Abstract
This essay offers an evaluation of the depiction of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in Hollywood cinema. By reviewing a broad sample of related films from the period 2001–2015 and focusing on notions of trauma and terror, this essay examines the cultural representation of 9/11. The author observes that US cinema responded with great variety—appealing to an ‘unbroken’ US spirit, re-asserting the symbolic coordinates of prevailing reality, but also gave voice to doubts and dissent. ‘The Trauma of Terrorism: Post 9/11 Hollywood Cinema’ concludes that Hollywood fulfilled a critical role in uniting the public in the wake of the terror attacks, as well as in offering a form of cathartic closure.
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Notes
- 1.
This essay expands previous research by the author: Terrorismus: Akteure, Strukturen, Entwicklungslinien (Innsbruck 2009); ‘Hollywood’s Terrorists: How Cinema Shaped the Image of Political Violence,’ in Franz-Josef Deiters, Axel Fliethmann, Birgit Lang, Alison Lewis und Christiane Weller (eds.), Terror und Form, LIMBUS – Australisches Jahrbuch für germanistische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft 4 (2011) Freiburg, 241–257; ‘“Mirroring terror”: The impact of 9/11 on Hollywood cinema,’ Imaginations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies 5–2: Terrorism and its Legacy in German Visual Culture, Guest Editor: Maria Stehle, (2014), 103–119.
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Riegler, T. (2016). The Trauma of Terrorism: Post 9/11 Hollywood Cinema. In: Martins, A., Lopes, A., Dias, M. (eds) Mediations of Disruption in Post-Conflict Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57520-3_7
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