I had been meaning to write this article for a while, but kind of forgot all about it. Luckily, I just found somebody else who wrote something quite similar to what I was after. Their name is Ran Prieur and the article is called Where was Luke Skywalker on September 11?

Anyway, the point I wanted to make, and one which they make is that American culture, both historically and in our media and popular stories, thrives on terrorism. Thrives on having the little guy fight the huge giant monster which is threatening to crush the sun and life as we know it. Star Wars itself is a terrorist epic, and bears close parallels to what occurred on 9/11. Here’s what Prieur says:

At the end, when idealistic outsiders in flying craft totally destroyed that giant grey monolithic structure representing the control of a great empire, did it even occur to you to grieve for the many victims inside the structure? Did you desire to hunt down every last rebel, especially that bearded man from the desert who inspired the attackers, until the rule of the Galactic Empire was absolute? No! You felt good, as you were intended to.

Or consider the film Independence Day, where Randy Quaid’s character, who begins the movie flying a crop duster, ends up intentionally colliding a jet plane into a giant grey structure representing an empire that wants to conquer the Earth and consume all its resources. This totally destroys the structure, and his allies around the world imitate him, defeating the oppressors. And you loved it, as you were intended to.

I also like how later on Prieur suggest something about how Americans’ brains were shorted out by “propaganda dissonance” once our roles were reversed from being metaphorically similar to the Rebels to being made like the Empire.

I’m gonna go read more of this Prieur person’s articles.