9/11 and Performing Regenerative Violence A
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Empty Sky: 9/11 and Performing Regenerative Violence A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Theatre by Raimondo Genna Committee in charge: Professor Emily Roxworthy, Chair Professor Patrick Anderson Professor Anthony Kubiak Professor Manuel Rotenberg Professor John Rouse Professor Janet Smarr 2010 Copyright Raimondo Genna, 2010 All rights reserve The Dissertation of Raimondo Genna is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego University of California, Irvine 2010 iii DEDICATION To my mother, Maria, Danny, Peter, Juan, and Jewel. You have been my light in the dark. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ........................................................................................................... iii Dedication .................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... vi Vita ............................................................................................................................. vii Abstract ....................................................................................................................... viii Introduction: 9:03 am .................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Re-membering The Guys ........................................................................... 33 Chapter 2: Terror Vérité .............................................................................................. 79 Chapter 3: Bush’s Theatre of War: Melodramatic Ghosts and the American Identity ........................................................ 142 Chapter 4: Flags in Our Image ..................................................................................... 201 Chapter 5: Terror, Torture, and the Death of the American Dream ............................ 241 Conclusion: The Hard Kernel of the Real ................................................................... 265 Works Cited ................................................................................................................. 308 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the faculty of the UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance, and the UCI Department of Drama. I am especially grateful to my chair, Emily Roxworthy, for her unwavering support, patience, and guidance. I am also indebted to Anthony Kubiak, for his mentorship at the dissertation’s inception. A special thanks to my other committee members, John Rouse, Patrick Anderson, Manuel Rotenberg, and particularly Janet Smarr, for contributing to my growth as a scholar and being dedicated stewards towards the completion of my degree. I would also like to thank Mark Maltby, Michael D. Francis, Hedi Jafari, Lee Montaño, Laura Manning, Michael Fullerton, Charlie Oates, and Allyson Green for providing me with spiritual support and employment during my prolonged tenure. I am grateful to my fellow PhD travelers for their support, guidance, empathy, and friendship. I would not have been able to do any of this without you. Thank you Amy, Ashley, Summer, Heather L., Michael, Maya, Zack, Phil, Aimee, Rana, Jade, Grace, Fan, Terry, Laura, Maiya, Naysan, Heather R., Julie, and Lily. I also need to thank my past mentors, Mack Owen, Peter Larlham, A.C. Harvey, and Nick Reid, for the setting me on this journey and who have been with me every step of the way. And to my family, both born and chosen: my mother, Gaspare, Matteo, Teresa, Maria, Danny, Peter, Erin, Juan, and Jewel. Words cannot express my gratitude. vi VITA 1998 Bachelor of Arts, San Diego State University 2001 Master of Arts, San Diego State University 2003-2010 Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Theatre and Dance University of California, San Diego 2009-2010 Lecturer, Dept. of Theatre and Dance University of California, San Diego 2010 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “The Sanguine Treatment: Using Literary Critical Analysis in Preparation for Directing Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” MA Thesis. San Diego State University, 2001. “Refracted Televisual Reflections: Genet’s The Maids, Television, and Validating Performed Identities.” TheatreForum 27 (Summer/Fall 2005): 53–61. vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Empty Sky: 9/11 and Performing Regenerative Violence by Raimondo Genna Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Theatre University of California, San Diego, 2010 University of California, Irvine, 2010 Professor Emily Roxworthy, Chair “Empty Sky: 9/11 and Performing Regenerative Violence” explores theatrical depictions of violence and trauma following the events of 11 September 2001 and their relationships to American myth and identity. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack of 9/11, many in the media, from politicians and pundits to journalists and fictional characters in popular television, discussed the epistemological rupture of the event, stating that the world had changed forever and that everything was now different. However, the ontology of U.S. national identity and its ties to myth as a mode of viii expression and perception underwent a re-fortification, answering the change by reiterating a distinctly American narrative. Following the work put forth by Richard Slotkin and his seminal Regeneration Through Violence, and drawing from performance studies, psychoanalysis, and cultural materialism, “Empty Sky” explores how regenerative violence is deployed through theatrical and performative means as a way of making sense of 9/11, narrativizing the Iraq War, and the reification of the American imago. My dissertation analyzes such theatrical works, such as Anne Nelson’s The Guys, Lavonne Mueller’s Voices from September 11th, Paul Greengrass’s United 93, and Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, along with Iraqi Freedom as a socio-military performance, as emblematic representations of regeneration through violence. My work also investigates critical renderings of the regenerative violence trope as a way of interrogating American mythos, such as Sam Shepard’s God of Hell and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers. ix Introduction 9:03 am It looks like a movie! I couldn’t believe my eyes, watching it right above me. —Jennifer Overstein in a phone interview with NBC’s The Today Show immediately after the second plane crash 11 September 2001 “With great power…” The summer of 2002 saw the biggest box-office opening weekend with Spider- man, based on the Marvel’s comic book superhero first created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962. Bitten by a genetically engineered spider, meek high school honors student Peter Parker (played by Toby Maguire) is transformed into a super human being with incredible strength, agility, the ability to cling to walls and spin webs from spinnerets located on his wrists (as opposed to the back end of his abdomen, like a real spider), and a strange, sixth “spider” sense that warns him of impending danger. Young Peter secretly loves Mary Jane Watson, his schoolmate and next-door neighbor who is involved with another, far wealthier student. Believing he could win Mary Jane if he had a nice car, Peter enters into a quasi-professional wrestling cage match for its cash prize. Wanting to protect his secret powers and to keep his guardians, Uncle Ben and Aunt May, from worrying about him, Peter creates a costume that hides his identity, a poor man’s version of his later iconic attire. After being dropped off by Uncle Ben—who believes that his nephew is going to the library to study—Peter wins his match, but the 1 2 promoter reneges on the full prize and pays out a much smaller winning. When the promoter is robbed, Peter allows the criminal to escape since he is still angry about his winnings, saying that the robbery was not “his problem.” After changing back into his Peter Parker identity, he discovers that his uncle, who had been waiting for Peter to emerge from the library, had been carjacked and fatally wounded. Bent on vengeance against his uncle’s assailant, Peter dons his costume and chases the carjacker into a warehouse. When Peter finally apprehends the criminal, he discovers that the man who killed his uncle is the same man who robbed the fight promoter, the one he chose not to stop when he had the opportunity. Peter finally learns the lesson that his uncle had been trying to convey earlier in the film: “with great power comes great responsibility” (Spider-man 2002). From that moment the materialistic and libidinal driven Peter Parker “dies” and is reborn as Spider-man, the hero of New York City—and all it took was the violent death of his uncle. I begin this dissertation with Spider-man because of its standing as a cultural product of a significant historical moment in the United States. Spider-man was the first of the 2002 summer “blockbuster movies” after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in which members of the Islamic terrorist group, al Qaeda, hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them into both Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C.; and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on the morning of 11