What would you say that your life is worth? We’re nearing September as we always do this time of year and one can imagine that plenty of movies, shows, and even commercials are going to be reminding us once again of what happened that day and why it was such a massive turning point in the USA. What many don’t often talk about is what happened to the families who were devastated when they lost someone in the tragedy that occurred that day. Many won’t even bother to look at how those families were compensated for their loss, as around 97% of the families that lost someone that day in the 9/11 attacks were eventually compensated for a rough estimate of $7 billion dollars in losses. It’s a morbid thing to think about, isn’t it? Try figuring out what your life is worth, or the life of a person you happen to love, and you might find yourself at a loss for words since many of us likely couldn’t come up with a solid number that would adequately explain how much our loved ones mean to us. But as this trailer shows, lawmakers might have been at their wit’s end trying to find a way to justify paying out in order to satisfy the families who were affected by this tragedy.
The money was paid out with the understanding that none of the families would sue the airlines that were hijacked and thus pressed into the nefarious service of those that had every intention of destabilizing the country. So much propaganda has been spread throughout the years since this happened that one can’t help but wonder at this point just what is real and what was created for a specific effect. Most people don’t want to doubt that the death and destruction that took place on 9/11 happened because of extremists, but some have gone the extra mile to be controversial and have made it clear that they believe that there was a conspiracy afoot that was meant to anger US citizens with this attack and thereby justify a reaction that would send US troops back into action.
Getting back to the movie, it’s fair to think that many people were scrambling to try and help people while others were trying to think of ways to do this without breaking the bank or ruining the economy. Even bothering to call this compensation a handout would have been a massive insult, though some might have actually considered the payment an insult anyway. The point of paying people off wasn’t just to keep them from suing the airline, though this was a great motivator no doubt, it was to give something back to the people who had lost someone important in their lives, no matter that the compensation wasn’t a bandage or even a balm to those that had lost so much, and in some cases everything. Worth is bound to be an emotional moment for a lot of viewers, particularly those that were involved in this matter in real life, and will no doubt be a little tough to watch in some areas. Any movie about 9/11 tends to bring back the memories, and for many, they’re still just as painful.
But it does raise a very interesting but controversial question. How much are our lives worth? What will happen if we become the victim of one accident or terrorist act or something else that could have possibly been prevented? It’s not a question that many like to ask since the dire implications behind it are more than many people want to think about most times. But movies like this do make a lot of people think about such things since it’s easy to wonder what a person’s life would be reduced to when it came to a monetary value. It’s depressing and horrifying for some, but it’s also something that people have been taught to do in order to make certain that they’re covered from a legal standpoint and that those that have suffered feel that they’ve been given at least some attention when it comes to their loss. In a big way, it still feels cold and dispassionate, but the idea of making amends somehow is likely why so many families were paid as they were, apart from the idea of avoiding a lawsuit.
The movie is still going to hit hard, there’s no doubt of that, and it already looks as though emotions are going to be running high and even hot in the movie since Michael Keaton and Stanley Tucci among others are going to be putting on a great performance that will likely mirror what many people were feeling back on this tragic day. How the movie will handle it will be interesting to see since to this day some folks are still traumatized and might not want to even look at this movie for fear of what they might feel. But for the rest of us, it might be interesting to watch.
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