After backlash, Spike Lee removes 30 minutes of 9/11 truther theories from his HBO documentary

Slate

The original cut of the final episode of Lee's four-part NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½ documentary, scheduled to be released on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, contained "a 30-minute seminar on the (repeatedly debunked) lies that three World Trade Center buildings were brought down in a controlled demolition, as part of an inside job," says Jeremy Stahl. In a column for Slate, Stahl called HBO irresponsible for giving its massive platform to notorious 9/11 conspiracy theorist Richard Gage. Lee responded to the backlash Wednesday by saying the documentary was being re-edited. On Thursday, HBO unveiled the edited version to the media. "As it stands now, Episode 4 appears to be exactly 30 minutes shorter than the original version that I watched on Monday, coming in at 90 minutes long instead of two hours," says Stahl. "Indeed, the entire segment on the 9/11 conspiracy group, and all apparent references to the group, appear to have been excised. As I noted previously, from what I saw, the rest of the docuseries is a poignant, powerful, and endearing look at the city that Spike Lee loves and how it has continuously not only dealt with the worst trauma imaginable, but thrived in the face of it. Now the lies and nonsense of conspiracy-addled minds will no longer detract from that accomplishment. Thank you, Spike! It’s nice to see people actually do the right thing." Vanity Fair's Jordan Hoffman details the original 9/11 truther segment, noting that Lee didn't just include the 9/11 conspiracy theories -- the documentary actively promotes them. "If someone wanted to be generous, they could maybe say Lee intended to 'show both sides' by including the conspiracists’ perspective," says Hoffman. "But this would be a fib. The purpose of the film’s 30-minute detour was to get viewers in the grip of the 'jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams' narrative—to see the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth as principled warriors, and join their public push for a congressional reexamination of 9/11. In the original cut, Lee uses all his extraordinary directorial panache to achieve this. For starters, the segment comes soon after another sequence in which first responders, led by tough-as-nails Noo Yawka John Feal, is forced to go down to Washington to fight for the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. With commentary from Jon Stewart, who has long used his invective to fight for first responders, and Senator Chuck Schumer in hoppin’-mad mode, this section really does anger-up the blood—paving the way for the next section, where people accuse the Powers That Be of creating barriers to righteousness...In the original version of the film, we see footage of buildings on fire that don’t come down, then controlled implosions that, on the surface, certainly look similar to what happened at the World Trade Center. It all zooms by rather quickly, but the images are striking. Other members of Gage’s group appear, and are similarly eloquent. (Only demolitions expert Tom Sullivan has the Dr. Johnny Fever look you’d expect from a conspiracy theory guy.) When Gage shares that his devotion to his cause cost him his marriage, and Lee compares Gage to Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (then cuts to that film’s most emotionally charged scene), you’re primed to feel bad for him. There’s no mention, meanwhile, that journalists have been debunking 9/11 conspiracies since at least 2005."