The Path to 9/11 vs. Stuff Happens: Media and Political Efficacy in the War on Terror

Abstract

On September 10 and 11, 2006, the ABC television network aired a two part miniseries entitled The Path to 9/11, which dramatized the build up from the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to the September 11 terrorist attacks.Initial advertisements claimed the miniseries was "based on the 9/11 Commission Report," and both the director and the screenwriter bragged of the film's accuracy.1 Nine days before the miniseries aired, members of the Clinton administration caused a small controversy when they wrote a letter to ABC claiming that "the content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate," and that, "while ABC is promoting 'The Path to 9/11' as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans." 2 Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger accused the film of slander, and average citizens wrote letters of protest by the thousands.3 Exactly two years earlier on September 10, 2004, a new play premiered at the National Theatre in London: David Hare's Stuff Happens.The play depicts the George W. Bush administration's push toward the invasion of Iraq, covering the period from 2001 to early 2004.It advanced what was at the time a disputed proposition, that the invasion was a premeditated affair based on fabricated evidence.The play's opening was heralded as the return of political theatre to the London stage.4 Although there were some dissenters, it was by and large praised for its ideological balance, and even Hans Blix, the United Nations Weapons Inspector, commended its credibility.5 One Member of Parliament called it "crude propaganda," but the worst rebuke it received was a quintessentially True Brit remark from Tony Blair to the play's director at a cocktail party: "Well, you're giving us a hard time, aren't you?" 6 Stuff Happens has henceforth become part of the canon of contemporary British theatre.These two historical narratives address the "war on terror" from a sweeping, top-down point of view, each taking the September 11 attacks as either the beginning or end of the dramatic conflict.Both depict high ranking government officials as their central characters-many of whom were still in office when the pieces Jay M. Gipson-King is an instructor of theatre at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon and a Ph.D. candidate at Florida State University.He has previously published on the use of time and history in the work of Timberlake Wertenbaker, and has presented on contemporary British theatre at numerous conferences, including the 2009 international Howard Barker conference in Aberystwyth, Wales.

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