CH has actual scenes of animal cruelty. That major chains showed what was at one time an extreme example of independent skid row exploitation cinema shows how much the culture has declined (in part due to jaded postmoderns). Postmodernism DIED on 9.11.2001 when people saw genuine horror and evil yet within a week they wanted to go back to the way things were and by 2 weeks were watching Letterman again and starting to claim "Bush Knew" as well as telling tales of Timothy McVeigh types hijacking the planes.
You're right about one thing...Americans seem all too desperate to "return to normalcy" after some horrible event. The Democrats often have played on this in the last few years. Remember how badly in 2002 they were trying to shift the debate from the Terror War back to their old standbys, the economy and health care?
Part of it, I am convinced, is because of what America IS...one of the most prosperous nations ever. We have a standard of living beyond most in the world; even those we call "poor" have luxuries far beyond those of many nations. Because of this, we tend to forget about deep, difficult problems and focus on trivial, frivolous things like entertainers and sports, or retreat into our own lives. We think of the "big stuff", like terrorism, as something we pay someone else to handle, and keep far from us.
In many ways, it's an outgrowth of how great we really are as a nation, but it's one with no easy solutions.
Our grandfathers were able to weather WWII with good morale and spirit, in part because they had been toughened by the great Depression. However, the America of the 1960s, having lived through the unmatched prosperity and new luxuries of the 1950s, had somewhat less stomach for sacrifice and tough choices, which led to the opposition for the Vietnam war. Many young people of the time, having never known truly hard times, were unwilling to give up their easy lives for the hardship of service to their country. Even today, but a small fraction of America's youth consider the military for a career choice out of high school or college.
I confess that I do not know how this problem of focus can be solved. As long as people have the attitude that they have a RIGHT to be free of the worries of the world ("Okay, there's a war on...now what about my prescription drugs?"), such things as you mention will continue.