Six Unhinged Tributes to 9/11
First of all, can we discuss what a strange phrase “9/11 tribute” is to be used so broadly?
Obviously anyone with a brain cell realizes it’s a tribute to the victims, but grammatically, it almost sounds like the other way around. All I’m saying is, let’s be a little more selective about saying that it’s a tribute to the victims and first responders lost on 9/11. If I said I was “doing a tribute to the Oklahoma City bombing,” my door would be off its hinges in seconds.
Though maybe the slightly confusing verbiage is a good match for the way that we as a country dealt with the tragedy of 9/11. It was such a horrible event that, even now, people have a tough time knowing exactly how to talk about it in a serious sense. It doesn’t help that it’s become an edgy comedy touchstone. Every once in a while, though, a post, product or performance meant to be sincere ends up being incredibly, incredibly weird instead.
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Here are six of those…
This Strange Toddler Gymnastics Handout
Moving past the base weirdness of having two bears smiling about 9/11 as well as the idea that gymnastics somehow supports the troops, the fact that this is delivered to toddlers is patently strange. I feel like, outside of some insanely patriotic families, there’s a good chance that this is going to be a toddler’s introduction to the events of 9/11. I know kids come home from school with tough questions sometimes, but you’d like to think that doesn’t extend to gymnastics class. It’s supposed to just be someone watching them do somersaults so their parents can catch up on a crime drama.
The Infamous 9/11 Commemorative Cheese Plate
The idea of 9/11 merchandise is delicate at best. If you insist on selling, for profit, items made possible by mass death, I’d highly recommend keeping the tone as somber as possible. Overall, do I think the phrase “9/11 Memorial Museum Gift Shop” should exist? Probably not. Given that it does, though, you should draw the line on your offerings before you get to a U.S.-shaped cheese plate with the locations of the attacks marked on it with stars.
Medieval Times Breaks Continuity to Honor 9/11
When it comes to social media posts about 9/11 from brands, the two words that immediately come to mind are “unforced error.” In fact, there’s probably no better way to honor the tragedy of 9/11 than for brands to turn off their Hootsuite auto-poster for 24 hours. Instead, brands, time and again, feel like the public is clamoring for a canned pasta-ring's take on tragedy. What makes this post, by jousting restaurant Medieval Times, so strange is that it also shatters their own universe. They might as well have an actor playing Nostradamus walk out during a show on 9/11 and warn of “a great horror years from now, two steel birds.”
The Washington Football Team’ s Commemorative 9/11 Hats
Washington Football Team
The 9/11 gift shop’s cheese plate debacle can be chalked up to a momentary lapse in judgment, with their hearts in the right place. I heavily hesitate to give that benefit of the doubt to famously horrible man and ex-owner of the Washington football team, Dan Snyder. Five years after 9/11, long enough that there really wasn’t a heavy need to lean back into it, the team released 9/11 branded merch. Merch that clearly appeared to be unsold hats with a U.S. flag-pattern-filled Pentagon logo on the side. The proceeds went to charity, at least.
Oh wait, they seemingly didn't. Instead, they were fed into the coffers of an NFL team, one of the most profitable business ventures in the developed world.
Osama Bin Laden Gun Range Targets
Unsurprisingly, 9/11 was met with a lot of anger. I’m not going to sit here and act like people should have stayed level-headed in the aftermath of a world-shaking event. I’m also not going to argue that Osama bin Laden didn’t deserve a thorough ass-kicking. There were a lot of missteps and overreactions made in the fury following 9/11, but Seal Team Six murking that guy isn’t one of them.
Still, the overwhelmingly popularity of Osama bin Laden-printed gun range targets for years after 9/11? Not good for the soul. It’s a level of vengeful rage that would make Arya Stark say, “Hey, this is a bad sign for your mental health."
The Iraq War
Probably should have slept on this one.
