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| Scarlet
Letters |
| Panic
Attack |
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There's
no word in the dictionary for this. They're going to have to make one up,
and all I can say is I hope they make it easy to spell, because people
are going to be trying to explain this for a long time.
--
Bob Price, New York City tractor operator clearing away debris at the World
Trade Center |
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News flash to the Panic Folks:
the second installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was called "The
Two Towers" long before Sept. 11.
Yes, there are people already
protesting the second movie as a cheesy capitalization on the fall of the
World Trade Center. The facts that a) the book was written, published and
enjoyed by millions decades before Osama bin Laden cut his first tooth,
and b) the movie itself was written, produced and filmed before the towers
fell, has entirely been ignored by the Panic Folks.
There was an instinctive gut
reaction to eradicate anything that reminded us of the Twin Towers right
after Sept. 11. Movies scrambled to digitally erase them from New York
skyscapes. Anything with the towers on it was pulled from shelves to avoid
upsetting the public.
I recall going shopping with
a couple of friends not long after Sept. 11. I saw a New York skyline print
in an art shop that still had the towers on it. I pointed it out to my
friends: "Oops, look what they missed."
My friends looked at it and
said, "So what?"
It made me think. Why hide from
the horrible, ugly truth of Sept. 11? Did we decide to forget Hawaii existed
after Pearl Harbor?
That having been said, I've
noticed a slight hint toward that cheesy capitalization wrongly attributed
to "Lord of the Rings." The movies we all said we'd never see again: "True
Lies," "Die Hard With a Vengeance," even the more even-handed "The Siege"
- I knew these movies would be buried forever. Now they're back... with
a vengeance. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
All three have been on television,
with good ol' American heroes racing to stop disaster from blowing up New
York, Florida or wherever we are in the nick of time. I suppose it's comforting.
Since Superman didn't swoop in at the last minute to turn the airliners
away from the World Trade Center, we've felt betrayed. Now we can feel
better with Bruce Willis on the case. For the same reason, some people
slammed "Sum of All Fears" as being "too real, too soon." I disagreed.
Maybe what we need every once
in a while is a dash of reality - although, please God, not quite so harsh
as the reality dealt us on Sept. 11. That day we were reminded that we
are not masters of all we survey and the rest of the world does not  even
march to a drum, much less our particular beat. Since that day, we've wanted
to curl up under our blankets and hide, trade away our freedoms and let
the strongest voices drown us out, if only we can feel safe again, so our
prime-time shows won't be interrupted by the horrors down the street.
The latest in these mini-controversies
came when Starbucks hastily pulled a poster ad from its stores (pictured).
I've showed it to several people. Some gasp and say, "Oh my God... What
were they THINKING?"
I admit, my first reaction was,
"What soon-to-be-out-of-the-business ad exec came up with THAT brilliant
idea, and what soon-to-be-on-welfare Starbucks executive approved it? Are
they smoking something? Is that supposed to be funny?"
But the other half - perhaps
the same ones who say, "So what?" to pictures that include the towers -
see only a dragonfly and a couple of summer beverages. Once you mention
it to them, they either say, "Oh, I guess you could see that," or "Please,
let's not get neurotic."
"As a New Yorker who watched
the whole [Sept. 11] incident outside my window . . . seeing the poster
in Starbucks directly across from Ground Zero adds some resonance that
perhaps the people in Seattle did not grasp," fumed customer Gregory Moore,
who first complained to The New York Post.
I guess it's all what you see
in it. For myself, I saw it right away, but I choose to believe Starbucks
wasn't trying to make fun of Sept. 11. Like the cartoonist who mocked Mariane
Pearl, some people just don't see that they're not funny.
In the meantime, we all need
to remember Sept. 11 - even if it keeps us awake. Otherwise, we'll just
end up hiding under our beds. "Please, Mr. Ashcroft, do whatever you want
- just don't remind me that the world isn't a safe place." And that goes
for you too, Starbucks. |
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Column Credo:
I'd be sitting in a restaurant and someone
would come up and say, "I don't like your column on this or that." I'd
hand him 35 cents. That was what the paper cost then. The refund on the
product. He'd get upset. Well, that's one attitude I have. Today,
it's half a buck. What can you buy for half a buck? Do I owe them something
that will be worth reading a hundred years from now? I don't think so.
Do I owe them something of the quality of Mark Twain? Naaa. Not for 50
cents.
I guess what I owe them is that when I
write something, it's what I think. No editor told me to write it. I'm
not doing it because the Tribune editorial page will like it, or not. So
they can be quite sure that they're getting what I think at the moment.
-- Mike Royko
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