Twenty-Five years later, Hollywood is giving 9/11 the silent treatment, and its making us less safe

I am a historian, but you dont need a PhD to realize that Americans and Brits learn most of what we know about the world from the movies.

When most people think about World War II, for example, we think about the first few minutes of Stephen Spielbergs Saving Private Ryan, or this summer, we are discovering the critical role of the chief Allied meteorologist, Captain James Stagg, through the new film, Pressure. We learned all about Vietnam from Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. And Glory did more to make the Civil War feel accessible and immediate than even the best histories on that seminal conflict.

Which is why its not only dispiriting but, frankly, deeply concerning that even now, a quarter of a century later, weve had so few movies about the attacks of September 11, 2001.

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True, Oliver Stone gave us World Trade Center, and Paul Greengrass United 93, both celebrations of ordinary Americans making extraordinary sacrifices on that fateful day. But other than these two dramas and a handful of notable documentaries, the great cultural machine that, for nearly a century, had told us the stories we needed to hear to make sense of ourselves and the world went largely silent. In fact, the last feature film on 9/11 was made over a decade ago, with none currently in the pipeline.

Why?

Its a fascinating question, one thats likely to keep future historians busy.

You can blame it on progressive sensibilities, a DEI mindset, and not wanting to risk being accused of Islamophobia by producing movies that make Muslims look like the bad guys.

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You can blame it on post-modernism, which favors irony and metaphor over direct engagement with difficult topics. When asked why hed never made a movie about 9/11, for example, Spielberg replied that he had: 2005s War of the Worlds, which features many scenes of urban devastation, but which does very little to help us think seriously about one of the most challenging moments in American history.

You can blame it on the way movies are financed these days, with money coming in from investors all over the world, including from countries that arent really interested in heralding the values of the West.

But whatever the reason, the bottom line remains the same: By failing to make movies that grapple with the reasons for and the responses to 9/11, Hollywood has made America and its allies weaker, more vulnerable and less safe.

How so? Let us count the ways.

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First, look at the rates of enlistment to the U.S. armed forces. In 1986, for example, Navy recruiters saw a whopping 500% spike in young people eager to enlist — they had all watched Top Gun and left the theater thinking that naval service was not just worthy but desirable. Enlistment numbers remained solid throughout the 1990s and immediately after 9/11, b