While I was watching United 93, right toward the beginning, something caught my attention. I remembered from the Al Qaeda Reader how one of the things that was written about the US and western ways was the use of women in media and marketing, essentially using sex to sell things. I cant seem to find the exact lines that are written but I remember it discussing that as a reason they look down upon America. At 5:12 in the movie we see one of the terrorists walking through the airport carrying his luggage. Behind him you can see two advertisements of what looks to be magazine covers. One is of a girl in either underwear or some skimpy outfit, and the one next to it is of a girl and written next to her it reads "the bust issue". The scene continues as it moves to one of the other terrorists. As hes walking at 5:15, you can see another advertisement of some type behind him on the wall. It features two women shirtless and in their bras. Its hard to tell exactly what the ad is trying to sell, but it definitely is using women and sex appeal to do so. The final thing about this scene that caught my attention (and maybe I'm reading too far into this) is that the camera stops on the ad and the terrorist continues to walk by, as if to emphasis the ad for a moment. It's like it was saying "here, look at this, this is why we hate you". Again, maybe i'm looking too far into this 3-4 second scene but to me it felt almost as if this was filmed intentionally this way to emphasis the fact that our cultures are so drastically different. Without even saying a word, for me, this small scene summarized that attitudes and feelings of the terrorists and the reasons they carried out their attacks.
I don't think this sequence is coincidental. You are right to draw attention to it.
ReplyDeleteJon, I find this post really interesting. I wouldn't doubt that it was purposefully done by the directors to include some sort of hint as to why the terrorists might hate the "infidels."
ReplyDeleteThe thing that's most interesting to me is how the rest of us seem so immune to this kind of imagery. I may only be speaking for myself, but I didn't even notice these images throughout the film. I feel like we're so surrounded by this message of women as sex objects that we don't even question it when it is right in front of our faces.
It's interesting that they would include these images in the airport leading up to the attacks. For me, that kind of suggests that it was just another reminder of why they were doing what they were doing. I think something like that may have solidified the attacks for a terrorist, but I have often wondered if there were any moments for the terrorists before the attacks that made them think twice about their actions.
Jon, great post, and Bethany, nice pickup on the ideas. It was ABSOLUTELY intentional that those images were filmed; there's actually another moment, which is equally erotic, showing a beautiful female passenger bathed in the sun. Again, I don't think the film is saying "this is why they hate us," as much as putting us into their perspective: "this is how they see our culture," and "this is why they feel so lost in it" and, most importantly, "why can't we see these things anymore"?
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