Remember The Alamo? How About The Titanic?

12Aug/110

Remember The Alamo? How About The Titanic?

You must take off your hat inside the Alamo, but next door you can buy Alamo Crackers.

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, there is a lot of talk about the proper way to commemorate the tragedy. Foremost among many concerns is the desire to maintain a spirit of solemn reverence, and rightfully so. The thousands who innocently perished there would be grossly dishonored by any attempt to use the occasion for political or commercial gain. This is inherently obvious to us, as we are only a decade removed from one of our nation's darkest days, and the scope of loss has been enormous. It is difficult to imagine that the notorious incident will ever be regarded with any less gravity.

Yet our popular culture does have a history of repackaging tragedy as entertainment, and it is a phenomenon that goes well beyond the production of exploitative disaster movies. I am thinking of the sort of endeavors that would have been unthinkable to undertake within ten years of any catastrophe yet somehow became commercially viable later, the kind of projects that could never have overcome the offended sensibility of the collective public if they had been attempted too soon. It's a train of thought that leads me, inevitably, to San Antonio, home of the legendary Alamo chapel.

It was there that about 200 Texian settlers and 500 Mexican soldiers were killed as Texians attempted to defend the mission from a Mexican siege in 1836. Subsequently, the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" became a legendary call for retribution after Texian soldiers avenged the defeat by capturing General Santa Anna and cementing the foundation of independence for the Republic of Texas. Today, a memorial cenotaph honoring those who defended the Alamo stands in front of the chapel, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Texas.

When my wife and I visited San Antonio in 1995, we stayed at a hotel that overlooks the Alamo Mission, which exists as a postage stamp of an attraction surrounded by the busy streets and tall buildings of an urban center. If you stood before the chapel and shielded your eyes from all peripheral stimuli, you could almost envision what it must have been like over a century and a half ago. Turn around, however, and you were greeted with the garish storefronts of Woolworth and a taco franchise. There is no stopping progress, after all, if the surrounding development indeed represents progress.

Another world awaited us as we entered the Alamo chapel, outside of which was a sign advising gentlemen to remove their hats. There we saw a fine example of reverent solemnity. Tourists conversed in hushed tones, and the eerie silence was like an aural spotlight on the significance of the chapel. Outside was a bustling arena for trade and family photo ops. Inside was a stark and sobering reminder of the people who died there.

Yet an adjacent building on the mission grounds housed an extensive gift shop. It contained just about every textile and knickknack that you can buy at the souvenir stands of Niagara Falls or a Las Vegas casino, only these items were emblazoned with images of the Alamo chapel. It was no more exploitative than any other gift shop, I thought, until I saw a small box of animal crackers among the various foodstuffs. Alamo Crackers!

"'Remember the Alamo!' was the battle cry of a new breed of settler in search of independence," read the blurb on the back of the box. "'Remember the Alamo...Crackers!' is the cry of a new breed of 'snackers' in search of a treat independent of the rest." I stared at the product in disbelief. Its shortbread cookie contents, so the packaging promised, came in five shapes: "a boot, a star, a cowboy hat, the state of Texas, and the Alamo." Most extraordinary of all was the following claim, made without so much as a wink or a nod toward its glaring irony:

Alamo Crackers ® are light, bite-size sugar cookies, which like their namesake never surrenders when it comes to good taste.

Ah, yes...good taste. Perhaps that is the final arbiter of acceptable entertainment versus irreverent exploitation. Consider, for example, your gut reaction to the following image of an inflatable amusement attraction:

Yes, that is a children's slide designed to resemble the R.M.S. Titanic as it sank into the icy Atlantic in 1912. I once saw one of these used at our daughters' elementary school field day. Admittedly, it's a lot of fun, just as any 45° angle slide would be. But you don't need an acute sense of political correctness to feel at least some misgivings about its dubious propriety. A century has not yet elapsed since 1,513 people died on that horrific April night. Some of them likely slid along the deck toward their watery grave when the ship split in half just prior to sinking. Even the most rudimentary historical knowledge of the maritime disaster is all that is needed to find the unintentionally macabre attraction offensive.

Am I being too sensitive? I don't think so. There are plenty of ways to devise a similar amusement that would not exploit real tragedy. Why not call the thing Shipwreck and make it look like a sinking pirate vessel? Take the basic concept away from its dreadful inspiration and move it into the acceptable realm of fantasy. It would still look cool. Kids would still zip down a harrowing incline. They would get the same thrill of safely surviving melodramatic peril. But for heaven's sake, they would not unwittingly reenact a genuine tragedy.

Right now the immediacy of 9/11 keeps our heads straight regarding how we think about that terrible day. We cannot forget the surreal and abominable images of helpless victims perishing before the unflinching television cameras. To make light of such immense loss would go well beyond bad taste and into the realm of heartless cruelty. What's more, our society would simply not tolerate it.

We would do well to remember the raw pain of recent tragedy whenever we are tempted to make mindless fun from past disasters.