Personalising 9/11

9/11 doesn't really have any heros. The closest thing to a hero were the firefighters of New York, or the passengers on United flight 93 who fought back.
The problem was that the victims (those working in the Trade Center), the heros (the firefighters who died en masse) and the terrorist who highjacked the planes all died in the same place at the same time. There was no one to hunt down for commiting the crime,no vallient hero coming out of flames with a 'helpless' pregnant women on his back.
The closest personalisation there was were the pictures of friends and relatives that were stuck up on walls all over the city, and subsequently shown on television news.

When dramas started being based around 9/11 they inevitably had to personalise what they were showing. Terrorists in 24 (at least in the first couple of seasons) were not attacking symbols of the United States' power, or attacking civilians, they would be going after specific targets or people. More often than not that meant the President or another important person. Therefore 24 personalised the victim (the target of the attacks), the 'bad guys' (the terrorists), but also personalised the hero. Jack Bauer was not modeled after the 'true heroes' of 9/11, the firefighters, but as the show wore on Jack came to embodiy many of the characteristics that the firefighters had; he is seemingly always prepared to die for the cause of fighting terrorism and for a time seemed fairly working class protecting a rich elite politician. This was surely a reflection of the relatively working class firefighters protecting the enourmasly rich investment bankers and stoke brokers who worked in the World Trade Center.
Battlestar Galactica too represents the tragedy in human terms. It centers around a group of survivors and focuses on their lives after the attacks (in somewhat similar style to how Lost focuses on its survivors). Battlestar Galactica looks at the mental and physical degredation that came about after the loss of almost everyone they ever knew, as if it was an extension of that intial covergae on the television news in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 of the friends and relatives asking for any news at all about people lost in the towers. Galactica portrays the bleek realisation that no-one would come out of that alive.


[inspired by 'Today Is the Longest Day of My Life' by Ina Rae Hark]