If you haven’t heard the drama surrounding the ABC miniseries — a semi-fictional drama supposedly based on the 9/11 commission report — being shown this coming Sunday and Monday, the five year anniversary of the horrific 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers, then you haven’t been near a radio, newspaper or TV this week. It’s clearly stabbing a hornet’s nest.

Even former President Clinton is getting in on the bashing train of a movie he’s yet to see via CNN:

“I think they ought to tell the truth, particularly if they’re going to claim it’s based on the 9/11 commission’s report,” Clinton told reporters in Arkansas on Thursday.

While this appears, smells and probably is a clear ABC ratings grab, people had to expect this was going to happen someday. With films like United 93 and Flight 93 already hitting the airwaves, the days of getting a Hollywood pass on a very sensitive and terrible event in our nation’s history have neared an end. The entertainment business can only wait so long to profit from the pain of others.

Just about every non-fiction story out there has been dramatized and what ABC is doing doesn’t shock, surprise or even dismay me. I can see people that were directly involved being upset, especially those that still want to have political futures, but isn’t the American viewing public smart enough to realize the difference between something “based on” versus what really happened? I have more faith in the general populace than some politicians do.

I believe nothing happened exactly the way some producer, director, writer and actors tell me it happened. I might suspend my belief for the period of a film and maybe a little afterwards, but at the end of the day, I remember anything that is “based on” is exactly that: based on. Not exact, perfect, the truth. Movies are movies. TV shows are TV shows and mini-series intentionally placed around anniversaries of events are ratings grabbers. We see it with Pearl Harbor and probably will see it next year with the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin’s death.

The fact that the film hasn’t even been shown, as ABC points out in the screenshot above, is more than a bit premature for all this outrage. Let’s wait and see what the final cut looks like. Let’s wait and see if it portrays Clinton getting some intern action instead of caring about what happens with Osama Bin Linden at some point in the future under a different presidency. I’m sure a whirlwind of Saturday Night Live skits await and they are in New York’s backyard.

How long will be long enough anyway?

Every 9/11 since 2001 I’ve pondered that question. Even if I knew and/or had lost friends and family in that tragedy, I’d say five years is enough time not to get so completely worked up over what happens in a dramatization of events. Even if the dramatization is completely fabricated. All this negative publicity has played right into ABC’s plans. I wasn’t going to write about this but I’m tired of seeing the same stories about how upset people are over something that hasn’t left the cutting room floor. Rambo did commit suicide in one draft of First Blood, you do know that, right? There will be a lot more people now who know about this mini-series who tune in now than there ever would have been without very public political figures out promoting it.

I won’t be one of them watching, unless ABC maybe plans to make it available via the internet.

None of my commentary here should suggest to people impacted by 9/11 that these events and the monsters who perpertrated them should be forgotten, but there has to be a time to let others creatively share their visions about these events. Artistic freedom cannot exist with political and personal shackles. The terrorists despise the freedoms we have which is something I don’t completely understand. Let’s remember to give artists — even if they completely screw up the vision and what really happened that fateful day — the ability to create and share freely.

And let’s keep the families who lost or had hurt loved ones during 9/11 in your thoughts. I read recently that some 70% of those who aided during 9/11 have had respiratory related problems. That day reached far beyond those in the planes and buildings.

Did this post make you go hmm?

 Loading ...

• Film Affinity recommendations engine
• Clinton in first ever Fox interview: “I got closer to killing [Bin Laden] than anybody else.”
• Review: United 93
• Just the facts, maam: Dragnet 1967
• Holy cigars, Batman, Clinton to replace Ballmer a Microsoft RUMOR!
• Will the Simpsons movie in 2007 sink Titanic box office record?