Susan Sarandon: I think we misunderstand how we are understood outside of the United States.

Jon Stewart: But does that necessarily mean that that’s a fair perception of us?

Susan Sarandon: No, it doesn’t necessarily..[but] it’s very, very different.

Jon Stewart: In other words, like the misperception of New York, for instance, in the rest of the country, was it something that New York brought upon itself. Because it’s interesting, I hear a lot about what we brought upon ourselves. And it always reminds me of, you know, perhaps how black people should take the time to really understand the Klan. And really understand, you know, why they made them so mad. I guess that’s not so popular here. But you know what I mean? I do think that there are some people out there who have misperceptions and it’s very difficult. The majority of the Arab world still doesn’t believe that Arabs did this. What do you do to change perception that’s that skewed?

Wendy Wasserstein: I don’t think we really know how we’re perceived in the rest of the world. I think we’re still back at the end of WWII and [we see ourselves as] the Americans [who come in with] candy and everyone’s happy to see us. And that’s really not the case anymore at all.

Susan Sarandon: We [can] thank our movies for continuing the myth of how we’re perceived. Wendy Wasserstein: But I also agree with Jon that this panel would not exist in so many countries in this world or… I actually ppent a lot of time in Eastern Europe…. And you came home here and you wanted to kiss the ground, and you think this is a great democratic country.

Susan Sarandon: This is a great democratic country. [But] we have seen ourselves as being liberators… and… people have just settled with that, without the complications of what else is happening, as we put pipelines everywhere…Dissent is not just right, it’s a responsibility. That’s how things started in this country. It’s always been a tradition in this country and it should be everywhere…In other wars, people sacrificed. They didn’t consume, they didn’t wear stockings. And now we’re being asked to go to dinner and buy stuff in order to make things better. But what about looking at our energy policy, for instance?

Wendy Wasserstein: There is that danger of saying you brought it on yourself. I always think that’s a danger in disease as well. "Well, it’s your fault you got this." I think that what’s important from this is to realize we live in a global world and it is a community and the community extends beyond the United States.

Susan Sarandon: But I don’t know that when people say "this is the history leading up to this’’ that they’re saying therefore you are guilty. They’re saying, "as we proceed, let’s understand that it’s not that simple." I saw the quote of what Bin Laden said that we weren’t allowed to see on the video because there might be secret signals. Remember when that last video came out? And they have the text of what he actually said, if you can believe the translation…Somebody here could’ve said it. What he’s saying about what his people have been through and everything else. This is not to justify what he’s saying. But you know, in terms of our compassion, in terms of changing things, you have to get to hope first. You have to get to some kind of system that’s going to provide hope for a people in a country. Whether it’s this country, whether it’s some other country. You’re dealing with people who have lived in a certain way and feel that violence is an alternative. Where you get to the point where a guy in the prime of his life thinks the bets alternative is to go and blow up not only himself, but thousands of other people. What leads to that? How do you start to figure out how to solve the problem in some other way besides a cowboy-shoot-em-up?

Jon Stewart: I think it’s relatively naïve to think that the disparity in wealth is what creates suicide bombings.

Susan Sarandon: No, I’m not just saying the disparity of wealth…

Jon Stewart: Or conditions without hope.

Susan Sarandon: Well, it might be just as naïve to think that just violence is going to solve violence.

Jon Stewart: But I’m not sure that anyone thinks that violence is going to solve violence. That’s another thing, when Hitler was roaming across Europe, subdividing it for planned developments, there was at the time in Europe a policy of appeasement after WWI and the Versailles treaty. There was that sense that that was the war to end all wars and the league of nations was going to take care of business.

Susan Sarandon: Now who are you comparing to Hitler? [The U.S.] going through these countries or you’re talking about bin Laden?

Jon Stewart: Well, going through countries with McDonald’s I don’t think is the same as going through countries with panzer divisions.

Susan Sarandon: Well, that’s absolutely true, but we never…we didn’t kill thousands of people in Iraq to put in McDonald’s.

