9/11 changed the fabric of our world – and America – as we know it. The tragedy of the terrorist attacks, which killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children, had a profound effect on generations, altering the way we think, feel, and behave forever. This is not an article on how 9/11 changed politics or travel or security, but rather on the impact on Hollywood and the entertainment industry, in which we’re still seeing the effects. For many, the impact of 9/11 was truly on the rise of escapism of entertainment in general.
A year before the attacks, reality series Survivor and American Idol launched to enormous audiences. But once the towers fell, audiences soured on projects that felt too serious, looking to be entertained as a distraction. And the first boom in reality series was born. The rise of the genre really hit its stride after 9/11 when audiences were looking for brighter, more escapist fare from the bleak anti-hero dramas that were raging on broadcast and cable television like The Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield, and 24.
Over the next half decade and beyond, aspirational reality competitions, game shows, and celebrity docusoaps like Top Chef, The Apprentice, Dancing With The Stars, America’s Got Talent, Deal or No Deal, The Hills, and the Kardashians filled up the airwaves and we’re still seeing the popularity everywhere, especially on broadcast where many of those shows still exist and on streaming platforms like Netflix who are continuing to innovate the genre. It created a generation of people looking to find fame anywhere they can get it, from traditional television and film to YouTube, instagram, and TikTok. And of course, The Apprentice gave rise of the political force of Donald Trump, after he was able to spin his role in helping New York City recover to a hit tv series and subsequently the Presidency, and his hijacking of the Republican Party’s values.
Meanwhile, the anti-hero boom which was started before 9/11 with The Shield and The Sopranos, did still continue especially after the launch of the poorly timed premiere of 24. Despite the pilot featuring a commercial flight targeted and destroyed by a terrorist, the power of Jack Bauer was born. Americans were still looking for their own way of serving justice, and watching the no-nonsense, morally questionable ways that Jack Bauer looked to prevent against future attacks, made that show into a monster hit.
Without Jack Bauer, we may not have gotten Walter White or any of the countless other anti-heroes to hit our airwaves. This is still escapism – escaping our own inability to do anything in the face of unspeakable horrors that we watched anti-heroes willing to do anything to achieve their own success.
The rise of fanboy culture in mainstream culture could also be traced back to how entertainment changed after 9/11. Superheroes and fantasy – from the original Spiderman trilogy to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter became popular after audiences sought to find universes to escape the daily horrors of our own reality. This continues the theme of escapism as entertainment.
What we also saw was the mythmaking of first responders and tough men as idyllic American superheroes. The Chicago Franchise, the Law & Order franchise, Jack Bauer on 24, and the massive rise of superheroes and the dawn of the MCU is really an extension out of our own fascination with the heroics of first responders. This became intertwined with the proliferation of escapist occusoap reality series like Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch – anything that documented the real plight of the American male worker who braved dangerous conditions to take care of his family.
This was a genre that made short term fortunes for cable networks who dove deep into the portrayal of middle America – perhaps even foretelling the rise of Trumpism. And of course, it would take the events like George Floyd’s murder and the fight for social equality to once again alter the fabric of society – destroying the myth of law enforcement as the good guys.
What we also saw after 9/11, was the surge of intense patriotism and an America first mentality within entertainment, from the use of America in show titles like American Idol, America’s Got Talent, etc to making it a crime for the first decade after 9/11 to talk ill of the country (see: Dixie Chick’s cancellation). Which also mirrors the ascent of Fox News (and later by the Tea Party and subsequently Trump) by placating to the fears of the audience and creating false narratives that ultimately have inspired a generation of journalists and documentary filmmakers to seek the real truth in the noise of chaos.
Where Michael Moore was one of the few fighting the good fight, now we have countless generations of incredible filmmakers willing to wage a war against injustice, fraud, and lies in exposing the uneasy truth about our own society. Where once documentaries were wheeled out on film projectors in school, films like Fahrenheit 9/11 showed that there was a real business for people looking to share their truth. Moore’s opus grossed over $222 million worldwide.
This was a true moment for the documentary genre, and in the last two decades, we’ve seen how much of a real business this has become. Now, streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Apple, Documentary+, HBO Max showcase documentaries for audiences worldwide, all in search of real stories about real people to get people to make better sense of their own lives.
