Um, I just went a bit mental at some real fruit loops, so I was in good company for a nanosecond or two …

As much as I hate to give them hits, twotowersprotest.org are petitioning for the name of “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”, the recent hit movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy classic fiction, to be changed — why? Because of September Bloody Eleventh. That tragedy has spawned so much in goodwill and good sentiment, that I suppose the loony factor had to appear with a vengeance sooner or later, the conspiracy theorists aside. Here’s what these protest types have to say on the title of the movie …

We believe that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema’s actions are in fact hate speech. The movie is intentionally being named The Two Towers in order to capitalize on the tragedy of September 11. Clearly, you cannot deny the fact that this falls under hate speech. We believe that if they will not willingly change the name, the government should step in to stop the movie’s production or to force a name change.

So I kinda went off the deep end at them …

     To: twotowersprotest@twotowersprotest.org
   From: neuro
Subject: Are You Mad?

Hmmm, just looked at your website twotowersprotest.org ...

To my recollection, the New York World Trade Center (for there are other WTCs around the world) was nicknamed The Twin Towers. Also, JRR Tolkien named the second major part of the Lord of the Rings series "The Two Towers" in 1954 when it was published, 12 years before construction of the NY WTC begain in 1966.

If anything, you are showing insensitivity to history by your unwarranted desire to rewrite or censor anything which could remotely relate to the NY WTC. Should we go back through the world's media, and erase all pictures, all references and anything which could connotate a connection with the WTC? No, we shouldn't, and to infer that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema are outputting 'hate speech' (your term) is arrogant and lunacy. It is simple to deny that the intention to call the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" was hateful, because critically it takes it's title from the original book, now almost 50 years old, as do the prequel and forthcoming sequel.

Should we now go back and petition the renaming of prior works which offend you? "The Manhattan Towers", a TV show from 1966? "Without Warning: Terror in the Towers", a TV movie (which, heaven forfend, features the WTC)? What about "Air Strike", a movie from 1955? Or "How to Steal an Airplane", a TV movie from 1972?

Of course not. There are more important things in this world than the names of movies. Show your disgust by not going to see the movie, but for goodness' sake stop inflicting your misguided and narrow-minded attitudes on the rest of the globe.

So nyerrrr. :P

Update [2003-01-20 06:26] — the email *bounced*, lol! It forwarded to a Yahoo! mailbox which was over it’s quota. I sincerely hope the emails which have flooded their mailbox were from people as perturbed as I.