In What Way Does War Of The Worlds Comment Upon Post 9/11 Society

War of the worlds uses many different visual signifiers and techniques to prove it is a post 9/11 film. Through this they show a message and comment upon how society has changed since 9/11 making it an allegorical film. It's set in New York as was the 9/11 disaster and it's about 'the others' attacking and trying to destroy the world.

A major point that shows how society has changed since 9/11 are how we see terrorists. The aliens are explicit representatives of this. They are referred to 'as them' in the movie which is something we use in our own life to describe terrorists, giving them a direct link. To reinforce the fact aliens are representatives of terrorists we can see so many similarities. Such as them being so foreign and coming to somewhere they are not from, meaning they look different and have different ideologies and beliefs. The fact the machines have been underground for so long is just like how the terrorists attacked from within the US and were trained there, being there for so long. The fact that aliens use an above advantage is a big relation to how the terrorists attacked, which is from the sky also. When attacking from the sky the aliens see everyone as disposable because they're different and they will just kill anyone, this is much like how terrorists feel about people who don't follow their religion. Moving on towards the end, it's at the point a lot further on in the film that we actually get to see the face of the aliens and what they look like, so throughout the attack they are completely faceless and we don't know who these enemies are, this is symbolic of how in the 9/11 attackers were only found and convicted obviously after the crime.

As the aliens do attack and kill innocent people there is a huge visual signifier linking the film and the real life footage. The way they do it, using the dust effect when someone is killed is a representative of the dust from the buildings and how they over swept the streets and people were covered in it while running away. It looks so similar that it reinforces the link between the 9/11 disaster and how society and destruction is seen today. There are other iconic signifiers that are shared between the real thing and in the film. When looking at certain scenes in the movie we can actually recognise and relate it to the real actual footage. Things such as the missing persons board, which is really important as it shows how society responds by how fast it appears in the movie as the attacks haven't been happening that long. This also happened in the actual 9/11 and strengthens the idea that this film is allegorical and a post 9/11 film. Other things that contribute to this and are seen in both instances, film and real footage, such as the authorities trying to calm the people, people wandering and standing unsure, buildings obviously falling apart and sirens blaring and people yelling in general. A really important iconic scene is where Ray is leaving his house and actually see's a destroyed plane on fire that has smashed the surroundings and caused so much destruction, a blatant reflection of the 9/11 attack.

The surprising nature of the War of the Worlds attack really reflects 9/11 and how out of nowhere it was. How before the attack was a normal day on 9/11 and then there is the terrorist attack is the same in the film as it starts as a normal day but then as soon as there attack there is an actual line from Rachel that says 'is it the terrorists?' this shows how 9/11 has directly affected them and anything unnatural since is associated with the terrorists, so we can see that society is always paranoid and full of fear. This changes certain people in society specially and so much so that they start believing in different theories and becoming conspiracy theorists. This is represented in the film as the stereotypical theorists in real life after 9/11. Ogilvy is this representative, a normal man who has been affected and his life changed by the attack and whats happened, which is often the case in real life, and the paranoia and fear drives him to becoming dangerous and erratic to a point where he cannot really control himself, this is typical characteristics of a conspiracy theorist but it is also strengthen'd by the fact he is literally holed up in a basement just losing his mind.

As mentioned before the scene where Ray see's the iconic plane he then meets people from the media. This is a great symbol of how media perpetuates the fear and paranoia of a disaster. The news reporter shows him different attacks and clips giving him so much negative information he goes crazy with paranoia himself.