The Path to 9/11 vs. Stuff Happens: Media and Political Efficacy in the War on Terror

Spring 2010 151 The Path to 9/11 vs. Stuff Happens: Media and Political Efficacy in the War on Terror Jay M. Gipson-King On September 10 and 11, 2006, the ABC television network aired a two part miniseries entitled The Path to 9/11, which dramatized the build up from the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Initial advertisements claimed the miniseries was “based on the 9/11 Commission Report,” and both the director and the screenwriter bragged of the film’s accuracy.1 Nine days before the miniseries aired, members of the Clinton administration caused a small controversy when they wrote a letter to ABC claiming that “the content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate,” and that, “while ABC is promoting ‘The Path to 9/11’ as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions ofAmericans.”2 Former Secretary of State MadelineAlbright and former National SecurityAdvisor Sandy Berger accused the film of slander, and average citizens wrote letters of protest by the thousands.3 Exactly two years earlier on September 10, 2004, a new play premiered at the National Theatre in London: David Hare’s Stuff Happens. The play depicts the George W. Bush administration’s push toward the invasion of Iraq, covering the period from 2001 to early 2004. It advanced what was at the time a disputed proposition, that the invasion was a premeditated affair based on fabricated evidence. The play’s opening was heralded as the return of political theatre to the London stage.4 Although there were some dissenters, it was by and large praised for its ideological balance, and even Hans Blix, the United Nations Weapons Inspector, commended its credibility.5 One Member of Parliament called it “crude propaganda,” but the worst rebuke it received was a quintessentially True Brit remark from Tony Blair to the play’s director at a cocktail party: “Well, you’re giving us a hard time, aren’t you?”6 Stuff Happens has henceforth become part of the canon of contemporary British theatre. These two historical narratives address the “war on terror” from a sweeping, top-down point of view, each taking the September 11 attacks as either the beginning or end of the dramatic conflict. Both depict high ranking government officials as their central characters—many of whom were still in office when the pieces Jay M. Gipson-King is an instructor of theatre at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon and a Ph.D. candidate at Florida State University. He has previously published on the use of time and history in the work of Timberlake Wertenbaker, and has presented on contemporary British theatre at numerous conferences, including the 2009 international Howard Barker conference in Aberystwyth, Wales. 152 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism premiered. Both possessed the potential for political controversy, as each made an implicit case either for or against the continuation of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, which was in the full throes of its anti-insurgency campaign during this time period. However, despite the similarities in content, these two pieces provoked polar opposite reactions in their respective countries, which gives rise to a series of critical paradoxes. For example, while the creators of both pieces vociferously asserted their accuracy,7 pundits lauded the play for its fairness and condemned the television program as egregiously biased. Hare’s reputation as a notorious leftist made the praise of political even-handedness for Stuff Happens even more surprising.At the same time, both narratives explicitly claimed not to be documentaries, a position that not only contradicts their insistence upon accuracy, but begs the question: if the television program had been judged by the rules of a theatrical history play, would it still have provoked such a violent reaction from members of the Clinton administration? Lastly, Stuff Happens was an epic play (both in scope and style), written by a world renowned playwright, performed on the stage of England’s National Theatre, and yet it barely caught the attention of Britain’s political leaders. The Path to 9/11, on the other hand, was...