Spectacle, Terror & Scripture: A Fact-Checked Critique of Hollywood’s Alleged Influence on 9/11
BY VCG ON 7/28/2026
A forensic examination of “How Hollywood blockbusters inspired 9/11 — and vice versa”
Soli Deo Gloria.
Let us test every claim carefully.
Hugh Linehan’s article is an engaging piece of cultural criticism, but its central causal chain—
Hollywood disaster films → al-Qaeda’s target selection → the Marvel Cinematic Universe
—is not established by the evidence presented.
The article is strongest when describing imagery and cultural mood.
It is weakest when it converts resemblance into causation, metaphor into history, and rhetorical confidence into proof.
How Hollywood blockbusters inspired 9/11 – and vice versa – The Irish Times
Executive verdict
The article contains:
Several substantially accurate observations:
the World Trade Center was a globally recognizable symbol; entertainment companies altered material after 9/11; the attacks were designed partly for enormous symbolic and media impact; later popular cinema absorbed the imagery and anxieties of terrorism.
One significant chronology problem:
the World Trade Center was selected and attacked before the 1990s films that supposedly inspired its selection.
Several unsupported causal claims:
there is no evidence cited showing that al-Qaeda’s planners derived their target choice from Independence Day, Armageddon, Fight Club, or similar films.
A misleading Spider-Man claim:
the famous Twin Towers material was principally a teaser and promotional campaign, not the movie’s “climactic scene.”
A demonstrably overbroad assertion: terrorism does not have “little or no effect” in totalitarian regimes.
A theological category error:
“Great Satan” is hostile political rhetoric, not a biblical identification of the United States.
A morally hazardous phrase:
describing 9/11 as “an act of genius” risks admiring the spectacle and ingenuity of mass murder even when the writer intends only strategic analysis.
The defensible conclusion is not that Hollywood inspired 9/11.
It is that Hollywood filmmakers and al-Qaeda’s planners independently recognized the communicative power of already-famous landmarks.
That is a common cause, not necessarily a line of influence.
1. Method: how the article should be tested
I am using five different categories, because not every sentence makes the same kind of claim.
Historical fact:
Did something happen?
Causal claim:
Did one thing produce or materially influence another?
Cultural interpretation:
What did a movie, image, or period signify?
Psychological inference:
What did viewers, filmmakers, or terrorists think and feel?
Moral or theological judgment:
Was something evil, wise, idolatrous, just, or spiritually significant?
These categories require different evidence.
Scripture can authoritatively identify murder, pride, vengeance, deceit, and hatred as sins.
It does not tell us whether a Sony executive withdrew a trailer or whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed watched a particular film.
Those historical questions require historical evidence.
For a claim that Hollywood inspired the 9/11 plan, we would need at least some of the following:
- Evidence that the planners watched the relevant films.
- Statements, notes, correspondence, or testimony connecting those films to target selection.
- A chronology in which the alleged inspiration predates the decision.
- Corroboration independent of the perpetrators’ later self-presentation.
- Evidence that the films add explanatory value beyond the towers’ pre-existing economic, architectural, and political symbolism.
The article provides none of those. It supplies visual parallels and then treats them as causal evidence.
The biblical standard applicable to the method is:
“He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” — Proverbs 18:13
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:21
“Prove” here does not mean mathematical proof in every context, but it certainly opposes accepting a striking thesis merely because it feels illuminating.
2. The headline: “Hollywood blockbusters inspired 9/11”
Verdict: Unsupported and chronologically implausible as stated
The headline asserts what the article never demonstrates.
The World Trade Center had already been attacked on February 26, 1993.
Ramzi Yousef’s intention was not merely to damage a building:
according to the FBI’s history of the case, he wanted one tower to fall into the other.
That attack occurred:
three years before Independence Day;
five years before Armageddon;
six years before Fight Club.
The 9/11 Commission’s account says that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had developed ideas involving aircraft as weapons by 1995.
It also reports that he saw New York as the United States’ economic capital and the World Trade Center as a primary target.
Thus the core target logic was present before the films Linehan emphasizes. (FBI)
This does not prove that no planner ever saw a Hollywood movie.
It does mean that those films cannot plausibly be the originating explanation for choosing the World Trade Center.
The methodological error
This is principally a post hoc narrative:
- Hollywood showed destroyed New York landmarks.
- Terrorists later destroyed a New York landmark.
