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• Friday, January 18, 2008 11:43 AM

  Inserting 9/11 metaphor into this movie might be irresistable for the locale - but in the end, New York is also a locale, not ONLY 'ground zero'

  I simply don't buy the premise that any imagery of terror and destruction in New York must display a sensitivity to 9/11 because said imagery will inevitably evoke comparisons. Movies cannot and should not tiptoe around ANY subject - no art should. It ceases to be art and becomes only politicized/sanitized commentary. Commentary can be art, I suppose - but this was a fictional movie, not a documentary, and no matter how much Zacharek or anyone else tries to force the movie to be about 9/11, it ain't necessarily so.

  The entire point of horror is that it's about what really scares you, which is different for everyone. For SZ, apparently the setting of this movie makes it impossible for her to not think about what really scares her, which, apparently, is the profaning of 9/11. For many others, this Godzilla-reminagined-in-the-digital age is about other things - fear of eco reprisal, fear of leaving the familiar (only to confront that there is as much to fear from the familiar as the strange), etc.

  I accept that horror movies aren't for everyone. But to leap to the conclusion that this movie, because it is set in NY, must be judged as some sort of metaphorical re-enactment of 9/11 is ridiculous.

  —Sandra M Read Sandra M's other letters
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