I am getting really sick and tired of the buffoons among us who still, despite so much evidence and reporting, believe that the September 11 attacks were either staged, known about, or caused by our own government.
People are always going to want that “smoking gun,” the point at which every whodunit movie climaxes and the cat is totally out of the bag, but that’s not reality. Things aren’t as cut-and-dried as that. People let their minds go wild with speculation and suddenly asinine accusations don’t seem so crazy to a lot of people. What is going on here?
Marion Cotillard is one of these people. For those who don’t know, Cotillard is an accomplished French actress who will be featured in the upcoming movie “Public Enemies,” alongside Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, and is the proud owner of an Academy Award for her performance in 2007’s “La Vie En Rose”. She is also, astonishingly, a 9-11 skeptic.
Posted on Cotillard’s own website is a transcript from her 2007 appearance on a French television show called “Paris Première – Paris Dernière”. Host Xavier de Moulins spoke with Cotillard at length on a variety of topics, but the most eye-opening topic by far was the actress’ feelings on 9-11.
The transcript has the usual caveat that people of Cotillard’s ilk warn before total debasement — she assures that she does not “deny the horror of 9-11, nor that it happened.” Well, thanks for that.
Cotillard admits, “I have a tendency to often share the point of view of the conspiracy theory. You are shown that other towers of the same kind that were hit by planes, that burnt … There is a tower, I think that it’s in Spain that burnt for 24 hours … before collapsing … It never collapsed! None of these towers collapsed. And, over there, in a few minutes, the thing collapses.”
Apparently Cotillard is not only a great actress but also an expert in arson and building construction.
Then she starts to really sound crazy: “And, then, after that, we’ll talk lengthily about it because … the thing was filled with gold, the towers from 9-11. And then it was a money sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, in ‘73, and to update all that, to modernize all the technology and everything, it was much more expensive to have work done, etc. than destroying them.”
Huh? Is she musing whether it is “possible” that somebody OK’d the demolition of the towers because they cost too much? She goes on to say that she questions even the moon landing and never believes “everything” she is told.
It’s fine to remain skeptical, but really, the proof is in the pudding. People have gotten too carried away by cleverly assembled YouTube videos claiming foul play on 9-11, as well as never-ending Internet blogs from people who just love to stir the pot.
When George W. Bush was in office everybody claimed how “stupid” and “apelike” he was. He was likened to an idiot by stand-up comics the world over. But for some reason, these people are oftentimes the same ones who believe that he was the mastermind behind an attack of epic proportions.
How could he have possibly orchestrated such a wide-reaching and devastating event, yet at the same time have been such an idiot, capable of doing nothing right? Make up your minds!
Cotillard isn’t the only one who is skeptical in Hollywood. Ed Asner, Charlie Sheen and many more also have expressed skepticism over 9-11. I don’t have a problem with skepticism so much as I have a problem with lunacy.
And more often than not, conspiracy theories like the ones surrounding 9-11 seem more like lunatic ravings than actual skepticism.
Gerry Wachovsky is a graduate student and a columnist for the Summer Forty-Niner.
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