Jon Stewart: We didn’t?

Susan Sarandon: I don’t think so.

Jon Stewart: I thought we did it to liberate Kuwait.

Susan Sarandon: Yeah, they’re feeling really great, Kuwait.

Jon Stewart: But we act within our self-interest, I think that’s true. And I think most countries act within self interest, but I do believe that there’s a demagogue out there who believes this is a holy war.

Audience member: George Bush

Jon Stewart: Maybe, you may be right. But I do think that George Bush, and I’m not by the way, a supporter, but I do think that it’s very easy to classify that this country’s policy is demagoguery when I don’t think it is. I think we take great pains in this country to be responsible with… I think there’s a certain recklessness, but we take…you know the idea that the embargo in Iraq is morally equivalent to suicide bombing, I think is an irresponsible point of view…Clearly Saddam Hussein has money to build golden palaces and mosques, why doesn’t he use it on sandwiches?

Audience member: Yeah, I’ve been waiting for a really long time.

Jon Stewart: I apologize, that was the Bush policy that kept you from speaking.

Audience member: It probably was the policy. I don’t think the Bush policy would want to hear what I have to say at all. Anyway, I had question, but I really wanted to respond to that last little bit there before I go into my question. I have to say that in reference to the sanctions on Iraq not being morally equivalent to a suicide bombing. Yeah, the deaths of Iraqi people, because I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I actually was supposed to go to Iraq just before September 11 hit, so it was very ironic that that happened.

Jon Stewart: Do you think it was about your trip?

Audience member: You know what, I don’t think it was about my trip, but it was definitely connected to my trip, I can say that. Because I definitely think that obviously was a major cause for what happened. There have been 1.5 million Iraqi people that have died, mostly children. And it’s the extent that, I mean, their complete infrastructure is destroyed, their water is poisoned. They have no food, they’re on a desert…They can’t develop their own medicine. They have the best doctors in the Middle East and they have people dying from the common cold and the most curable illnesses that there are. So, I just wanted to go a bit more into detail.

Jon Stewart: Nothing personal, but we have been embargoing Cuba for about 50 years and they seem OK.

Audience member: I’m aware of the embargo on Cuba, but it’s not to the extent of the embargo on Iraq?

Jon Stewart: Are you going there?

Audience member: I’m not planning on going to Cuba, no. Iraq is my issue. But anyway, I want to go into the question I have now that is connected to this. Basically, I was on a peace walk last December and I was obviously encountering a lot of people that I was trying to convince of the fact that I felt that our response to this was the wrong one. And I kept spewing out these facts and of course, people would just refute them and argue them and debate them. And it just wasn’t getting through. I bumped into this one woman and it started off the same way. And I said to her, well imagine, I said, you know America does have terrorist organizations within it as well. We have the KKK, we have the Michigan Militia. We have all of thesegroups. I said can you imagine these groups got together and thought to themselves, you know, we’re so sick of these Asians with their technology coming and taking all of our jobs. And we’re going to attack Asia, I said. And then can you imagine Asia, because Asia is a very technologically advanced continent, I said. Maybe just a single country, or maybe united, coming and bombing us. And can you imagine just living in your normal neighborhood and going about your normal life? And seeing these bombs come out of the sky because the KKK did something to an Asian country.

Jon Stewart: At that point, did it turn into a peace run, by any chance? Just kidding. I see your point.

Audience member: Wait, wait. You haven’t seen my point yet, I have got to my point. My point is, the thing that really…

Jon Stewart: Why do I feel like you’re about to break up with me?

Susan Sarandon: That’s just like one point away from, you’re so cute when you’re angry.

Jon Stewart: So your point is that… maybe we don’t all have the empathy to feel like what it’s like to live in Afghanistan? It’s a very valid point.

Audience member: The point that I’m trying to make is that all of the facts in the world did not have the impact of putting it in a creative user-imagination way. And the point that I’m trying to get at is that all of you are artists on this panel. And I’d like to see how you feel you can put this in a creative way and reach people on an artistic level rather than just giving them the facts.

