On March 10, 2003, during a London stop on a worldwide tour, Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines addressed the crowd. It was the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, and Maines spoke directly on the subject looming in everyone’s mind: "Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all," Maines said.

"We do not condone this war. This violence. And we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." The locals howled and clapped in solidarity. The band’s audience back home did not, and almost as quickly as you can drape a "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier, the Dixie Chicks’ white-hot career was irreversibly damaged.

Thirteen years after that controversial incident, the now-former head Dixie Chick would express incredulity that Donald Trump could insinuate that "Second Amendment people" could possibly "stop" Hillary Clinton and incur relatively little blowback from the same people who once boycotted her band.

"I get banned for not liking Bush and now Trump can practically put a hit out on Hillary and he's still all over country radio!" she wrote on Twitter last August. "Hypocrites!"

Indeed, one of the more frustrating topics of 2016's unusually frustrating election cycle concerned who did, thought, or said what about the invasion of Iraq between late 2002 and early 2003. I say "frustrating" because it seems like many people, not just presidential candidates and political commentators, have forgotten how American patriotism surged in the months following 9/11, and how immediately terrified the majority became of political dissent. That at the time, we weren’t living with a decade and a half of hindsight, but instead in a world where one antiwar comment could derail the careers of the best-selling all-female band in US history.

With the exception of certain usual antiwar suspects like Sean Penn, back then, Maines still spoke for a minority of Americans, and an extreme minority of country musicians, who had all but created a subgenre of post-9/11 anthems. She challenged a worldview that many Americans held dear; if people were offended by her comments about the war and being ashamed to share a home state with President Bush, it’s because they took her comments as a personal affront.

While opinion worldwide was overwhelmingly against the Iraq War, the majority of Americans weren't just pro-war — they were shocked and offended at the mere idea of not supporting the president. But now, 16 years after 9/11, it feels like there’s a certain lack of self-awareness, perhaps because really looking back and scrutinizing the attacks and their fallout is too difficult for some people to bear.

The result is a collective amnesia so prevalent that a huge slice of the population doesn’t even remember supporting the invasion of Iraq in the first place — or, by extension, how profoundly both the culture and the popular media we consumed changed in such a short amount of time.

If we trace the metamorphosis of our pop cultural depictions of 9/11 in the years that have passed since the tragedy, direct attempts to cope with the attacks eventually evolve into allegorical attempts. But depictions of 9/11 have not slowed or even stopped; merely changed shapes.

9/11 kicked off a series of dramatic shifts in cinematic trends

The two-year period immediately following 9/11 was an era in which the media was defined both by its jingoism and patriotism and also by its aversion to images of violence and destruction. The images of gleeful destruction the ’90s had reveled in (think Independence Day and Armageddon) disappeared almost overnight, and the few stragglers that crept by (like 2003’s The Core, which destroys both Rome and San Francisco) were quietly buried.

War movies were essentially nonexistent, with most offerings at the multiplex leaning toward fantasy and family-friendly fare. Until Steven Spielberg pioneered the 9/11 visual parable through heavily codified imagery with 2005’s War of the Worlds, scenes of realistic mass destruction temporarily all but disappeared from the media landscape, a far cry from the explosion-riddled works of Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, and their disciples that we enjoy today.

"Every iteration of War of the Worlds has occurred in times of uncertainty," Spielberg told USA Today in 2005. "We live under a veil of fear that we didn’t live under before 9/11. There has been a conscious emotional shift in this country."

Americans wanted patriotic affirmation, but not images of any potential consequences. Such depictions — The Hurt Locker (2008), Argo (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012) — would come, but not until much later. This trend began in earnest with 24 (2001 to 2010), which like those films began to establish a pattern of portraying torture and war as unfortunate, but necessary.

Yet in the first few years after 9/11, a nuanced take on America’s place in the world was more than most Americans could handle (as evidenced, perhaps, by War of the Worlds’ lukewarm reception — it was, in the parlance of the day, "too soon").

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Americans did not want a thoughtful exploration of what had happened. Instead, they needed confirmation bias and reassurance, which film, television, comic books, and music were eager to provide.

Reworking existing media for the newly changed world

No event in US history caused such a dramatic and sudden change in media trends as 9/11. The first changes were the most direct, reconciling a New York–centric media with a now Twin Tower–less New York, and narratives involving terrorism.

