Considering his usual subject matter, I'm honestly surprised that he chose to review a kids' cartoon. And its pretty good.
I think Becker also covered 9/11, and it was considered a surprisingly subtle but moving moment in the show.
WI: Pop Culture in a world without 9/11?
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Considering his usual subject matter, I'm honestly surprised that he chose to review a kids' cartoon. And its pretty good.
I think Becker also covered 9/11, and it was considered a surprisingly subtle but moving moment in the show.
It's amazing that the show made an episode about 9/11, but kept said episode timeless and more universally applicable, by not making it about 9/11, and instead came up with a more local, much more digestible incident and how it affected the people around it.
I mean, a building on fire, traumatic memories, treasured possessions being lost, as well as fearing for a loved one, are much more understandable to a kid than a national tragedy, and are things most people probably go through in their lives at least once, or at least have a frame of reference for. So, yeah, it's honestly impressive.
I could see the show perhaps have a similar episode if there was a big incident in the US with lots of media coverage, like a train crash or hurricane or something, but it wouldn't be the same, and likely have a different framing and narrative.
Sesame Street had a similar episode, which interestingly enough also used a fire and the ensuing trauma (for Elmo in particular) as an allegory for the attacks
There was American Airlines Flight 587 -- a flight that crashed in Queens, NY nearly two months after 9/11, it led to the Empire State Building and the headquarters of the United Nations were evacuated, but that might be seen more-or-less as a regional tragedy rather than something on the scale of September 11th.
If I had to guess, I imagine in a no-9/11 TL, Hurricane Katrina probably gets more attention as a tragedy, bolstering voices advocating for alternative energy and the slowing of Climate Change.
I think not making it directly about 9/11 also avoids the tactic of milking a national tragedy for self-aggrandizement.
In the 90s we have President Harrison Ford punching terrorists in Air Force One and before that an ace pilot president fighting aliens in Independence Day. Since then presidents in movies have been mostly depicted as useless if not straight up villains.
I wonder if the 1990s trend of having POTUS depicted as badasses will continue without 9/11?
I wonder if the 1990s trend of having POTUS depicted as badasses will continue without 9/11?
Maybe action cartoons sticks around, and even makes a resurgence in the 2010s.
So that means shows like Constant Payne would be approved and aired?
Payne was killed as the creator was pushing for an animation union, 9/11 was just a convenient excuse for viacom
My big question is this: what would be the pop culture effects of a 9/11-style attack later in the decade, say around 2007-2008? Then, in the same year the attack happened, the Great Recession struck America when it was already down.
How would American culture evolve when you have both a serious terrorist attack and the economy collapsing, hitting America at the same time? Basically, Pearl Harbor and the Crash of 1929 happen at the same time.
Would the 90s and 2000s be seen as a broader period of "American peace" that came to an even more shattering and sudden end?
How would American culture evolve when you have both a serious terrorist attack and the economy collapsing, hitting America at the same time? Basically, Pearl Harbor and the Crash of 1929 happen at the same time.
Would the 90s and 2000s be seen as a broader period of "American peace" that came to an even more shattering and sudden end?
That would be quite difficult to say, since, without 9/11, there is a possibility of the Great Recession never happening in the first place, since the attacks had huge effects on the economy, even before you add in the costs of the War in Afghanistan, so the butterfly effect might come into play here.
Another is by whom and why the attack specifically was enacted, what the governmental response is, and whether or not it leads to a long, drawn-out war, among other things.
No 9/11 dot com become the recession, I could argue 911 panic did helped to mask the dotcom effects
There's also the debate about Freddie Mac and fanny Mac too... but that's something very broad too
I thought that the dot com bubble popped in March 2000, a year and a half before the September 11th Attacks.
Sure, but the expenses of the war, the financial losses due to the attacks, and the measures enacted in response to them, that all came as immediate consequences likely didn't help either. I'm not saying that 9/11 caused the Great Recession directly, I'm arguing that, without the attacks and its consequences, the crisis might have not been as bad as it was OTL, and might not qualify as a "Great Recession", but just your run of the mill economic slump. Damaging, yes, but not catastrophic.
I think he meant to say "does not" and that is a typo or autocorrect screwing up, or he uses voice-to-text and the program misunderstood.
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Nah, the causes of the crash (real estate fuckery) were already happening by 9/11 and I don't see anyone moving to nip the problem in the bud in time to stop it.
I feel like action cartoons still happened after 9/11. Stuff like kids next door, Kim Possible, Powerpuff girls, etc all had plenty of action.
Hmm....
I remember people saying that while 9/11 may have exacerbated the real estate bubble that did emerge, the roots for the Great Recession were years and decades in the making, with several things, like economic deregulation, the very low interest rates of the 2000s, the rising cost of commodities like oil, deindustrialization and economic inequality, the 2001 recession, and excessive financialization. So even without a 9/11, some kind of bubble would form."
I'm guessing that the hypothetical "later 9/11" could potentially pop this alternate bubble and contribute to an economic malaise that could stretch well into the 2000s.
How could cartoons be affected by 9/11? How did the shadow of 9/11 influence cartoons?