Susan Sarandon: There’s a whole history speaking [of art during wartime in which people from a nation were vilified before they were attacked.] The way to slow things down is always to put human faces in those countries so when we’re sitting at home in America… we talk about "destabilizing" Nicaragua, somebody shows the faces of the people that are being destabilized…meaning ruining the infrastructure of Nicaragua and what exactly is going on there… You’re not just bombing the axis of evil, you’re actually having to deal with people within those countries who have a culture, who have faces, who have whatever. And then, you know, it may change them. Maybe that’s one thing people who are gifted in those areas can do is to humanize both sides of any kind of situation. So if there are documentary filmmakers or people have some writers that can do specific stories about people.

Wendy Wasserstein: I think what you do as an artist is eventually go back to work. … We may do something directly, like what Susan’s doing. Or you think about what is it like to live in these times with this event happening for the time. I keep thinking, Chekov is my favorite playwright who was not directly political. But if you see those plays, you know they are about people who lived in this society that was being transformed, on the brink of revolution, but we never talk about it. So I think what you’ll begin to see in art is both directly dealing with this time [and indirectly]… God hopes that in forty years no one’s going to make The Towering Inferno, but they will. But I also think you’ll see plays, art, that reflect people who come of age or have lived through this time, through an event that happened in this country that never happened before. How does it affect their daily life? How does it affect their falling in love? How does it affect their being funny? All of that will happen, and I think you will see it in their art, either directly or indirectly. But that will happen because you have a country that has to redefine its character because it’s redefining its vulnerability and fear. That, I think, any artist will instinctively take into account. That’s true of comedy as well because it’s your instinct that makes you judge, is this working, is this not working? And our instincts change because of this event, and I think you’ll see it in very important art that’s going to come out as a result of this period.

Audience member: Do you think we are a country that’s redefining ourcharacter?

Wendy Wasserstein: I do.

Susan Sarandon: I don’t know if we are publicly, mainstream. It doesn’t start from top down. It always starts from the people up. …I think Wendy’s right...People are thinking, they are asking, they’re grieving, they’re sharing, they’re reaching out…In the very first days, there were so many people who came here from Oklahoma City, for instance. Ministers, firefighters, whatever, they were just living at the Javits Center trying to share their experiences. That kind of stuff’s still going on. We just don’t hear about it… I think that we can’t go back. This is the new normal… We’re not going to go back to normal. We can’t and we shouldn’t want to.

Jon Stewart: If I may say, I don’t think art defines our character. I don’t think any of it does. I think what defines us as a people, what defines our character already happened on that day. 19 flew into a building to blow it up. 350 ran into that building to save people and died. That’s our character and that’s how we define ourselves.

Karin Batten: And I think that’s how the rest of the world, most of the rest of the world, views us. I had a big part of that after the second world war. We saw America being very helpful coming in and trying to build everything up again. And that’s the first piece of chocolate I ever got.

Jon Stewart: First piece of chocolate? Was it a Riesen? Did you see those? They’re chewy, but not too chocolatey.

Karin Batten: I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was bread.

Jon Stewart: Seriously?

Karin Batten: I had never had a piece of candy until I was seven years old.

Susan Sarandon: My kids will not be the same kids they were, even though they are doing things the way they were. Of course, life goes on…we’ve returned to normal. We’re being productive. But all your experiences somewhat register in who you are. And they now have a perspective that they didn’t have. Now, what that turns out to be, I don’t know. And we will find out as we go along, but I don’t think that you can just ignore what happened. I mean, we appreciate different things.Some people are in denial …I was with somebody who is a decorator and they had a client who called from Kansas and said, "I know you’ve got a little problem there, but these things haven’t arrived yet." I know you’ve got a little problem there?!…Something definitely happened and you can’t go back as if it didn’t happen.

