Archivi del terrore. Film e serie TV americane intorno alla “guerra al terrore”

Regarding the vast body of film and television narratives of the war on terror as an (ongoing) archive of public debate over the politics and the legacy of America’s response to the attacks of 9/11, this essay tracks three main phases as arising in the U.S. from the perspective of Hollywood and independent film-makers. A first phase of uncertainty, coinciding with the first 12-18 months after the attacks, and marked by often collaborative, independent documentary film productions focused on visualizing a range of different responses to the traumas of 9/11. A more militant second phase, mostly engineered in Hollywood, centering on films and TV series explicitly meant as propaganda tools depicting the US as victims and largely articulated around Orientalist visions of the Arab/Muslim as dangerous “other.” A third phase, marking a re-alignment of representations of the War on Terror around more nuanced renderings of the events both on the combat front abroad and within the US.