Wednesday, July 28, 2004
A punch in the gut. And that’s not a bad thing.
Every weeknight at 2330 our local FOX affilliate plays The Simpsons in syndication. Tonight they played an episode that I had quite thoroughly forgotten about: The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson. This is the episode where Homer is trying to retrieve his car after Barney left it illegally parked between the Twin Towers.
I am damned proud to say that they aired the thing, and without cuts. Pretending that 9/11 didn’t happen by trying to weirdly deny the existence of the towers is a sick and futile endeavor. I won’t pretend that it’s easy to watch Homer race up and down the towers looking for a bathroom, or that my eyes didn’t fill with tears when the guys were leaning out of the windows of the towers yelling at each other--the images that these things now evoke are too strong for that--but it’s a healthy sort of pain. There are some things it is far too dangerous *not* to feel.
In some ways, it’s even stranger to read the episode guide linked above and see things like this:
There are restrooms in the World Trade Center Mall plaza below the complex; there’s no need to go to the top and pay admission. Also, there is no observation deck in the other tower, and anyone can’t just ride the elevator up to the top.
Present tense.
Anyway, it was another one of those moments that forces things back into perspective. Maybe if we could get Teddy Kennedy sober enough to sit upright in front of a TV…
Naw. It’d never work. Nice thought, though.