Takeshi's 9.11

[Mark Nornes]

I don't think KineJapan has ever picked up the topic of 9/11, so I 
guess this anniversary is as good a time as any. It's the Saturday 
evening of the anniversary here in Tokyo, and Takeshi is shikai for a 
program commemorating the incident.

Before I go any further, let me tell you about my Fahrenheit 911 
experience.  I watched it opening night in Tokushima, a relaxing 
evening after several exhausting days of Awaodori. We went with an old 
classmate of my wife's and her husband, a well-known glass artist. 
(There were only about 20 people in the theater, but they say it's 
hitting in Tokyo and Osaka.) After the film we retreated to our 
friends' home. The artist, a lefty of Zenkyoto heritage, immediately 
began raving about something he felt was missing from the film----the 
obvious fact that no plane hit the Pentagon. I thought I wasn't 
understanding his Japanese, but after pressing him with some questions 
it became evident that he was quite serious. I dismissed it as 
conspiracy theory, teaching him that new tango. He expressed deep 
disappointment with me; wasn't it obvious that someone in the 
government wanted the Pentagon attacked for the perfect pretense to 
launch a world war? I told him it was crazy and tried changing topics, 
suggesting we just stick to the film. He refused. I threatened to 
leave. My wife actually stood up and started for the door. We went back 
and forth for a little bit longer, and I finally said, "OK, so who did 
it." "The Jews," he replied. And once he got that out of his system he 
allowed us to change the topic. This was all deeply disturbing and 
perplexing, and when he dropped us off that night he apologized and 
said, "Sorry about all that. You know, I was brought up in a Catholic 
school, so they probably drilled that kind of thing deeply into us. I 
can't help it."  Right.

The next day, I typed "pentagon 911 no airplane" in Google and found a 
nether world of conspiracy theories that were completely off my radar.  
His particularly theory seems to have come from a French book that got 
reported who knows where in Japan. (Here is the Japanese site that 
seems to have attracted some attention: 
http://homepage.mac.com/ehara_gen/jealous_gay/final_answer.html)

Back to Takeshi's "Beat Takeshi Konna hazu de wa!!"  last night. He was 
hosting a program commemorating 911. Unfortunately---or perhaps 
fortunately----my son and I were battling over the television so we 
switched back and forth between this show and a Doraemon tape so I 
didn't see that much. What caught my eye initially, however, were these 
recreations of the scenes inside the three airplanes (this makes me 
recall a post a ways back by Anne about fear-inspiring reality shows). 
They had several Middle-Eastern men with red bandanas on their heads 
going crazy in the planes, putting box cutters to the necks of blond 
flight attendants, and storming the cockpits. Cut to the planes 
crashing into the WTC from multiple angles. I don't know how television 
commemorated the attacks in the US, but it was clear they were being 
careful from the first day when they quickly stopped showing the 
jumpers, then stopped repeating the buildings crashing, and now you've 
got Moore's film which only represents the attacks through sound. Here 
you had reenactments, with Pontecorvo-like photography, and shrill 
music in the background.

Once I got beyond this, I realized that they were introducing that 
artist's conspiracy theories, one after the other. This was in the 
usual evening talk-show format. You had a panel of talent who would 
watch prerecorded segments. These would be a mix of reenactments and 
documentary interviews that forwarded an argument. Cut back to the 
talent, who go "OOOO, AAAAAh," talk about how they never realized and 
how awful all that is.

All this is rather astounding to me. Giving these conspiracy theories 
this kind of respectful, prime-time attention is about as tasteless a 
thing I've seen on Japanese television. It doesn't say much for the 
people that accepted the invitation to participate in the show.

The other interesting thing about this was that a large portion of the 
documentary footage they used came straight from the Moore film. The 
impression it left was that these conspiracy theories had Moore's stamp 
of approval, and thus were the subject concern for all Americans. The 
reception of Fahrenheit 911 is very complex. To get a feel for it, all 
you have to do is look at their chirashi or website 
(http://www.kashi911.com/opinion.htm), both of which use PR quotes from 
the likes of Kobayashi Yoshinori (mixed in with YOU, Sato Eriko, 
Asakusa Kiddo, and Dave Specter).

What's crazy is that they could have made the same kind of program 
using the 9/11 Commission's report, which I guess says a lot about 
where we are in America these days.

Markus


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