9/11, an event that will always be dear to Americans’ hearts. An event that we will never forget and tell others for years to come. It is an event that I still question myself about. I question why did this have to happen? I wonder why did people have to go through this? So many of us are puzzled and still wonder these things. We try to figure out ourselves why could things like this happen in this world? 9/11 brings these questions together for people to wonder. It is an event that may have past but will not be forgotten. It is an even that the artist would certainly want to preserve as a critical cultural moment. Although the event was grim, I believe that it was necessary for artists to capture this moment in history for others to see. That is why I believe Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 not only criticizes our government’s society during this time but he preserves the culture of this time period by documenting one of America’s saddest events in the decade.
I was in fourth grade at the time of 9/11. You may think that nine years was way to long to remember anything that happened but it is clear.I remember being fearful and afraid like most Americans of what was to come. Worried about what happened to those who were in the burning towers. However, I had one main thought that ran through my mind. I may have been nine but I wanted to know why this was happening. Why would someone want to destroy so many innocent lives for no purpose. People who had families and children were in those towers. I stood there with no answers to my questions. I wondered if we knew at all what the real answer was.
As an artist, Michael Moore wanted to answer these questions. He wanted to reveal to audiences what was going on and things that we did not know. He was criticizing some aspects of government during this time but I think he was mainly preserving a moment of our culture. By directing and documenting this film, he kept this moment of culture to remind us of what has happened in the past.
There are several examples that Moore uses to show his preserving of culture. Although it is sad to see, one scene is when he shows the burning of the towers. Capturing this moment allows us as an audience to remember the disaster itself. We remember and our brought to the reality of the event by facing it face to face in film. It is not the burning towers that the audience sees, we are exposed to the victim’s family members. Wives that are in grief and sadness, claiming that they do not know what to do with their lives anymore. They wanted answers and felt that they did not get them. As an audience we see this and we realize that this has been a moment of our culture. We were part of this moment and it is captured for us to see. For me, at times it was unclear because of my age but watching the film made me see the catastrophe face to face. I saw the towers burning, I heard the statistics of missing bodies. I was faced with reality because Michael Moore preserved this moment of culture.
The burning towers was not the only example of preserving culture. Michael Moore shows examples of the United States government during this time as well. Examples to show the audience that this was a government that we lived under during this time. I was speechless when I saw how much vacation time President Bush took a month before the attack. I did not know there was a warning beforehand that there would be an attack around September. This is what shocked me, that President Bush knew about this but vacationed. I did not know what to think and I am sure others felt this way too. Especially those who suffered losses during this time. How could they gather any words after seeing that possible knowledge was known about this event? How could they gather words after seeing that the president heard about the attack and did not take office? After seeing it face to face I was shocked. I did not know what to think about the government at that time because it was reality. It was not a TV station sugarcoating stories up for the audience to see.It was an artist acting as a curator of culture.