- Therefore Hollywood helped inspire the attack.
But both events can be explained by a third factor:
The World Trade Center and Manhattan were already highly recognizable symbols of American economic power.
The National September 11 Memorial’s historical treatment likewise describes the Twin Towers as symbols of globalization and American economic power and connects target selection to the towers’ visibility, height, and symbolic importance. (911 Memorial)
Scripture correction
Scripture does not forbid forming hypotheses.
It forbids dishonest weights and careless testimony.
A hypothesis must not be promoted to certainty because it is rhetorically powerful.
“A faithful witness will not lie:
but a false witness will utter lies.” — Proverbs 14:5
“The simple believeth every word:
but the prudent man looketh well to his going.” — Proverbs 14:15
The author need not be deliberately lying for the reasoning to become unreliable.
Confident speculation can still convey a false degree of certainty.
3. “Did Osama bin Laden spawn the Marvel Cinematic Universe?”
Verdict: A provocative metaphor presented as a historical question
Taken literally, the answer is no.
The article supplies no evidence that bin Laden “spawned” Marvel Studios or the MCU.
The MCU resulted from a combination of:
Marvel’s decades of comic-book intellectual property;
the earlier licensing of characters to outside studios;
the decision to regain greater production control;
a major financing structure arranged in 2005;
Paramount’s distribution role;
the creative and commercial success of Iron Man;
interconnected narrative planning and character crossovers.
Marvel Studios itself existed before 9/11.
Its crucial transition into self-financed production took shape around 2004–2005, and Iron Man launched the connected film series in 2008. (Wikipedia)
It is reasonable to argue that 9/11 affected the cultural environment in which superhero films developed.
It is not reasonable to reduce the MCU’s institutional, financial, technological, and creative history to
“a problem Osama bin Laden caused.”
Better formulation
The post-9/11 cultural climate may have influenced the tone, imagery, anxieties, and political meanings attached to superhero cinema, but it did not by itself create Marvel Studios’ business model or the audience for serialized comic-book adaptations.
That is a limited, plausible influence claim rather than a monocausal origin story.
4. “The almost uncanny prefiguring” of the attacks in disaster films
Verdict: A valid observation about visual resemblance, not evidence of influence or prophecy
The images do resemble one another:
aircraft and fire around Manhattan;
collapsing or damaged landmarks;
smoke-filled urban skylines;
crowds fleeing monumental destruction.
But “prefiguring” is ambiguous. It can mean merely “an earlier image resembled a later event.”
It can also imply anticipation, causation, prophecy, or cultural preparation.
The first meaning is obvious; the stronger meanings require proof.
The psychology involved
Availability
Tversky and Kahneman used “availability” to describe how people estimate probability or importance partly by how easily examples come to mind.
Spectacular movie images and endlessly replayed news footage are highly retrievable, so the mind links them readily. (PubMed)
Representativeness
People often infer a relationship because two things resemble one another.
A terrorist attack
“looks like a movie”
therefore perhaps the movie helped produce it.
But resemblance does not identify the direction of causation.
Selection after the event
After 9/11, observers searched earlier culture for matching images.
They naturally found the closest examples and ignored the enormous number of films whose destruction scenes did not resemble 9/11.
That is a form of retrospective selection:
First, the event occurs.
Then, the archive is searched for images resembling it.
The matches feel uncanny because the nonmatches disappear from attention.
Base-rate neglect
- New York
- Washington
- Los Angeles
- London
- Paris
and other recognizable cities are repeatedly attacked in fiction because audiences identify them immediately.
Given enough disaster films, some will resemble a later catastrophe.
The resemblance is psychologically real.
The inferred causal relationship is not thereby established.
Scripture correction
There is no biblical warrant for treating cinematic resemblance as prophecy, providential coding, or evidence of hidden foreknowledge.
“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God:
but those things which are revealed belong unto us…” — Deuteronomy 29:29
The verse is not a prohibition against investigation.
It is a warning against claiming knowledge beyond what has been revealed or demonstrated.
5. Post-9/11 editing of television and film
The article says that Sex and the City and The Sopranos removed Twin Towers imagery, The Simpsons episode was withdrawn, several films were delayed, and Spider-Man material was cut.
Verdict: Mostly accurate, with an important Spider-Man correction
The Sopranos and Sex and the City
The towers were removed or replaced in opening-credit imagery after the attacks.
