I wasn’t born yet when JFK was shot, but I only missed it by seven years. I’ve seen people’s reactions, and the event itself, in so many books, movies and TV shows, it still doesn’t compare to having lived through it, but I can empathize pretty strongly. Challenger and 9/11 I did live through, also the death of Princess Diana. Anyway, what are some of the best depictions of the country/world in mourning, or crisis in the case of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Cuban Missile Crisis? And can you think of any portrayal that missed the mark?
JFK: “The Grown-Ups” episode of Mad Men. Every other depiction I’ve seen shows life coming to a halt. This one shows life going on because it has to. Funny thing is, the showrunner claimed earlier that there wouldn’t be an assassination episode, because it had been done to death.
Challenger: GLOW, season 3 episode 1. My school didn’t watch the launch; we heard about it from the principal on the PA system. I’m told, though, that this was most people’s reactions: not Red Wedding “OMGWTFBBQ?!” but a slow “W…T…F…?”
Death of Diana: The Queen, duh. Hella good movie.
I’m going to end this here because it’s a saved draft, and I want to post something else, so it’s post it now or lose it.
Even when I’ve rewatched GLOW, that scene is always hard to watch. Watching Zoya go on and on…and on about how terrible America is. Yeesh. I love it, it’s just kinda cringy.
I seem to recall the Challenger disaster was shown on a kid’s sitcom of that year (1986). I can’t remember which it was, but it was something like Punky Brewster or Diff’rent Strokes, where they showed the school science class watching live because there was a teacher on board, then it all went bad. Then it turned into a “very special episode” about dealing with tragedies.
Sometime in the mid-80s a cable channel (I want to say A&E) aired 12 hours of CBS news coverage of the JFK assassination in real time. I was glue to the set the whole time.
Honestly, the best fictional representation of 9/11 that I’ve ever seen was The Onion’s first issue after the attack. I can’t find the entire issue, but just reading the headlines still gets to me.
“Lee Harvey Oswald” – a two-part episode of Quantum Leap. Producer/writer David Bellisario actually knew Oswald in the marines. It’s portrayed in the show, though subtly – you can spot his name on the uniform of a marine who talks with Oswald.
If you consider JFK assassination conspiracy theories to be a catalyst for the contemporary trend against critical thinking - and thus, a “crisis” facing us today - the black comedy Winter Kills (1979) makes for interesting viewing.
As for the Cuban Missile Crisis, Matinee (1993) is not wholly successful, but has enough nostalgia and humor to be moderately entertaining, imo.
Most TV series did something about September 11th, I remember Third Watch, the ER offshoot which covered New York Fire Department, did an episode of the day S03E02 September 10th, which ended about 8:45AM on the 11th.
Just looking, that was knocked up quick, broadcasting roughly 40 days after the event.
Matinee! That’s a good film, except for the final conflict: it just ends for no known reason and everyone calms down. Otherwise very entertaining, though. And another good film on that subject is Thirteen Days. Second United 93, too.
Marvel Comics did a couple of really wonderful issues after 9/11. Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #36, which had an all-black cover, interrupted the ongoing arc to show New York City and its heroes reacting to the attack. Most of it is narrative commentary by Spider-Man. It was pretty powerful reading at the time, somewhat jingoistic but understandably so in the moment.
Then there was a relaunch of Captain America shortly thereafter, and his arc took place in the immediate aftermath, dealing with both how New Yorkers were behaving post-event, and also weaving a story about America arming the world and it blowing back on the country. It was a pretty terrific arc…I don’t remember if Brubaker wrote it or if he only came along later, with the Winter Soldier storyline.
Here’s a Cracked After Hours video about sitcoms in the aftermath of 9/11. Seems a lot of shows ignored it and it seemed to start a shift for sitcoms to move the setting out of New York and into middle America.
I love that movie. It’s a great Spike Lee Joint; he uses music as effectively in the storytelling as he ever has in his entire filmography. It may be the first major American film to talk about the attacks, at least that’s how I remember it at the time.
Assuming I’m not being whooshed, Ricci almost dying while Winona loses her virginity to Jake Ryan, er, Michael Schoeffling, happens on NYE. The afternoon of the assassination has a passionate kiss, followed by a panic attack and pregnancy paranoia. Since it’s been brought up, though, I do like the beginning of that scene, with Schoeffling ringing the convent bell in mourning, and breaking down saying “The world’s gone crazy!”
There was The Newsroom, which is almost entirely dealing with actual news stories and how a fictional news network would cover them (almost always in a cringey way)
re: JFK — I remember “Executive Action” w/ Burt Lancaster, and thought it was pretty close. I believe Jim Garrison is a hero, but I don’t like oliver stone or his movies, especially “jfk” and “the doors”
