WoolyBully7, 2/21

I felt that Thursday’s class was one of our more insightful classes, everyone in the room could relate the material in one way or another to some aspect of their life whether it be watching TV with their family at home or living in NY during 9/11. I also feel that Baudrillard and Zizek were a little easier to read, maybe its just that their work is a little more contemporary, I don’t know. Also, Dr. Casey picked some great images that really corresponded, to a T, what we had read, especially Zizek’s quote, “was not the framing of the shot itself reminiscent of spectacular shots in catastrophe movies?” and The Towers picture. I think as shocking as the 9/11 images are, having feature film recreations of that day make it a little more “tolerable” and not as shocking.

I think movies like that demean the actual real events. A movie cannot recreate an event like the way it originally was, which refers us back to Habermas, but then again war movies make the same argument. You obviously cannot recreate a live war event but death is kind of expected at times during war. Going to work in the morning in New York City and experiencing something like 9/11 is not expected by any means. I also think its interesting to look closer at the relationship between creators and the active partakers in the terror. In real life events, such as 9/11, the creators (terrorists) do it for the spectacle and the do-ers (subsidiary terrorists) do it to create an effect. In fictional events, such as movies, the creators (directors) do it create an effect amongst the viewers and the do-ers (actors) do it for the spectacle.