This is well documented. (KERA News)
The Simpsons
“The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson,”
which includes Homer moving between the towers in search of a toilet, was removed from circulation by many broadcasters after 9/11 and later returned.
Saying
“The Simpsons pulled an episode”
is broadly fair, although syndication decisions were not necessarily one uniform global act by a single broadcaster. (Wikipedia)
Delayed or altered films
This is also broadly correct.
Studios delayed releases and changed films or marketing that included terrorism, aircraft threats, the towers, or New York destruction.
Spider-Man
The article calls the web-between-the-towers sequence
“the climactic scene of the new Spider-Man movie.”
That is misleading.
The famous sequence showed Spider-Man trapping a helicopter in a web between the towers.
It appeared in a specially produced teaser trailer and related promotional imagery, which Sony withdrew after 9/11.
It was not the finished movie’s climactic sequence as ordinarily understood.
Accounts differ over whether a version had ever been contemplated for the film itself, but identifying it straightforwardly as “the climactic scene” is inaccurate. (Wikipedia)
Psychological interpretation
Removing these images did not prove that audiences would permanently reject spectacle.
It demonstrated immediate sensitivity to:
traumatic reminders;
bereavement;
perceived disrespect;
the collapse of psychological distance between fictional and real destruction.
Research following 9/11 found that repeated television exposure to the attacks was associated with greater post-traumatic stress and other adverse psychological outcomes, even among people outside the immediate attack sites.
That supports temporary caution concerning highly similar imagery.
It does not prove a permanent transformation of audience preference. (JAMA Network)
Scripture correction
There is nothing inherently wrong with temporarily withdrawing entertainment out of consideration for mourners:
“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” — Romans 12:15
But sensitivity is not the same as historical erasure, nor does Scripture impose a universal rule that every image associated with tragedy must be removed forever.
6. “It would be absurd to imagine” that Hollywood did not inform the target choice
Verdict: The article’s most serious reasoning error
“It would be absurd to imagine”
is an argument from incredulity.
The author treats his inability to imagine the contrary as evidence for his preferred explanation.
The documented explanation does not require Hollywood:
The World Trade Center was a famous economic landmark.
It had already been attacked in 1993.
The planners associated New York with American economic power.
The towers were highly visible, accessible from the air, densely occupied, and symbolically legible.
The broader target list included the Pentagon, Capitol, and White House—institutions representing military and political power, not principally Hollywood landmarks. (911 Commission)
Those facts provide a powerful explanation without supposing that blockbuster cinema materially guided the selection.
What evidence is missing?
The article gives us no statement such as:
“We selected the towers because of Independence Day.”
“Hollywood showed us how Americans understood the towers.”
“We viewed these films during operational planning.”
“Those destruction scenes informed our desired visual effect.”
Without such evidence, “inspired or informed” becomes nearly unfalsifiable.
Any awareness of American popular culture could be counted as indirect influence.
A thesis that cannot specify what evidence would disprove it is not a strong historical thesis.
Appropriate conclusion
Hollywood influence is possible in the broad sense that terrorists inhabited a world saturated with global media.
It has not been demonstrated as a material cause of target selection.
Absence of evidence does not prove impossibility.
But the burden of proof lies on the person claiming the influence.
7. The actual motives and target logic
The article heavily emphasizes American cinematic symbolism but largely omits al-Qaeda’s own ideology and publicly stated grievances.
Verdict: Materially incomplete explanation
The 9/11 Commission identifies a broader ideological and strategic context, including:
hostility toward the presence of American forces in Saudi Arabia;
opposition to U.S. policy concerning Iraq;
hostility toward U.S. support for Israel;
an extremist conception of a global struggle between believers and enemies;
the desire to attack American political, military, and economic power.
Bin Laden’s declarations long predated 9/11, and the Commission traces increasingly explicit calls for violence through the 1990s. (9/11 Commission)
This does not make the perpetrators’ grievances morally valid.
Motive is not justification.
But a serious historical explanation must distinguish:
what offenders believed;
whether those beliefs were factually accurate;
whether their actions were morally lawful.
The article instead compresses their motive into a desire to invert American entertainment imagery.
Scripture correction
Understanding an evil motive is not excusing it.
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts… murders…” — Mark 7:21
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed:
for in the image of God made he man.” — Genesis 9:6
Human life possesses dignity because man is made in God’s image.
Political resentment, perceived humiliation, or ideological conviction does not grant authority to murder civilians.
8. Disaster films “celebrated” the destruction of American symbols
Verdict: An interpretation that is partly plausible but rhetorically overstated
The films unquestionably turn urban destruction into expensive visual spectacle.
Audiences are invited to look at catastrophic images produced for excitement, awe, fear, and pleasure.
But “celebrated” is not a neutral description. It implies approval or rejoicing.
Many disaster and action films depict destruction while morally framing it as:
a calamity to be stopped;
a threat requiring sacrifice;
the work of villains or invaders;
an occasion for rescuing civilians;
a temporary breakdown followed by restored order.
Therefore:
Displaying destruction spectacularly is not necessarily the same as endorsing destruction morally.
A more defensible criticism is that such films may aestheticize destruction and insulate viewers from realistic consequences.
That can be evaluated through formal analysis: screen time devoted to victims, emotional tone, sound design, jokes, aftermath, narrative rewards, and whether the destruction is treated as loss or merely sensory stimulation.
The article performs none of that systematic analysis.
It selects a few films and assigns them a shared moral posture.
Scripture correction
The Bible itself depicts warfare, murder, mutilation, judgment, and disaster.
Depiction is therefore not automatically commendation.
The moral question is how the event is framed.
Yet Scripture warns against taking pleasure in evil:
“Charity… rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” — 1 Corinthians 13:6
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes…” — Psalm 101:3
Psalm 101:3 is not a detailed film-rating system.
Christians differ over its application to fictional violence.
The sound principle is that entertainment should be examined for what it teaches the affections to enjoy—not condemned merely because it portrays evil.
9. “The defining cultural expression” of the Clinton era
Verdict: Cultural criticism, not a verified fact
Calling these films
“the defining cultural expression”
of an era requires much more than citing several blockbusters.
A proper study would need:
a defined sample of films;
comparison with dramas, comedies, independent cinema, television, music, literature, and news;
criteria for “defining”;
audience and revenue data;
evidence connecting particular themes to post-Cold War confidence or economic conditions;
treatment of counterexamples.
The adjectives “brash, fearless, unserious” are interpretive compression.
They may capture one strand of 1990s mass entertainment, but they cannot describe the entire culture without qualification.
This is not necessarily bad writing.
Essays often use representative works to characterize a period.
The problem arises when an evocative interpretation silently becomes a historical premise in a causal argument.
10. David Thomson’s quotation
The article quotes David Thomson arguing that American culture had learned to detach spectacle from its consequences and “flirt with disaster.”
Verdict: The quotation is genuine; its application remains interpretive
Thomson did make this argument shortly after 9/11, describing the attacks in relation to the imagery of disaster cinema. (The Independent)
But quoting another critic does not independently confirm that the attackers took inspiration from Hollywood.
Thomson and Linehan are interpreting the same resemblance.
One interpretive essay cannot function as corroborating operational evidence for another.
This risks citation laundering:
- An interpretation is stated by critic A.
- Critic B quotes it.
- The quotation gives the impression that the interpretation now possesses external evidentiary support.
- But both claims originate from cultural reading, not from evidence about the perpetrators.
Thomson’s point about emotional detachment may still be insightful.
It simply answers a different question:
How had American audiences been trained to perceive images of spectacular destruction?
It does not answer:
Why did al-Qaeda select these particular targets?
11. “The Great Satan”
Verdict: A political slogan, not a biblical category
The phrase was used in anti-American Islamist political rhetoric.
It should not be allowed to control Christian theological analysis.
In Scripture, Satan is not a nation-state, economic system, film industry, or civilization. Satan is described as a personal spiritual adversary:
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” — 1 Peter 5:8
“That old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world…” — Revelation 12:9
America can commit injustice. Its policies, leaders, industries, and citizens are subject to God’s moral judgment like those of every nation.
But identifying the United States as “Satan” is not biblical discernment; it is ideological mythmaking.
The opposite error must also be avoided:
America is not the kingdom of God.
“Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world…” — John 18:36
“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” — Psalm 146:3
Biblical analysis rejects both demonization and national idolatry.
12. Predictions that the disaster movie would disappear
Verdict: The prediction was real and largely wrong
Immediately after 9/11, critics did predict that audiences would no longer tolerate images of destroyed cities and falling skyscrapers.
Linehan himself had participated in that discussion. (The Irish Times)
The prediction failed in its strong form.
Disaster imagery returned through films involving:
environmental catastrophe;
alien or monster attacks;
terrorism;
pandemics;
collapsing cities;
superhero battles;
global apocalypse.
The stronger psychological conclusion—that real catastrophe had permanently destroyed the pleasure of simulated catastrophe—confused an acute trauma response with a permanent cultural transformation.
People may simultaneously:
avoid reminders shortly after trauma;
seek fictional mastery over fear;
use fantasy for emotional regulation;
return to familiar genres after psychological distance grows;
reinterpret spectacle through new anxieties.
Human responses are not uniform.
Scripture correction
Predictions about cultural history should be made humbly:
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.” — James 4:14
This does not prohibit forecasting.
It rebukes presumptuous certainty about an uncertain future.
13. Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings
The article suggests that their success represented a post-9/11 desire for gentleness, empathy, human scale, and refuge in fantasy.
Verdict: The commercial success is true; the psychological explanation is unproven
Both franchises became enormously successful.
But that does not show that their success was caused by 9/11.
The chronology is important.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone began production in September 2000, a year before the attacks.
The first Lord of the Rings trilogy principal photography began in 1999.
Their existence, release strategy, underlying audiences, and large investments were already in place. (Time)
9/11 could have influenced how viewers received them, but that is a different and narrower proposition.
Nor are these works simply “gentle” refuges:
The Lord of the Rings concerns war, death, temptation, tyranny, sacrifice, corruption, and the apparent end of civilizations.
Harry Potter increasingly concerns murder, authoritarianism, prejudice, propaganda, betrayal, and sacrificial death.
Their appeal might involve moral clarity, friendship, providence, courage, belonging, world-building, pre-existing readership, marketing, technological spectacle, or many interacting factors.
To establish the article’s theory, researchers would need contemporaneous audience surveys, viewing motivations, comparative genre performance, and controls for prior franchise popularity.
Box-office success alone cannot reveal the audience’s psychological motive.
14. “Within a year or two Manhattan was back under cinematic attack”
Verdict: Directionally correct but imprecise and selectively framed
Urban destruction did return.
The article is also reasonable in observing that some post-9/11 films became darker and more anxious about:
terrorism;
government surveillance;
militarization;
viruses;
ecological collapse;
loss of civil liberties.
But
“the fun seemed to have gone out of it”
is not consistently true. Post-9/11 cinema continued to use destruction for excitement, humor, catharsis, and marketable spectacle.
Scholarly analysis of disaster cinema has found substantial continuity in disaster conventions rather than a clean disappearance of the older form. (Sage Journals)
What a proper content analysis would require
To test whether the tone truly changed, researchers would code pre- and post-9/11 films for:
civilian death shown or implied;
comic dialogue during destruction;
time devoted to aftermath;
government competence or corruption;
identifiable terrorist imagery;
camera identification with victims or attackers;
restoration of normality;
frequency of destroyed American landmarks;
emotional tone of the musical score;
ratings and audience demographics.
The article gives illustrative examples, not a representative study.
That is acceptable for criticism so long as the language remains
“I perceive a shift,”
not
“this is the established trajectory of the medium.”
15. “Marvel fixed the problem Osama bin Laden had caused”
Verdict: A memorable phrase with almost no explanatory precision
What exactly was the “problem”?
Possible meanings include:
realistic urban destruction had become too painful;
audiences wanted fantasy with recognizable locations;
standalone action films had lost cultural innocence;
viewers wanted destruction contained by morally reassuring heroes;
studios needed a reusable franchise architecture;
filmmakers needed a way to depict mass catastrophe without reproducing 9/11 directly.
These are different hypotheses.
The article does not select one and test it.
Moreover, the MCU did not stop depicting devastated cities.
It repeatedly featured:
aerial attacks;
collapsing buildings;
mass casualties;
extraterrestrial invasions;
militarized responses;
surveillance;
catastrophic threats to New York and other major cities.
Marvel did not remove the spectacle.
It placed spectacle inside a serialized moral universe populated by recurring heroes.
That may have created greater emotional containment:
- The threat is enormous.
- Recognizable heroes confront it.
- The audience expects survival, continuity, and another installment.
- Destruction becomes part of a stable franchise rather than an encounter with uncontrollable reality.
That is a plausible psychological interpretation.
It is not evidence that Marvel “solved” something historically caused by bin Laden.
16. Iron Man: “an arms manufacturer as its hero”
Verdict: Factually true but narratively tendentious
Tony Stark begins the movie as a wealthy arms manufacturer.
The film also opens amid the Afghanistan war.
But the description omits the central moral reversal:
Stark encounters the human consequences of his weapons, announces that his company will stop producing weapons, and turns against the system from which he benefited.
One can reasonably criticize the film for:
centering redemption on the powerful manufacturer rather than victims;
transforming war into an individual technological adventure;
preserving fantasies of benevolent private military power;
replacing institutional accountability with one exceptional billionaire.
But
“an arms manufacturer as its hero”
implies that arms manufacturing itself is the heroic quality.
The story presents it as a compromised identity from which the protagonist turns—however incompletely.
This is a recurring problem in the article:
accurate descriptive details are arranged to imply a stronger moral conclusion than the plot itself establishes.
17. “Spectacular terrorist attacks are essentially media products”
Verdict: Contains an important insight, but “essentially” is reductionistic
Terrorism often possesses a communicative dimension.
Attackers may seek:
publicity;
fear beyond the direct victims;
recruitment;
polarization;
political concessions;
retaliation and overreaction;
demonstration of state weakness;
symbolic humiliation;
attention for an ideology.
Empirical research indicates that increased media attention can affect terrorist incentives.
One study found evidence that greater television coverage was associated with subsequent al-Qaeda attacks, using competing news events to help identify the effect. (IDEAS/RePEc)
But a terrorist attack is not merely a media product.
It is also:
homicide and bodily injury;
coercive political action;
destruction of property;
organizational signaling;
psychological warfare;
sometimes an attempt to provoke civil conflict or state repression.
“Media product” describes part of the delivery mechanism and intended amplification.
It does not define the whole act.
Calling terrorism “essentially” media also risks making murdered persons sound like props in an aesthetic performance—the very detachment the article elsewhere condemns.
Scripture correction
The victims must remain morally central:
“These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood…” — Proverbs 6:16–17
“The LORD trieth the righteous:
but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.” — Psalm 11:5
The attack transmitted a message, but the moral essence of the act was not media production.
It was the intentional shedding of innocent blood.
18. “They have little or no effect inside totalitarian regimes”
Verdict: False or seriously overstated
Media control can reduce an attacker’s access to national publicity.
An authoritarian government may censor information, suppress casualty figures, block manifestos, or prevent public discussion.
But that does not mean terrorism has little or no effect there.
Terrorism occurs under democratic, hybrid, authoritarian, and highly repressive regimes.
Its effects can include:
deaths and injuries;
elite fear;
military mobilization;
emergency powers;
ethnic or religious repression;
displacement;
changes in policing;
internal factional struggle;
foreign intervention;
propaganda by the state;
greater censorship.
Research on regime type and terrorism does not support the article’s categorical dismissal.
Some theories predict more attacks in democracies because of openness; others predict fewer because peaceful political access reduces incentives.
Empirical work finds a more complicated relationship depending on regime structure, political access, state capacity, and type of attack. (Cambridge University Press)
Even when an attack does not achieve mass-media circulation, it may still coerce local populations, intimidate officials, provoke repression, or strengthen insurgent control.
The article confuses limited publicity with limited effect.
19. “The attacks of 9/11 were an act of genius”
Verdict: Strategically understandable language, morally and analytically ill-chosen
The operation demonstrated:
extended planning;
coordination;
target symbolism;
exploitation of civilian aviation;
anticipation of live news;
intentional production of cascading shock.
One can analyze enemy competence without admiring evil.
Military and intelligence work often requires accurately assessing an opponent’s capabilities.
But “genius” ordinarily carries admiration.
It aestheticizes creativity and risks repeating the perpetrators’ desired self-image:
a small vanguard humiliating a superpower through spectacular violence.
Better terms include:
“highly coordinated”
“strategically theatrical”
“catastrophically effective at producing immediate shock”
“a carefully planned act of mass murder.”
Scripture correction
Biblical wisdom is never merely cleverness that successfully achieves an aim:
“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated…” — James 3:17
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil…” — Isaiah 5:20
The perpetrators displayed cunning.
Scripture distinguishes cunning from wisdom.
Successful wickedness does not become wisdom because it is technically sophisticated.
20. “A nihilistic death cult”
Verdict: Morally forceful but psychologically imprecise
Al-Qaeda glorified martyrdom, authorized mass murder, and cultivated a religious ideology that treated death in violence as redemptive.
“Death cult” expresses the horrifying moral character of this.
“Nihilistic,” however, is less accurate.
Philosophical nihilism denies meaning or objective value.
Al-Qaeda did not claim that nothing mattered.
It asserted an intensely moralized, absolutist worldview involving:
divine command as it construed it;
sacred territory;
communal humiliation;
purification;
apocalyptic struggle;
martyrdom;
restoration of a political-religious order.
Its evil was not an absence of professed meaning. It was a corrupted and murderous system of meaning.
Psychological caution
Terrorists should not simply be diagnosed as insane, irrational, or possessed of a single “terrorist personality.”
Research repeatedly warns that there is no universal terrorist psychological profile.
Radicalization can involve varying combinations of:
identity and belonging;
grievance;
perceived humiliation;
group loyalty;
sacred values;
status and significance;
social networks;
ideological indoctrination;
moral disengagement;
obedience and conformity;
dehumanization of outsiders.
Official and scholarly reviews caution against expecting one reliable personality template capable of identifying terrorists. (National Institute of Justice)
Calling the organization evil is a moral judgment supported by its acts.
Calling every member psychologically identical is not supported.
Scripture correction
Scripture locates evil not in a special subhuman class but in fallen human hearts:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:
who can know it?” — Jeremiah 17:9
This does not erase differences in guilt or danger.
It prevents self-righteous anthropology in which “they” are monsters by nature and “we” are inherently incapable of comparable sin.
21. “The relatively recent arrival of live satellite television”
Verdict: Historically inaccurate or badly phrased
Live satellite television was not a recent arrival in 2001.
Telstar enabled the first live transatlantic television transmission in 1962.
CNN began continuous cable news operations in 1980.
The 1991 Gulf War had already demonstrated the political and cultural importance of near-real-time global television news.
By September 2001, global cable and satellite news was mature, not newly arrived. (NASA)
The genuinely important point is that 9/11 exploited a mature global broadcasting infrastructure, combined with:
multiple live cameras;
morning television audiences;
rapid rebroadcast;
24-hour news;
worldwide television networks;
an emerging internet news environment.
Many viewers saw the second impact live because coverage had begun after the first crash.
The event consequently unfolded in real time before a global audience.
So the correction is:
Not
“the recent arrival of satellite television,”
but
“the unprecedented concentration of mature global live-news systems on one unfolding attack.”
22. Did 9/11 “succeed”?
Verdict: Impossible to answer without specifying the objective
The article speaks of the “success” of the act of murder.
Success can mean several different things.
Tactical success
The hijackers reached most of their intended targets and caused mass casualties and destruction.
In that restricted sense, the operation was tactically successful.
Media and psychological success
It captured worldwide attention, generated enduring fear, and made the perpetrators globally known.
In that sense, it achieved immense communicative impact.
Provocation success
It helped provoke wars, emergency laws, surveillance expansion, political polarization, and prolonged military commitments.
Whether all of these were intended at the same level is more difficult to establish.
Strategic success
Did al-Qaeda achieve its long-term political objectives?
That is a much more contested question.
Tactical shock does not automatically equal strategic victory.
The methodological rule is:
Before declaring an action “successful,” identify the actor’s objective, the relevant time horizon, and the measurable outcome.
Otherwise “success” merely means
“it produced terrible consequences,”
which is not analytically sufficient.
Moral distinction
To acknowledge tactical effectiveness is not to grant moral success.
Scripture does not measure righteousness by immediate worldly results:
“Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.” — Psalm 37:1
Evil may prosper temporarily without being vindicated.
23. The article’s deepest psychological mechanism
The most defensible psychological thesis in the article is not that movies caused 9/11. It is this:
Terrorists and entertainment producers both understand that familiar symbols can concentrate emotion and attention.
That mechanism has several parts.
Symbolic compression
A recognizable landmark can convey many meanings at once:
nation;
economic power;
military power;
modernity;
security;
prestige;
collective identity.
An attack on a symbol communicates beyond the physical damage.
Vicarious vulnerability
People thousands of miles away may experience a landmark attack as an assault on their own assumed safety.
Repetition and memory consolidation
Repeated broadcast can intensify memory and emotional salience.
The footage becomes not only a record of the event but part of the event’s prolonged psychological effect.
