Never too soon.

Yeah, they are finally releasing movies on the events of that day. 9/11. The day that changed the way a lot of people perceived things for sure. The day that launched a thousand ships and a billion excuses. The day that has been hyped and used and misused in so many ways that it is hard to get back to the tragedy that it represented initially. And yet people don’t want to hear the story, I’m told. I read somewhere that a theatre in New York had to pull the trailers to one of the upcoming movies following calls of “too soon”? Too soon? Is it ever too soon to remember days like that? For all I know right now the world needs to remember days like that because the real message from that day has been lost amongst piles of lies and filth that have surrounded the recent events.

I am surprised usually by people trying to ‘act’ sentimental, especially a tendency in the affluent societies of the world. If you are from an African or middle-eastern country you are supposed to disregard the fact that your loved ones are dying and that you life is hell and your country screwed up. But if a person in America feels alone and can’t talk to people out of his/her own shyness we have on hand a hundred shrinks and prescription drugs and all the big mound of stinking crap that goes along with the pretentiousness. People die in Iraq and Kashmir and Somalia and Sudan everyday and who gives a rat’s ass right? Your friend’s mother just died of old age and you need psychiatric sessions to overcome the trauma.

Being a Matrix fan, I tend to draw parallels to the story from The Animatrix called “The Second Renaissance” where we see a society bloated and distended off of its own greed and ego. A lot of the affluent societies of today seem to remind me of things like that. Also interesting is the fact that it is never, as a rule, the individual that indulges in such affectation or pretense. It is usually a society. An individual is a very intelligent and unique entity; several individuals together however, paradoxically, seem to make a society that is just as dumb and stupid. It seems that the more resources we have for improving our intelligence, the more we sink into the depths of idiocy.

But we come back to the screening of the movies. I’m not saying the movies are going to be good. I mean considering that Oliver Stone is making one, and his last movie was Alexander, going by his form I don’t have high hopes about the quality of the movie. The movie in itself may be pretentious and pompous and full of itself really (a bunch of these deep “artistic” movies seem to be that). But that’s not the point. The point is at what point should someone try to tell the story of a tragedy? At what point would pretentious and pseudo sensitive people shut up? At what point is it ethically proper to tell a story that affected a country, a society, a collective…the world really, in a way that 9/11 did? My take is, as soon as possible. Get the message out there. Get the truth out there (ahhh…X Files!!!) and at least let people know what and why and how it happened.

I also realize that these movies are naturally going to have an American perspective on things. But at least it’s a perspective. At least people would be able to see it and say, “Hmmm…that makes sense” or “that was absolute bullshit”. Ever wonder how interesting an orthodox Muslim perspective on the issue would be? But it would be almost utopian, the day when two perspectives on the same issue can be put forth without facing bias or prejudice. Today we have to fight to put forth just one of these. Makes the difference between humans and ostrich seem that much lesser doesn’t it? So much for evolution, maybe the logical ape theory should be traded for the new ostrich one…who knows those creationists might just agree to that one. It’s definitely absurd enough…