Ottawa audiences who came of age watching the films, TV dramas and late-night comedy of the early 2000s are being pointed back to just how much the September 11 attacks reshaped that era's storytelling, according to a new essay published on Ottawa Life Magazine.
The essay and its starting point
The piece, written by Dan McCarthy and posted September 9, 2026 on Ottawa Life Magazine, revisits the 2,977 people who died in the attacks, including first responders and airline passengers, a toll independently confirmed by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. From there, McCarthy traces how quickly Hollywood and television had to reckon with the day, and how that reckoning kept surfacing in pop culture for years afterward.
Spider-Man's pulled trailer
One of the clearest examples the essay points to is the original Spider-Man teaser trailer and poster, which showed the Twin Towers prominently, with the closing shot of Spidey trapping a helicopter full of criminals in webbing strung between the towers, and the movie poster showing the World Trade Center reflected in the eye shade of his mask. That trailer was actually running in theatres on September 11, 2001. It was pulled immediately afterward, along with the film's early posters, according to CBR.
Television and comics answered too
The essay also points to television's Rescue Me, which built a lead character around a firefighter dealing with PTSD and survivor's guilt in the aftermath of 9/11. Cartoonist Frank Miller took a starker approach with his graphic novel Holy Terror, a direct response to the attacks with its title spelled out in splattered blood on the cover. Kiefer Sutherland, a Canadian actor, starred in the television thriller 24, set inside a fictional Counter Terrorist Unit, which premiered in November 2001 and became one of the defining post-9/11 dramas. Even comedy addressed it head-on: in late September 2001, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on Saturday Night Live flanked by police officers and firefighters and addressed the audience directly. Michael Moore later revisited the period with his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
Canada's own contribution
For Ottawa readers, the essay's most relevant thread may be its Canadian one. McCarthy singles out the Broadway musical Come From Away, which tells the story of the small-town response in Gander, Newfoundland, as what he calls Canada's greatest pop-culture contribution to processing the attacks.
Why it still matters here
Ottawa is home to plenty of residents who grew up on the exact films and shows the essay cites, and every September brings a fresh round of classrooms, film clubs and casual conversations here revisiting how that single day rewired an entire industry's instincts. The essay's broader argument, that pop culture is often where a society works through catastrophe and grief, is as relevant to an Ottawa audience today as it was to the original readers.
Sources: Ottawa Life Magazine, CBR, National September 11 Memorial & Museum
