- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Initially, I thought it was interesting that a giant monster movie would be made about 9-11. After all, the original Godzilla is not cartoonish at all. It's about the experience of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the bombing of Tokyo. I've often wondered what it was about those experiences that are like disaster but human-created that led to processing through a giant monster. Some of it is undoubtedly military/government censorship at the time. But we can process the tragic experience of 9-11 itself--till it almost becomes meaningless in the case of Rudy Giuliani. So the whole idea of borrowing 9-11 to try to make an American Godzilla like the 1954 Godzilla, or a geniunely frightening social satire like The Host just comes off as cold, calculating and, frankly, annoying.