It’s almost surreal to look back on some movies produced in the ’90s, before it was gauche, not to mention offensive, to use characters with Arab backgrounds as villainous terrorists in your big dumb action movie and mass urban destruction was used almost as set dressing. Films like the aforementioned Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998) didn’t shy away from scenes of mass obliteration of major cities (primarily New York) to thrill their audiences.

The pervasive images of the collapse of the Twin Towers on the news did away with this sort of imagery overnight. Even when scenes of mass wreckage in major Hollywood movies eventually returned, they initially concerned destruction of suburbs and rural areas instead of major cities.

Americans became highly sensitive to anything that bore even a slight resemblance to the attacks. Children’s shows like Power Rangers, Pokémon, and Invader Zim had episodes taken off the air due to scenes where buildings and cityscapes were destroyed. Transformers: Robots in Disguise was affected dramatically because of its frequent depiction of urban destruction, and had many episodes edited or removed from rotation altogether.

One particularly notable example of children’s media being altered in the aftermath of 9/11 was the redo of the climax of Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, which by September 2001 was mostly complete and nearing its planned 2002 release. Where the original cut had Stitch doing a joyride in a 747, weaving through buildings, the final version changed the 747 to an alien craft and the buildings to Hawaiian mountains.

The World Trade Center itself became a sudden elephant in the room of film and television set in New York and, for the most part, was quietly erased from the face of history. The original teaser for Spider-Man (2002) featured a helicopter trapped in a spiderweb that spanned the Twin Towers but was removed from rotation immediately following the attacks. Several television shows set in New York City, including Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and The Late Show with David Letterman, removed the World Trade Center from their opening credits.

Hollywood followed suit by cutting shots of the Twin Towers from such films such as Zoolander (2001), Serendipity (2001), and Kissing Jessica Stein (2001). The Time Machine (2002) and Men in Black II (2002) removed entire scenes that involved the towers, with the latter swapping in the Statue of Liberty. Depictions of the World Trade Center were treated as a painful memory, one most easily dealt with by avoidance.

Terrorist villains were a popular go-to in the 15 years preceding 9/11. Many films, like Air Force One (1997) and Die Hard (1988), featured Eastern European and Russian terrorists with more of a Cold War bent, depicting a Soviet-themed antagonist as something that felt real but no longer presented an existential threat. Others, like True Lies (1994), produced in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, featured Arab terrorists — a topical threat at the time, but ultimately not a real danger to American hegemony.

After 9/11, terrorism was a topic no longer to be joked about, a trend that persists to this day. Friends had a significant edit in the episode "The One Where Rachel Tells Ross," in which Chandler is taken into custody by the TSA after making a quip about bringing a bomb onto a plane; that scene was removed. Films like The Bourne Identity (2002), whose plot featured terrorism and a villainous CIA, were extensively re-edited and reshot, not just for the terrorist elements but for fears that a villainous CIA might be seen as anti-American.

But although most pop culture reactions to 9/11 were passive, there were a few that actively addressed the tragedy. The October 3, 2001, episode of The West Wing titled "Isaac and Ishmael," written and shot within two weeks of the attacks, takes a "why can’t we all just get along?" approach to terrorism, with the wise and pithy main cast explaining to a bunch of high school kids how terrorists are bad but Muslims aren’t.

The South Park episode "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants," which originally aired November 7, 2001, treated Osama bin Laden as a harmless buffoon. Despite being critical of American foreign policy, it ultimately avows loyalty to the USA, ending with Stan gently planting a small American flag in Afghan soil and saluting it with a soft, sincere, "Go, America," followed by, "Go, Broncos."

Marvel Comics presented its take on the attacks in Spider-Man Vol. 2, issue No. 36, called "The Black Issue," which presents the tragedy as something that brings not only the heroes together but the villains as well. Yes, this act of terrorism was so heinous it even made Dr. Doom cry.

Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) may be the only one of these early depictions that doesn’t bother trying to find some meaning in the tragedy; rather, it simply tries to move on. It is, for that reason, one of the strongest of any cinematic attempt to deal with the aftermath.

In one scene, Frank Slaughtery (Barry Pepper) has a conversation with his friend Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in Jacob’s apartment directly overlooking ground zero. Frank is glib, dismissive, while Jacob is a barely contained mass of nerves. "The New York Times says the air’s bad down here," says Jacob in a disturbingly prescient observation. "Yeah?" replies Frank. "Well, fuck the Times. I read the Post."

