waiting to ask out a beautiful young widow whose husband has just passed away. They want to wait a little while so that it doesn’t appear tasteless beyond belief. But they all want to get to her first. To be the first to sleep with her. They don’t care about her feelings, her grief. They don’t care about her at all. Their motives are purely selfish.

I’ve read the reviews. It’s supposed to be tastefully done. A story of heroes. It’s supposed to be a feel-good movie. Well I, for one, don’t want to feel good. It’s not time to feel good. I want to hurt. And remember. And honor this hole inside me, inside each of us, created by that day. And never forget how I felt.

I don’t need a movie to remind me. I can close my eyes and see the images on the TV screen as clearly as if it were yesterday. And if I want to see heroes, I want to see the real heroes themselves. I’d rather read about them. Or watch some television special with stories of and interviews with people who were actually there.

Finally, no matter how well or tastefully a movie is done, it’s still a movie. And as such, will inevitably trivialize or lessen to some degree the reality of what occurred. Take Titanic, for example. What’s the first thing you think of when you hear Titanic? The 1500-plus who lost their lives? Or Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslett, and that old lady?

Maybe this movie is done very well. That’s not my point. My point is, it’s much too soon. The pain and loss and emptiness are still far too fresh. Far too real.

The first Titanic movie didn’t come out until forty years later. Tora! Tora! came thirty years after Pearl Harbor, which until 9/11 was widely considered the worst attack on America. They should have waited at least that long before doing a 9/11 movie.

At least a generation. Then it tells a story to those who weren’t alive or weren’t old enough to remember what happened. Then time has had a chance to heal us. Not completely. Not entirely. We’ll never reach that point. We’ll always hurt. We’ll always remember.

A lot of people still remember Pearl Harbor.

I, for one, never saw it.

“I had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong. They’re still there. He’s all gone…”