We still discuss, in certain corners of the Web, films or series that would have “predicted” or “announced” the attacks that hit American soil on September 11, 2001. In an episode of the Simpson from 1997, Bart holds up a leaflet with the towers of the World Trade Center. Some read “9/11”, the date of September 11, in American English. Others see signs of the attacks in Back to the future (1985) or Matrix (1999).
However, these discussions about “alternative truths” on the course of this day seem to be running out of steam. The Covid-19 pandemic, its still uncertain origins, and other attacks or tragic events have since occupied the time and attention of those who believe the truth is elsewhere.
While the United States and the world remember, twenty years later, these attacks, 20 minutes asked Julien Giry, political science researcher at the University of Tours and author of a thesis on “conspiracy in political and popular culture in the United States”, how conspiracy theories have evolved in two decades.
The interest of conspiratorialists in Hollywood films began to emerge online around 2010, a few years after the attacks. Do you think this is symptomatic of an evolution in conspiracy theories around 9/11?
To be very schematic, there are three moments in the structuring of these theories. The first, from 2001 to 2003, is really the moment when the 9/11 conspiracy theories come from the American religious right in the United States: the attacks are a divine punishment, American society is going all over the place, the perversion is everywhere… it’s all the usual reactionary talk.
It was really in 2005-2006 that other theories were put in place. Why ? Because it was in 2004 and 2005 that the two reports on the attacks came out, the report of the 9/11 commission and the technical report. A whole bunch of people are going to throw themselves on these reports which are voluminous, they will decipher them, dissect them and they will try to dispute certain points, by saying, for example, that what is written on such and such a page does not work. with what is written on such and such a page, or by saying that there are contradictions, coincidences or gaps in other places, etc.
That there is a gray area, something that we do not know, it is quite normal in such an attack. It is from the shelling of these official documents that alternative truths will be created, such as the assertion that it is not possible that steel could have melted at this temperature. At that point, we are really dealing with technical and political considerations.
What are these considerations?
If we schematize, there are two main types of theories that clash: the Americans knew and they let it happen in order to be able to pass the Patriot Act [une loi antiterroriste], to be able to invade Iraq, to appropriate the country’s wealth, etc. The second theory is perhaps even more radical: the Americans planned the attacks themselves for much the same reasons.
What does the third step consist of?
It is that of the diversification and the deepening of these theories in slightly more secondary dimensions. This third step is fundamentally the continuity of the second. Individuals specialize in different investigative elements [comme la recherche de signes dans des films ou des séries qui auraient annoncé les attentats].
We can also speak of a fourth phase, after 2015-2016, where, finally, interest in conspiracy theories around September 11 almost disappears.
Are there still people today who invest in these themes?
If you are an outright conspiratorialist and your worldview is one big conspiracy, everywhere and all the time, for you it is obvious that 9/11 is a conspiracy, there is not even need to discuss it. On the other hand, for those who were involved in these typical communities 9/11 Truth Movement [Mouvement pour la vérité sur le 11-Septembre], it’s completely out of fashion.
For example, someone like Dylan Avery, who made the movie in 2005 Loose Change [«Petite monnaie » en français], the first Internet blockbuster, has completely given up. He’s moved on, he’s no longer interested. Anyway, he didn’t really believe it, it had amused him, he said it himself without a problem. Somehow it’s a fight from another generation.
In the conspiratorial field, there are also fads. Since then, there have been events, the pandemic but also others before which have renewed a certain generation. The Boston bombing or the Sandy Hook massacre was a major movement in conspiracy in the United States. In France, there was the attack against Charlie-Hebdo. Other themes emerged. Today, we see people of 25-30 years old who were children at the time of September 11, they are on other themes: the “great replacement”, immigration … They are in totally expressive modalities. different, for example the clash culture on YouTube.