In some ways I agree with Neil-- that it seems trivial to discuss a tragic historical event in terms of any entertainment property. But in other ways I think it's important to see how the popular images within a culture deal with death and loss-- especially violent death.

I think that the perceptions of many people now calling for bloodbaths have been shaped far more by movies, TV and video games than by actual experience of warfare. (The US is generally the Away team.) It's been remarked that seeing wars on television is a new cultural phenomenon-- I suspect that a lot of people can't tell the difference between news footage and disaster movies. Certainly the most common eyewitness description of the attack was that it was just like a movie.

-(Y)