Monster mashup: Pop culture trades on 9/11 imagery

The Associated Press

Liberty has lost her head in J.J. Abrams' new movie, "Cloverfield."

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Monster mashup: Pop culture trades on 9/11 imagery

Buildings crashing down. Chaos on the streets of New York. Thousands of people killed. These images come straight from news coverage of the 9/11 attacks -- and they're echoed eerily in "Cloverfield," the monster movie that was the No. 1 movie in America this weekend.

Is the existence of such images in popular culture offensive, cathartic, or both? When does an artist cross the line from reflecting on a tragedy to exploiting it?

Ben likes: Thoughts on Cloverfield

Todd Alcott/What Does the Protagonist Want?

Anybody who complains that Cloverfield "exploits 9/11" does not understand movie history. Our theaters were deluged with "important" political movies this past fall, In the Valley of Elah,Lions for Lambs, Redacted, Rendition, and they all bombed. They all bombed because no one wants to see a movie about this stuff.

That is not to say that this stuff is not important, because clearly it is, it's important to everyone. But, in order for a national trauma on the scale of 9/11 to be made palatable to a general audience, it first has to be turned into a metaphor.

Joel likes: 9/11 as an amusement-park ride?

Stephanie Zacharek/Salon

If 1950s horror films were really about the communist threat, as we're constantly and needlessly reminded by film scholars, then why can't modern horror films mirror our own fears about real-life terrorism? There's no reason that they can't. But there's also no reason we have to accept the cheapening of real-life tragedy as a means of entertainment. "Cloverfield" harnesses the horror of 9/11 -- specifically as it was felt in New York -- and repackages it as an amusement-park ride. We see familiar buildings exploding and crumpling before our eyes, and plumes of smoke rolling up the narrow corridors formed by lower-Manhattan streets, images that were once the province of news footage and have now been reduced to special effects.