How Will Osama’s Death Be Handled by Pop Culture?

As much as I enjoyed debating with you the merits of whether or not it’s OK for the world to be happy that a man who was the embodiment of evil is now dead, I feel like I have to turn the conversation back to something more relevant to the site’s usual content.

Whether you’re breaking out the fireworks or scolding those who do, everyone has to admit the story behind the elimination of Bin Laden is a tale of incredible planning and heroic bravery on the part of those involved. What does this obviously mean? A movie, a TV show, a video game, a country song or all of the above.

The story of Bin Laden’s death will absolutely be told through a number of mediums, and today I’m reporting on how that is or might happen in the coming years. I’m not saying all of these are GOOD ideas, in fact few of them are, but I wouldn’t put it past them happening. Read on.

The Movie

This one is perhaps the most obvious, so I’ll discuss it first. There have been a few “hunting Bin Laden” movies in the works for a while now, with the most notable directed by Kathryn Bigelow of The Hurt Locker.

Now, as luck would have it, she now has the most prescient film ever made in the works, and thought she’ll have to rewrite the ending she was working with, if she can put it together in a timely fashion, it will be incredibly relevant and out a long time before any other film about the same topic ever could be.

It really is a fascinating story of the lead-up to the mission, and the described firefight would seem to be one of the most cinema-ready we’ve ever heard about in world news. It may not be classy to say, but it’s true, and this will make one hell of a feature.

The TV Show

I wouldn’t put it past HBO to come up with a miniseries based on this at some point in the future, and lord knows they’d probably do it very well.

I think a more likely scenario however is a new reality show on TLC or History called SEALS where the lives of Navy Seals are detailed, or they compete against each other for prizes or something of the like. They’ve always been heroic and badass, but now because of this Seal Team Six taking out Bin Laden with a bullet to the eye, they have a whole other level of myth attached to them now, and I’ll be damned if someone won’t try to capitalize on that, even the US Military itself. I think they’ve just found a new recruiting tool.

The Video Game

Who’s going to step up to the plate and be the first to recreate this in an FPS? If American troops had died in the assault, I think it would be a touchier subject, but since the in and out mission only capped the terrorists, I think studios will have no problem tackling this in the future.

I can easily imagine a Call of Duty piece of DLC that recreates the raid, albeit with a few dozen more bad guys to kill before Osama in the compound. And with the fact that he used one of his wives as a human shield in his final moments? It’s practically the entire Castro mission from Black Ops already.

If this was in fact made, I expect there would be a pretty loud outcry about it being in  poor taste, but I think the sounds of cash registers would overwhelm all complaints, as there is no doubt this would sell incredibly well all over the country. Again, not exactly sensitive, but don’t tell me it wouldn’t sell.

The Country Song

I guarantee one is being written right now. Who did that 9/11 song again? Alan Jackson? Yeah, I’m sure he’s probably hard at work on “Osama bin Dead” right now.

Here’s a likely excerpt.

“They said he could run, they said he could hide,

But now he’s in the ocean with a bullet in his eye

Mess with ‘merica and that’s what you get

Any of you other motherf***ers want to step?”

Or something like that.

The Internet Meme

And now we get to one that’s actually already started. The internet was hard at work creating macros both lambasting Bin Laden and praising Obama, and I expect that will continue for some time. Here’s a collection of what we’ve seen so far: