post-9/11 Rob-aganda
Remember Me (2010)
Remember Me (2010)
Robert Pattinson’s post-9/11 propaganda movie is bad for several reasons
Still from Remember Me (2010). Image from Letterboxd.
American nationalist mythology persists at least in part due to institutional efforts to decontextualize (and therefore depoliticize) history. Though I believe the state wields its authority regardless of the consent of the people living there (manufactured or otherwise), ideological work is nevertheless expedient for the unopposed perpetuation of conservative policymaking in the United States. The people in power know this, and they prioritize it; consider, for example, the 1776 Project, the failed Trump public education curriculum with the stated goal of delivering a “patriotic” education.
The work of decontextualization in service of national interest is not limited to state forces, however. Cultural institutions do this work all the time. Remember Me (2010) is an example of the work of political decontextualization in action: a post-9/11 propaganda film overwrought with melodrama in order to manipulate its audience into feeling personal grief about 9/11, while at the same time completely removing the event itself from its political context.
The plot of this film is so convoluted and dramatic, it’s actually pretty funny. I’ll try to be succinct about explaining it: Tyler (Robert Pattinson, LOL) is traumatized because he witnessed his brother’s suicide, and he also has a poor relationship with his dad. Tyler and his roommate get in a bar fight, and he gets arrested. His roommate comes up with a bizarre plan to “get revenge” on the cop who arrested them by having Tyler date the cop’s daughter Ally (Emilie de Ravin) and then break her heart (why??). Ally is also traumatized because she witnessed her mother’s death when she was a child, and also her cop dad hits her in one scene (this is never addressed again?). Tyler and Ally fall in love. When Ally finds out that it was all a set-up, they break up. There’s a side plot where Tyler’s little sister gets bullied at school. Then, just as things are seeming to look up for all of our characters, the reveal: Tyler’s dad works in the World Trade Center. Tyler dies in 9/11.
It’s a stupid and unnecessarily complex story, and ultimately, there is nothing particularly coherent or meaningful about any of the numerous tragedies the characters face — only that they happen. Ally’s father is a cop, and Tyler is arrested, but there is little to say about the way that the criminal justice treats people. Even the central traumas for Tyler and Ally (the deaths of family members) are considered as being equivalent and therefore a source of connection, despite the fact that the circumstances of each death are wildly different.
The effect of this string of increasingly soapy, forced, dramatic plot events is to frame 9/11 as just one of several disconnected everyday tragedies. The message is that loss strikes from anywhere, out of the blue, and to savor each moment and be your best self because life is fragile. In effect, the film takes a vastly political moment, brought about by years of U.S. foreign policy decisions that impoverished and destabilized a region, and then asserts that individual, American grief is the primary means for understanding it.
The film is effective as a propaganda tool, because for most people in the United States, the appropriate social response for talking about 9/11 is a kind of uncomfortable, nebulous but nonetheless mandatory grief. Remember Me allows its audience to grieve someone specific but fictional, maintaining a healthy distance from the real people involved, and ultimately reconfiguring the events of 9/11 within a narrative of personal, inevitable tragedy rather than understanding it as a preventable political act.
Oh shit, oh fuck, get out of there, Rob! Image from WhatCulture.
But what’s most funny about this movie (and perhaps where it fails as propaganda) is that it’s insulting for people who object to nationalistic American propaganda, but perhaps equally so, it is insulting for those who are quite solemn about 9/11. The film is so invested in manipulating its audience in the cheapest ways possible, it’s hard to not feel slightly queasy on behalf of people who actually had loved ones die in 9/11. Their (very real) personal grief is put on display in the most grotesque manner imaginable, their emotional trauma made public for an audience to gawk at and pretend at understanding.
While I’ve read this movie as a propaganda tool so far, there’s another lens with which we could understand the purpose of this film: an investment to make money. Remember Me seems to be the project of a director and a studio so absolutely determined to manipulate its audience, that they just keep one-upping the tragedies (suicide! murder! abuse! breakups!) until they show you the most emotional, most heightened catastrophic event they can think of: 9/11.
Remember Me and movies like it are made from the worst creative impulses of Hollywood coming together to make something truly, artlessly terrible. At its core, Remember Me is a tool to 1) perpetuate American nationalist ideology by means of decontextualizing a traumatic political event and 2) make money playing cheaply to audience’s emotions. Available to stream on Netflix.
What’s Next
Raw (2016). Body horror and feminism, baby! My two favs.
What else am I watching?
Living a life of variety: Space Jam (1996). Mandy (2018). The Exorcist (1973). And all the World of Tomorrow short films!