Jon Stewart: There was even a quote about Anna Wintour and Calvin Klein…There was a time when he thought maybe he’d get out of the business now. And she begged him to produce his Spring line because otherwise the terrorists win…Pompous, indulgent people find a way to turn September 11 into a pompous, indulgent feeling….And I think that’s the idea of change,people react to it… My only point is there’s overwhelming good in this country, there is.And I am incredibly proud of that part of it. And are there horribly reckless policies out there? Yes…

Susan Sarandon: So why are you calling me naïve?

Jon Stewart: I think it’s naïve to simplify it. All I’m saying is that when the back is up against the wall, I think people are incredibly strong and incredibly passionate as a whole, but the majority of us…

Susan Sarandon: Not just in this country. Everywhere.

Jon Stewart: I’ m not saying other countries don’t have that. I’m sure they do. I haven’t been there. I’m from New Jersey. That seems nice too. All I’m saying is I believe in this world, and I don’t think there is this overwhelming cabal of evil. I think it’s an overwhelming cabal of cutting your lawn and raising your kids. And the general policies of this country are run by the extreme left and the extreme right because everyone else is busy cleaning their gutters.

Audience member: [talks about the women of Afghanistan and how there should be more attention paid to them]. I just sort of have a very idealistic view of still how to remedy the world, save the world. I sort of feel like there’s just a great wealth of heroes out there. I know a lot of them are probably very brainwashed. These terrorists, they had girlfriends, they had wives, they had mothers, sisters. I’m very interested in that. I wanted to throw that out there.

Susan Sarandon: You know we’re cutting the pay of firefighters this year. The city is cutting their pay. They’re getting the…what do you call it when you don’t get a raise?

Jon Stewart: The shaft.

Susan Sarandon: The shaft!

Jon Stewart: Do you know what that’s called?

Audience Member: I get your point. I think that we definitely have to focus here on our country, but it’s just an idea I wanted to throw out there.

Audience member: You’re all amazing storytelliers in each one of your mediums. I’m wondering how, if in any way, 9-11 is affecting your creative process. And if there are any other stories that you see coming out of this?

Wendy Wasserstein: I felt like Spalding. I found it very hard to write. I thought that whatever I’m doing here is irrelevant. In fact, because I thought whatever I’m doing is irrelevant, I started writing things that were even more irrelevant. I started writing, you know, "My Manicure" for fashion magazines because I just couldn’t deal with what I was thinking about. I didn’t even know what I was thinking about. And then when I did think about it, I thought this is ridiculous. It just can’t compare. I do think there’s a part of me, in terms of storytelling, I think that I hope will be more work that is about children and appeals to children because I think that that has to be thought about. Because when you talk about information and dealing with if that event defined our character, then who’s going to be the next generation of Americans? I think we don’t think about that that much or what we do is throw at them…stop it. We think, oh this will sell things and this will and they’ll all come to this. And I think maybe this event, in terms of storytelling, will make us think about that a little more and the quality.

Susan Sarandon: I think the New York Times should be congratulated for those obits that they put in writing. To be able to get a little bit of information and give you just a tiny glimpse of some of these people.

Audience member: What has been the challenge… and actions for artists who have some principles and for artists who want to create work that has some social conscience to it? What is the challenge in actually trying to do that in a period where we are embarked on a war with no limits of time and space and critical thought itself is suspect?

Jon Stewart: So you’re talking about the artists of principle? Well, I’m going to have to pass on this one.

Susan Sarandon: You’re always supposed to be an artist of principle. You’re supposed to write and take responsibility because no matter what anybody tells you, every movie is political. The only ones that they say are political are the ones that challenge the status quo, but every movie tells people what women want, what it means to be a guy, what’s funny, what’s not. I think "Nutty Professor" is one of the most political films; they got everybody to root for that guy to stay fat. That’s a political film, what the values in that system is about. So you have to listen to your own bottom line and see that films at their best start a dialogue where people can examine some kind of subject or whether point of view is challenged a little bit …. So everybody should just understand that their work puts something out there. …You just have to always be principled, and I don’t think that has changed. It’s exactly the same thing as it was before the 11th.