Dealing with personal tragedy is something we all must do at some point in our lives. The reflective nature of pop culture inevitably forces us to relive whatever pain we've endured. If your father died of a heart attack, it's going to hurt anytime you see a movie character clutch his chest and fall to the ground. It's not only impractical, it's politically correct to the extreme to expect that any film should take the feelings of every potential patron into consideration.
But with a collective tragedy like 9/11, do the honchos behind big pop-cultural projects need to be more careful? Perhaps "World Trade Center" would feel less crass had it been given a more poetic title, something underscoring the theme of courage and survival — too bad "The Lord of the Rings" already claimed "Two Towers," which could've served as a metaphor for the courage of the WTC cops while retaining that all-important immediate name recognition.
And don't get us started on the use of Coldplay music in its advertising and the "WTC" MySpace page.
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