I was talking to my Mom on Friday night after Christmas Carol, and we were comparing busy weeks ahead. I told her that I was going to see "We Are Marshall" on Thursday night. I told her that it was the movie about the Marshall University football tragedy, and she said, "Oh, yes, when all those boys were killed on that bus". "No, Mom, a plane. It was a plane crash".
We lived in Cleveland Ohio at the time and I remember reading about it in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I skimmed the article. I pretty much forgot about it until moving to this area of the country, and especially to the Huntington area. People here seemed to be obsessed with it. Now, I live close to the epicenter of the tragedy, and because of this movie it has been very much on my mind. How close you are to a historical event both in space and time makes a big difference. To mock the people who lost loved ones, would be so wrong, especially here. Yet, comedians regularly refer to "The Hindenburg", or "The Titanic", and are free to crack wise without offending anyone. 35 people died on the Hindenburg and many more on the Titanic. Is it really OK to joke about the deaths of those people just because we don't live in Lakehurst, NJ? Nobody yet jokes about the attacks in NYC, PA, and DC. Nobody jokes about Marshall.
Mel Brooks said "Tragedy is when I break a nail. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer.", or something like that.
It's a good movie. Is it good therapy? Or do you have to distance yourself through time and space to make the pain tolerable? Is there really ever any such thing as healing? Or is there just distance?
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