As the fall TV season began, producers of the promising CBS drama The Agency had a huge problem. The story line for the new CIA spy series' pilot episode detailed a terrorist plot to blow up a crowded department store in London. And it mentioned Osama bin Laden by name.

        In post-Sept. 11 America, airing it was unthinkable. So the producers pulled the pilot, replacing it with a later episode that steered clear of terrorism.

        It was typical of the scrambling, shifting and soul-searching that went on in popular culture and the arts during the weeks following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

        Late-night comedians couldn't joke. Movies, TV shows, exhibits and recordings that addressed terrorism — or graphic violence of any kind — were canceled, pulled or postponed.

        Violent images on rap CD covers were replaced. Depictions of burning or exploding skyscrapers disappeared. The Boston Symphony canceled performances of excerpts from John Adams' 1985 opera The Death of Klinghoffer about the terrorist hijacking of the Achille Lauro. British punk band Primal Scream ashcanned its unfortunately titled new song “Bomb the Pentagon.”

        But a “God Bless America” album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, and the National Anthem reached No. 18 on the pop singles chart. Sales of Christian CDs jumped more than a third. Star-studded pop benefit concerts and recordings raised tens of millions for those affected by the attacks.

        And everybody forgot Gary Condit.

        The changes were immediate, pervasive and strong — so strong that cultural observers, backed up by public opinion polls, quickly stepped up to proclaim a new era:

        It was the end of irony. The death of frivolity. The dimming of comedy. The demise of a shallow, self-indulgent culture obsessed with sex and violence.

        America's cultural landscape was fundamentally changed forever. Life would never be the same.

        Oh, please.

        It's not even three months since the attacks, but already those “In light of recent events” warning stickers on video rentals seem quaintly dated.

        Comics have re-discovered their monologues and audiences. Families have been happily absorbed with the Harry Potter marketing craze.

        The Denzel Washington film Training Day, postponed because of its violent content, now is a box-office hit.

        And that hot-potato pilot for The Agency? It aired in November. Nobody raised an eyebrow. And this week's episode was about an assassination plot against the king of Saudi Arabia.

        This should tell us something about the power of American culture — namely, “how quickly it was able to dissolve an event even as colossal as this one,” says Robert Thompson, professor of media and culture at Syracuse University.

        Those who foresaw a major cultural shift “were proven wrong more quickly than anyone would have expected,” he says.

        MIT media professor Henry Jenkins figured it out early. “I've gotten very frustrated reading these various attacks on the entertainment industry, as if in a time of war, entertainment is trivial, entertainment is superfluous,” he told the Boston Globe a week after the attacks.

        “History tells us quite the opposite. During times of national crisis, entertainment plays a vital function. It's that human connection we have to hold onto, and that human connection includes laughter and pleasure as much as it includes sorrow and mourning and loss.”

        Exactly. After any tragedy or loss, there's a period of mourning, of pulling back, of life at half-staff.

        Then we move on. The comfort of familiar culture binds us together. It helps us face our fears and sorrows.

        Take humor — please.

        While TV dramas either took pains to avoid the topic or embraced it (Third Watch), sitcoms ignored it, kept doing exactly what they'd been doing — and were more popular than ever.

        We need to laugh. We need to find humor in an Osama poster that contains an inadvertent image of Sesame Street's Bert.

        And so we're finding ways to turn these events to our comic advantage.

        Tina Fey, head writer and “Weekend Update” anchor for NBC's Saturday Night Live, told the New York Times she's discovered “that when dealing with our sorrow, there's no room for humor. But our own anger and frustration can be funny.”

        And so you get SNL gags along these lines: “In order to feel safer on his private jet, actor John Travolta has purchased a bomb-sniffing dog. Unfortunately for the actor, the dog came six movies too late.”

        Yes, we're back to normal.

        And yet . . .

        It's possible to see signs — some overt, some subtle — of the attacks' long-term effects.

        Some observers now see a slight shift in the public's tastes toward more positive, optimistic entertainment with less cynicism about authority.

        That's long overdue, according to rock star John Mellencamp. His perfectly timed new album Cuttin' Heads, which was produced before the attacks, addresses the shallowness and scandal-mongering of the '90s.

        “To entertain ourselves with that was such a low point,” Mr. Mellencamp told the Detroit Free Press. “If that atmosphere doesn't change, then these people have died in vain.”

        Anne Collins Smith, a philosophy professor at Pennsylvania's Susquehanna University, says Americans will look for more orderly art in the face of a more chaotic world. Things that celebrate “the triumph of order over chaos” — like the TV drama Law and Order — will find new success, she says.

        Indeed, the high-rated CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is as popular as ever, even though it's a graphic drama about gruesome murders. The point is that the murders are solved.

        But not everyone sees big changes ahead.

        “Frankly, I think the effects will be minimal,” says Hollywood novelist and screenwriter John Blumenthal, author of The Tinseltown Murders and What's Wrong with Dorfman. After a temporary rash of war-related movies, he believes, the industry will revert to form.

        One possible change: The creative arts “will try to portray Muslims in a more favorable light from now on,” Mr. Blumenthal adds.

        Smaller, cutting-edge films may be hurt. “It will become harder for independent films with political content to get distribution,” Tom Pollock, former CEO of Universal Pictures, told the Hollywood Reporter.

        As for topics: Artists probably won't avoid violence and horror, but may employ those themes even more for their cathartic effect.

        “What survives is our need for stories,” says ghost-story author David Schock, a communications professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich. “And think of the stories that will come out of this chain of events. There will be a whole new literature.”

        Faced with a real war, we may see at least a temporary truce in America's “culture war.” Hollywood won't be “the scapegoat for everything from teen-age pregnancy to school shootings,” Mr. Thompson says, as long as it's seen as helping in the fight against terrorism.

        Americans may be in less of mood to rail against fantasy violence, now that we've tasted a huge dose of the real thing. It puts things in perspective.

        But if you're looking for a more profound, long-term change, this may be it: A period of higher quality art.

        History is full of examples. In times of war and stress, artists generally rise to the occasion. There's a flowering of culture. Creativity is at a height.

        Even popular entertainment becomes deeper, more contemplative, artistically sophisticated.

        “One of the strengths of our film industry is the ability to make movies that are metaphorical, symbolic, that incorporate ideas by showing rather than telling, dramatizing rather than lecturing,” Ms. Smith says.

        Literary publicist Marika Flatt of Austin, Texas, says authors already are writing more — and better. “They seem to be more reflective now,” she says. “Many . . . are motivated to write about something that they've been putting off.”

        And playwright Robert Lawson of Rindge, N.H., sees the Sept. 11 terrorism as an unavoidable inspiration for years to come.

        “This thing will stand between us and our work,” he says. “The events will exist between American artists and their work as a filter. To simply ignore this would be an artistic crime.”

        Ray Cooklis is an editorial writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer; phone (513) 768-8525; email rcooklis@enquirer.com.

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