Ritið : tímarit Hugvísindastofnunar - 01.05.2010, Blaðsíða 216

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Hér að ofan var bent á að fall Tvíburaturnanna væri ríkjandi táknmynd
fyrir hryðjuverk á Vesturlöndum en halda mætti lengra með þessar vanga-
veltur. Það má halda því fram að ellefti september sé ekki lengur táknmynd
heldur hafi umbreyst í sjálfstætt táknmið. Hér er átt við að árásirnar móta
ekki aðeins ímyndaheiminn heldur merkinguna líka. Atburðurinn verður
með öðrum orðum merkingarlegt viðmið/táknmið sem skírskotað er til
með alls kyns táknmyndum, s.s. árás marsbúanna í War of the Worlds (2005,
Steven Spielberg), aðför Jókersins að lögum og reglu í Gotham-borg í The
Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan) og fall Heimatrésins í Avatar
(2009, James Cameron), svo að dæmi séu nefnd. Þannig enduróma hryðju-
verkaárásirnar í menningunni þó svo að í umbreyttu formi sé og e.t.v. má
segja að í færslunni yfir á svið táknmiðsins rætist spádómur Baudrillards:
Hryðjuverkið er ekki aðeins rýmislaust heldur eru sjálf ummerkin um það
í sífelldri endursköpun.
ABSTRACT
The Ransacked Image: Film, Media and the Spectacle of Terrorism
The global reach of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 suggests that
Baudrillard may have been right when he outlined his Fatal Strategies. owing to
its eternal mediated return in representation, the terrorist act can no longer be
identified with a particular locus or space. It belongs to the electromagnetosphere
and media networks, and the very fragmentation and looping that makes terror
global also brings it into traumatic proximity with everyday life. In this paper, the
strategies adopted in three films, the international cooperative directorial effort
11'09''01, Paul Greengrass’ United 93 and oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, are
discussed in connection with political, practical and ethical considerations that
come to the fore when a traumatic episode of the recent past, and the most widely
observed news event in history, is represented on screen. The notion of the spec-
tacle is of central importance in this context as both the film and the terror act
depend on mediated dissemination to a target audience for their effect. In terms of
filmic representations, the employment of the indexical mimetic power inherent
to the medium to recreate a traumatic experience is highly problematic. In the
essay, therefore, the tactics of the two Hollywood films to navigate the complica-
ted terrain of a visceral, immediate representational medium, and their claim to
shape the meaning of the traumatic event, are highlighted and contrasted with the
much more ambivalent approach evident in the short films that constitute
11'09''01. Even the latter shows, however, the global desire to connect with the
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