Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2006

Publication Title

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Volume

6

Issue

4

Pages

1-4

Abstract

One of the necessary compromises a book such as Film and TV After 9/11 must make is the amount and variety of examples it can provide. In order to be the first book to cover the subject, the book sacrifices the types of materials covered and the variety of themes they depict. Although the editor, Wheeler Winston Dixon, does not do so, the book’s twelve essays slot into four basic categories: analogies, productions altered to suit the "post-9/11" mindset, post-9/11 productions with metaphorical rather than literal linkages to the event and pre-9/11 productions whose viewing must now take that day into account. Given the focus on New York and the World Trade, one might be led to believe that Hollywood has forgotten the full extent of the attacks that day. Dixon adds an introduction which provides a brief but biting commentary on the entertainment industry’s collusion with the Bush regime’s "war on terror" and subsequent intrusion into Iraqi affairs. In this regard, the final essay, which considers the hastily written (and re-written) Fall 2001 episodes of NBC’s White House drama, The West Wing, serves as fitting conclusion to the collection.

Comments

© Marc Ouellette. Posted with permission of the author.

Original Publication Citation

Ouellette, M. (2006). [Review of the book Film and television after 9/11 by W. W. Wheeler (Ed.)]. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 6(4). http://reconstruction.digitalodu.com/Issues/064/ouellette.shtml

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