Images of destruction of life and property in urban agglomerations are blurring the line between fact and fiction. The destruction of Twin Towers has become an iconic image depicting the ‘war on terror’. Strikingly, similar images have been seen in Hollywood movies. Hollywood has been accurate with not just the images but also the responses brought forth by such acts of terror. How do media narratives emanating from specific cultures weave events and responses within culturally admissible rhetoric? The paper argues through a textual analysis of some contemporary action flicks that there is a discourse of ‘urban destruction’ identifiable in the media narratives through which we interpret events.

The image of planes crashing into World Trade Center (WTC) Towers have attained an iconic presence in the news media narratives (Figure 1). What do these images remind us of? A spectacular act of terror? Stories of human suffering as thousands lost lives and many more their beloved? The strength of American resolve as being tested in the war on terror? The images repeatedly face us as reminders of several such associated memories. My aim here is to problematize these images to examine what they have come to ‘represent’.

Images of collapsing buildings in movies like Independence Day and of the collapsing WTC towers offer a striking semblance (Figure 2). This uncanny coincidence is the starting point of my exploration. My focus here is not precisely the event but the broader discourse of urban destruction that existed prior to the attacks. In Silverstone’s words:

It was not just Hollywood’s imagery (the images of urban destruction, for example, in the film Independence Day) which informed the reporting of the attack on the World Trade Center, but Hollywood’s and other expressions of popular culture’s storytelling, both ascribing blame and indicating the appropriate rhetorical and military reaction to the threats of otherness, that prove telling.

History and Culture Journal, Anti-Ahmadiya Sectarian Riots, Ahmadiya Movement, Muslim League Party, Muslim Community, Christian Missionaries, Government Documents, Religious Communities, Ahmadiya Leadership, Sectarian Organization, Government Services, Nazimuddin Government, Anti-government Campaign.