An Event “Like a Movie”? Hollywood and 9/11

Christina Rickli holds a full doctoral scholarship (“Forschungskredit”) issued by the University of Zurich, where she graduated in English/American Studies, Film Studies, and Art History. In addition, she is a member of the interdisciplinary Zurich Graduate School “Körper, Selbsttechnologien, Geschlecht: Entgrenzungen und Begrenzungen” (Body, Technologies of the Self, Gender: Limits and Delimitations). She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on American novels and films post-9/11, supervised by Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bronfen.

An Event “Like a Movie”? Hollywood and 9/11

Christina Rickli

Abstract

Footage of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provoked a wide spectrum of viewers to state that what they were witnessing was “like a movie.” In a first part, this essay discusses the salience of such a simile by comparing the aesthetics and content of 9/11-footage to the one of Hollywood disaster films. In a second part, Hollywood’s immediate reactions as well as its recent movie representations of 9/11 are analyzed.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5283/copas.114

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Postgraduate American Studies

ISSN: 1861-6127