SEX, BOMBS & BURGERS

This blog may be one-third about war, but that doesn't mean I always have to stick to real war. Today, I'm posting about my favourite fictional war, or wars, to be more accurate. Star Wars, to be exact!

Somebody posted the video below on Facebook the other day, and I laughed myself silly. It's three stormtroopers talking about their own personal September 11, the destruction of the Death Star (the first one). It's satire at its finest, with the troopers quoting many of the same lines and conspiracy theories we've heard in the eight years since the real September 11. My favourite is the theory that the Emperor was secretly behind the Death Star's destruction just so he would have an excuse to invade Hoth. "Jedis - they hate our way of life."



Now, to quote Lance Storm, if I could be serious for a minute...

Like many people, deep down, I still find 9/11 humour a little unsettling. Three years ago, when I was working at the National Post, I had the privilege of going down to New York to cover the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. I interviewed the heads of two financial companies - Cantor Fitzgerald and Alger Management - that had been all but wiped out, yet against the odds they had managed to survive and rebuild.

Interviewing their respective CEOs, Howard Lutnick and Dan Chung, was a profound experience. During our talks, these two grown men became very emotional and came close to tears as they told stories of their slain friends and colleagues. As a business/tech reporter, you don't often experience real emotion on the job, so the interviews moved me pretty deeply. Although I didn't lose anyone I knew in the attacks, they did become a little more real for me.

I wish I could link to that story as I think it was one of the best things I've written, but alas, it has somehow been scrubbed from internet history (perhaps if any Posties are reading this, they can help out?).

In any event, the beauty of comedy is that above all, it is a medium of truth. Just as court jesters were the only ones allowed to tell the truth in medieval times without fear of execution, so too are today's comedians and satirists the people we rely on to express things we maybe don't want to face up to.

At the risk of overthinking this harmless Star Wars skit, it does expose how absurd some of the analysis of 9/11 was and continues to be, doesn't it?