Not to be insensitive but I ask...

I can handle watching Towering Inferno in the post-9/11 world because what TI still has going for it is the charismatic presence of so many great actors from Hollywood's golden age, a terrific music score and the fact that there still manages to be one foot in a kind of pseudo-reality in showing the professionalism of firefighters makes the film easier to take. Put another way if the film had been made in the 90s, McQueen's fire chief would likely have had a wife or girlfriend trapped among the partygoers and we would have seen even more outsized moments of death-defying stunts. But McQueen instead is just a pro doing his job of whom we never learn one single thing about personally.

It's the "disaster porn" movies of the 90s by Emmerich etc. that I can't handle in the post-9/11 period because in those films we have scenes of destruction of iconic images that drive the entire plot. They are also films not blessed by the presence of great actors from the Golden Age. In short, I am more offended by them where death and massive destruction is more of a set piece and comes off as exploitative. But neither Inferno nor Poseidon Adventure leave that kind of feeling in me.

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It's funny people don't have a problem with war movies like SPR or TVseries like 24 and homeland, that pretty much act out in explicit detail almost every terror related event that has happened since the start of the millennium? People don't mind watching these or movies based on genocide but will find it hard to watch TT.

Is it because it hits 2 deep fears of burning alive or falling from a great height?

Not terror related, but You will watch titanic or Poseidon both influenced or based on the actual event and won't feel anything or even remember the recent Concordia ship sinking that was all over the news.

The irony is TT when filmed wasn't based on a true story but fictional novels even though tall buildings have been on fire. It didn't have a plane fly into it and didn't collapse. The only thing we can relate to are the jumpers and the exterior shots of the glass tower. Everything else is based on survivors accounts on what happened inside the WTC. Again we hear story's from people caught up in other terror events where they've been tortured and almost killed, doesn't put you off watching Hostel or Saw

The 2 tv shows I mentioned at the start are based on or depict terror events that have happened and still happening daily. I'm not talking about Jack Bauer being invincible but the plots involving suicide bombers, chemical bombs, hostage situations and loaded planes being blown out the sky by terrorists. We see war and terror footage all the time but TT is always singled out.

It shows even though dated just how powerful this movie is.

If it bleeds, we can kill it.