Lee films the conversation in one uninterrupted shot, tense and uncomfortable, all but daring the viewer to look away. Contrasting other films’ decision to pretend like the World Trade Center never existed, 25th Hour refuses to ignore it.

Critical reaction to these pop cultural attempts to address the attacks like these were split at the time; many, for instance, took issue with the almost saccharine sincerity in examples like The West Wing. But these are memorable because they were attempting to fill a need for answers in the American psyche — namely, how could this happen? There was a deep and pervasive longing not only for unity, but also to find meaning in the tragedy. Your mileage may vary on how the early participants succeeded at providing meaning and solace to a grieving country, but they certainly tried.

US foreign policy gives rise to "the angry American"

The United States launched its invasion of Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, on October 7, 2001. Operation Iraqi Freedom came the following year, which endures in conspiracy circles due to then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer referring to it as "Operation Iraqi Liberation," a.k.a. "OIL" (either an innocent flub or a foolish oversight that was quickly remedied). Many high-profile military actions of the period were strategically named with the intent of filling the collective need for not just retribution but retribution with purpose.

These military actions weren’t just intended to exact revenge against an amorphous enemy but also to spread "freedom" throughout the world, and one opposed them at one’s own peril. Two big concepts cropped up in patriotism-themed media: loyalty to country, and falling in line behind the president.

One of the more fascinating depictions of then-President George W. Bush is a made-for-TV Showtime movie called DC 9/11: Time of Crisis, an extra-surreal watch now that Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, aren’t regarded especially favorably. The film depicts the days immediately following the attacks from the perspective of President Bush (Timothy Bottoms); it features both an honest discussion between Bush and Cheney (Lawrence Pressman) about the line of succession, and a quiet moment between an exhausted Bush and his wife Laura (Mary Gordon Murray), lying in bed on the night after September 11. "You wanted the job," she reminds him, supportive. "Maybe this is why," he responds.

Where open support for Bush was popular, open displays of patriotism were even more so in the months between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. The country music industry in particular provided a welcoming environment for sincerity and patriotism: Alan Jackson put into song the notion that everyone remembers what they were doing on September 11, in a soft and loving tribute. Lee Greenwood’s hit "God Bless the USA" reentered the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2001, peaking at No. 16, prompting him to rerecord it prior to the Iraq invasion as "God Bless the USA 2003."

Toby Keith was practically a one-man industry for loving country, supporting troops, and sticking a boot in your ass, because "it’s the American way." (With some exceptions, such as Jay Z expressing nominal solidarity with victims, other genres tended to ignore it altogether.) It wasn’t until late 2003 and 2004, with the likes of System of a Down, Radiohead, Green Day, and Nellie McKay leading the way, that we began to hear music that was critical of US foreign policy.

Meanwhile, as the French were one of the earliest outspoken opponents of US foreign policy, they became almost as odious to many Americans as al-Qaeda. In 2002, the nascent Ultimates comic, penned by Scottish ex-pat Mark Millar, gave us the now-infamous panel of Captain America’s response to the idea of surrender by dissing France, a moment so awesome Millar gave it an entire page.

"French" became synonymous with cowardice and retreat, providing an antiwar boogeyman in the form of an entire country. In the Washington Post, conservative opinion writer George Will described the French government, specifically then-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, during a UN Security Council meeting, as "exercising the skill France has often honed since 1870 — that of retreating, this time into incoherence."

And Americans old enough to remember the era have a bizarre nostalgia for the concept of "freedom fries."

Meanwhile, after the initial rush to strike images of the Twin Towers and any scene involving an airplane that could be read the wrong way, Hollywood was entering a "bury your head in the sand" phase with regard to politically charged films and scenes of mass urban destruction that would last a few years.

Fantasy franchises such as Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Harry Potter movies did huge business, and even films like Spider-Man framed their real-world settings in a much more cartoonish manner than the grimdark trends we see today. With a mind toward an increasing international box office share, Hollywood didn’t play into the skyrocketing jingoism at home, but largely ignored it.

