I’m watching Enemy of the State while I’m working right now. It’s really a pretty bad movie, full of obvious flaws, but it’s also quite prescient in a lot of ways. I’m not talking about the hyper paranoia about the NSA altering credit card statements and destroying a person’s life. I’m talking about the back story. The pending legislation that sounds very similar to what we eventually passed as the PATRIOT Act. The rhetoric about rights being balanced with security when “buildings start blowing up.” And, in a case where reality is stranger than fiction, the movie talks about a comprehensive domestic spying program where they can trace phone calls based on keywords or other data mining techniques.
It’s not an original idea, of course. But it’s interesting to see a movie that puts the whole thing together in a fictional world that is so similar to our own. Especially in a movie that was made in 1998, pre-9/11 and pre-apocalyptic paranoia. The first World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombings only got the imagination churning. It took 9/11 to turn paranoia into reality.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:13 PM
You’re right - the psychological implications of 9/11 go deep.
Hi guys, have you read Younghee Cha’s book: After 9/11: A Korean Girl’s Sexual Journey? If you haven’t, prepare for a wild ride that will leave you with hope about our international situation. After 9/11, a Korean girl faces visa and financial problems while living in L.A. Along the way, she encounters her guilty feelings about her first love.. and embarks upon an erotic odyssey…by turns blissful, dangerous and bizarre. The first thing that struck me about her book is it’s not only a journey into sexuality but into being human. It’s a search for world peace and toward our longevity as a people. I almost cried when I took in the insights it had into the Iraq war and its relation to undocumented residency - especially the DREAM act. A brilliant merging of sexuality with politics happens when she nakedly performs the crane dance, the dance for world peace and longevity, for a powerful but sexually dysfunctional client.
I laughed out loud reading this and then sat silently mesmerized while absorbing its political and erotic content. Having so throroughly enjoyed it, I believe it’s good to share this feeling with others, including those of us here who care so much about America’s inclusiveness and ability to transcend a devastating but ultimately petty attack, about our wholeness as people - a variety of ethnicities with a myriad ways of experiencing life. This book concerns our future as a nation that represents all people. Check out more about it at its website - http://www.youngheecha.com.