In a dark auditorium surrounded by people who had all been cabinmates on a hellish 12-day emotional journey, we clapped and cheered as professional dancers from Atlanta strutted, twirled, jumped and preened. It was high art, and the ability to create and enjoy this celebration of discipline, strength and spirit is what makes us human, what separates us from the simpler ways of animals.

In that darkness, though, my mind still raced to the towers, to the airliners, to the aftermath. As I write this, two weeks have passed since the tragic attacks, two weeks of anguish, anger and confusion, and still it seems a minor brand of treason to write of anything else, to elevate any other subject above this one.

It’s not that we, as a country, aren’t moving on. We are. But the Seinfeld-esque entertainment culture we have created just won’t do anymore. Irony and cute word play about “deep” subjects like body sounds and haircuts are not on anyone’s mind. Movies focusing on carnage and violent music lyrics, in the face of some 6,000 innocent deaths, just won’t do.

But we are told to move on, and most of us feel the need to do so. Secretary of State Colin Powell said toward the end of an interview on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning that “We’ve got to get back to work. We’ve got to get back to our ball games. We’ve got to get back to our theaters. We’ve got to get this economy moving again. And that will be the best answer to what happened.”

He’s right. The question isn’t if we will move on. We will. But where will we go? Ours is a culture where the freedom to be tasteless has almost taken over the entertainment industry, where low-brow, cynical fare makes the most money and attracts the largest audiences. In many cases, our freedom leads us to the gutter, and we gladly stumble into it like a helpless drunk.

The effects of the Sept. 11 attacks are rippling through nearly every aspect of our pop culture. Not only are television and movie studios reassessing their planned releases and their scripts, but The New York Times says novelists, playwrights and composers are worried about subject matter. A story in The Christian Science Monitor reports that one national radio station chain sent out a list to its affiliates of 150 songs that, for now, were deemed inappropriate. Among them were R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” the Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash,” and, for whatever reason, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

As we mourn and prepare for a war that no one can envision, artists have no idea of how far they can go or how much to hold back. The normal challenge — for artists and the entire entertainment industry — of engaging the public without insulting them or drifting into irrelevancy has suddenly become much more difficult. Two weeks ago bad taste was funny. Now, it is anything but.

Sports have become among the most addictive of American diversions, and I found myself wrapped up with a sick child on Sunday while professional football players plied their trade on the tube. Unlike art — which is often made great by its ability to first offend and then to eventually bring the world into a new focus — these men could pay their respects without worrying about content. Two weeks ago their arenas seemed a kind of symbolic battlefield, a place where violent yet honest emotions clashed. Sunday the turf in the Georgia Dome could have been someone’s backyard, and the men draped in gaudy uniforms and running around were entertaining but, really, completely insignificant.

In the post-terrorist attack USA, self-absorbed hipness has been jolted from its perch as the ascending light in the entertainment world. For at least a few weeks, we can reflect on the emptiness of our pop culture that just a few weeks ago seemed so fun and important. We will move on, and perhaps we will reach higher ground.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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