It was in this environment that Maines, in fewer than a dozen words, effectively snuffed out the Dixie Chicks’ rising stardom. This is not to say that no one else in America questioned Bush, opposed the resolutions granting the president as yet unheard of amounts of power, or recoiled in horror at the invasion of Iraq. But it’s no coincidence that The Ultimates remains one of Millar’s best-selling and influential titles, or that "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (Angry American)" remains one of Toby Keith’s biggest hits. The early 2000s were not a time for introspection; they were a time for falling in line behind the red, white, and blue, and for ridiculing those French pansies.

The US as a culture never learned to cope with collective trauma — but pop culture portrayals of 9/11 are one way it continues to try

The image of the World Trade Center collapsing became pervasive as footage of the attacks was replayed over and over on television, ultimately becoming synonymous with fear and helplessness.

The photograph of "The Falling Man" became both famous and infamous, running in newspapers all over the country right after the attacks only to be flatly rejected by a country that felt the image was too real, too painful. The idea of American identity was solidified, for better or worse, because people and places were attacked for no reason other than being American.

Despite the killing of innocents being expressly forbidden in the Quran, al-Qaeda’s justification (as explained in Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11) essentially boiled down to the idea that just being American was enough to wash away any presumed "innocence." The attack itself was traumatic for the nation, but the identity politics attached to it, the idea that the dead had done nothing wrong other than being American, created a collective trauma the country had not known before or since.

In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers showed that people who felt they had found meaning in the aftermath of the attacks correlated with lower symptoms of PTSD. The study concluded that Americans’ degree of searching for and ability to find meaning in the events surrounding 9/11 may account for differences in long-term adjustment to the attacks and their aftermath.

In effect, all pop culture portrayals of 9/11, including those that have mindlessly capitalized on it, serve as an attempt to assign meaning to a horrible event that still feels fresh in the minds of many Americans and has irreversibly shaped the world. Slapdash attempts like The West Wing’s "Isaac and Ishmael" represent an almost desperate attempt to give perspective and reassurance to a terrified populace. Conversely, the anger of Toby Keith confirms a desire for vengeance, and a Francophobic Captain America, the need to reclaim American hegemony.

Perhaps the metamorphosis of our pop cultural depictions of 9/11 is no better exemplified by the way the attacks are codified visually. In the months following 9/11, images like "The Falling Man" and of the collapse of the World Trade Center itself were visceral, painful, and best avoided. Disaster films and realistic depictions of wholesale destruction fell completely out of favor, and didn’t start creeping back into the national consciousness for nearly half a decade.

But these images have not disappeared — they’ve merely moved underground, become subtext instead of text. Today, images of destruction are practically mandated in action movies, and they’re even more pervasive than they were before the attacks.

The Transformers franchise goes about property damage the same way a 7-year-old goes about exacting retribution on toys he doesn’t particularly care about ruining. The Marvel movies tend toward a bit more pathos, with Captain America standing in the rubble looking either heroic or sad as the scene demands. The DC films take a slightly different approach; 2013’s Man of Steel received wide criticism for some of the most on-the-nose imagery as yet seen in a film about 9/11, making even the deliberate allegory War of the Worlds look subtle.

Rather than toning it down for his Man of Steel follow-up, director Zack Snyder doubled down on this imagery in 2016’s Batman v Superman, attempting to paint the destruction of Metropolis as its own in-universe 9/11.

As more and more time has passed, many of us have forgotten the need for our media to provide some sort of context and meaning to the tragedy. Hollywood has largely stopped bothering trying to make movies about 9/11 after underwhelming efforts like Remember Me (2010) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011).

Consequently, the cultural amnesia we seem to have acquired in this election cycle may result from a tendency to tiptoe around the 9/11 attacks rather than actually portray them. Natalie Maines’s recent frustration is understandable; it’s hard to put things in perspective when half the country doesn’t even remember that at one point they supported invading Iraq because they loved their country and their president told them they should.

Today, we can laugh at a weepy Dr. Doom, a stalwart, heroic George W. Bush, or a buffoonish bin Laden, but it’s easy to forget that they all served a purpose — to heal a collective trauma, one from which, even 16 years later, we are still recovering.

The appropriation of 9/11-evoking imagery in big-budget action slaughterhouses like Batman v Superman has become something of a punchline in its shamelessness, but the pervasiveness of that imagery remains fairly constant when a film’s budget allows. And these films make money because, on some level, these images are what we, the viewing audience, want to see. Like a victim of a heinous assault returning to the scene of the crime, but viewing it only from a safe distance, we keep reliving the moment over and over, until finally we find some meaning.