Post-9/11 studies found associations between repeated media exposure and distress. (JAMA Network)
Mortality salience
Reminders of death can affect political judgment, group attachment, hostility toward outsiders, and preferences for forceful leadership.
Research conducted after 9/11 found that mortality reminders could influence support for leaders and counterterrorism policies. (Rutgers Scholarship Portal)
Narrative restoration
Heroic films can offer an emotionally manageable structure:
- catastrophe begins;
- chaos threatens the community;
- identifiable heroes intervene;
- evil is personified;
- sacrifice restores order;
- the story ends meaningfully.
Real catastrophe rarely provides such closure.
Superhero cinema may therefore function as imaginative mastery over uncontrollable danger.
That is a credible psychological interpretation of post-9/11 popular culture.
It remains different from saying bin Laden created Marvel.
24. The biblical treatment of victims and catastrophe
A particularly relevant passage is Christ’s reference to another fallen tower:
“Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” — Luke 13:4–5
Several corrections follow.
Do not infer the victims were specially wicked
Christ directly rejects the inference that those killed by a falling tower were worse sinners than others.
Therefore Christians should resist claims that the 9/11 victims died because they personally deserved that particular fate more than others.
Do not confuse explanation with divine authorization
The terrorists’ ideology, American foreign policy, security failures, and target symbolism may be historically investigated.
None of these makes the murder divinely lawful.
Catastrophe calls the living to repentance
Christ turns the question away from speculative ranking of victims and toward the hearer’s own standing before God.
Do not appoint ourselves inspired interpreters of providence
We may state what Scripture clearly teaches:
God is sovereign, murder is evil, human life bears God’s image, judgment is real, and all people need repentance.
We should not claim revelation that God destroyed the towers to punish a particular policy, industry, political party, ethnic group, sexual sin, economic system, or nation unless Scripture itself authorizes that specific interpretation.
It does not.
25. Christian response to terrorists and national retaliation
Scripture does not require moral neutrality about the murderers.
It also rejects private vengeance and hatred.
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath:
for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” — Romans 12:19
“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” — Romans 12:21
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…” — Matthew 5:44
These passages do not settle every question about civil government, policing, military force, or national defense.
Romans 13 treats the civil magistrate differently from private vengeance.
But they do forbid Christians from cultivating personal bloodlust, ethnic hatred, indiscriminate retaliation, or pleasure in suffering.
The biblical position is neither:
“The murderers had legitimate grievances, so their act was understandable,”
nor
“Because they committed evil, every act done against their people or country is righteous.”
Justice must distinguish the guilty from the innocent.
26. Final corrected thesis
Here is the strongest version of what the article could responsibly have argued:
Hollywood did not demonstrably inspire al-Qaeda to attack the World Trade Center. The target’s economic and symbolic significance was established long before the disaster films commonly cited, and it had already been attacked in 1993. Both blockbuster filmmakers and terrorists recognized the power of globally legible landmarks, producing disturbing visual parallels without proving direct influence.
After 9/11, American entertainment briefly withdrew imagery closely associated with the attacks, then gradually reincorporated urban destruction into darker disaster films and serialized superhero narratives. The MCU did not simply “solve” a problem created by bin Laden, but it offered audiences recurring heroes, moral structure, continuity, and imagined control within a culture deeply marked by terrorism, war, surveillance, and insecurity.
Terrorism uses media amplification, but it is not merely a media product. The attacks were strategically theatrical acts of mass murder, not “genius” in any morally meaningful sense. Their perpetrators possessed a coherent but radically corrupted ideology rather than simple nihilism. The proper Christian response is to condemn the shedding of innocent blood, refuse national idolatry and enemy dehumanization, test historical claims honestly, mourn with sufferers, pursue justice, and avoid claiming divine explanations that Scripture has not revealed.
Bottom line
The article recognizes a real feedback loop of symbols:
popular culture shapes how catastrophe is imagined, and real catastrophe later reshapes popular culture.
But it does not prove its much stronger claim:
that Hollywood blockbusters materially inspired the planning or target selection of 9/11.
The distinction is decisive.
Visual correspondence is not documentary evidence; cultural atmosphere is not operational causation; cleverness is not wisdom; and a compelling story is not necessarily a true one.
Spectacle, Terror & Scripture: A Fact-Checked Critique of Hollywood’s Alleged Influence on 9/11