A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Tirades.
"...though I see, I don't stare." -Trey Anastasio.
In light of the devastation that occurred December 26 on the coasts of the Indian Ocean, there has been an onslaught of horrific imagery in the media that I must take exception to. I am not terribly surprised by the competition among news sources for the most shocking and emotionally wrenching pictures and videos, but it does disturb me. Initial images of people clinging to something stable for safety only to be pulled under by the current bombarded television viewers on the twenty-four hour media networks, and in the airport a few days ago I saw a picture that shook me to my core. It was on the cover of Newsweek, and showed a mother and a father crouched over a young dead child, holding him and weeping with an immeasurable sadness. I walked away from the news stand rack with my head down, choked up with emotion and sadness for these people whose lives lay in ruins before them.
Now if the person who took this picture were reading this, they might think to themselves "job well-done. That's exactly what I wanted to convey with that picture, it was a very real moment that captured the essence of the devastation that the tsunami wrought." Unfortunately, were I to meet the person who took that picture, they wouldn't finish the thought before I'd have knocked his or her lights out in a blinding and righteous rage, preferably with the very camera they took the picture with. Who was this "photojournalist" to invade this most darkly intimate moment between a husband and a wife, mourning while the very embodiment of their life and love together lay dead between them, unable to return the expressions of care and emotion they offered it?
Ours is a nation sick with perverse voyeurism, and not of the sexual nature. While Americans went crazy as shithouse rats when Janet Jackson or the woman from Desperate Housewives exposed their bodies to a national audience, there is no reaction, no uproar, no cries for "morality" while we take in the last moments of a husband being ripped from his wife by the current, or as a family mourns its loved ones lost to the sea. We seek it out, break it as "exclusive," and congratulate the mercenaries who offer it up. I saw a "piece" on Fox News in which the reporter interviewed a young boy who lost his entire family to the wave. Internalize that for a moment. The boy was about seven or eight years old. He lost his mother, father, brothers and sisters. He was alone in the world, and here is an American news channel shoving a camera and a microphone at him, to get the "human element" of the disaster. Unbelievable. I flipped the channel as soon as I could. There was no reason for me to see or hear anymore.
The pictures of children in hospital beds, mothers looking for their children in makeshift morgues and the like are simply invasive, and ought to be offensive to anyone with a sense of shared global citizenship and an ounce of active conscience. While we as Americans may have grown numb to the voyeurism we promote on "reality television" and the like, this hardly seems a noble way to help, even while Americans congratulate themselves for their economic generosity to the people affected. I guess this is the return on the investment. If we're going to give you money, we want to see you suffering. The camera loves you, baby.
We know that there are people, many people, whose lives were destroyed that day. Is it not enough to get a "sense" of the impact? Must we as a nation, or worse as consumers, demand that we know "the full story," a euphamism which justifies our jones for the perversely dramatic? Must our photojournalists snap away, must our field reporters insist on probing the depths of human emotion so that advertisers get the most bang for their buck? Can we as Americans ever just look away, out of respect for the dead and the living who mourn them, if not for human decency itself? It seems that journalistic integrity has been exchanged for advertising rates, and American consumers lap up the pain and anguish they get in between commercials like Pavlov's dogs.
In light of the devastation that occurred December 26 on the coasts of the Indian Ocean, there has been an onslaught of horrific imagery in the media that I must take exception to. I am not terribly surprised by the competition among news sources for the most shocking and emotionally wrenching pictures and videos, but it does disturb me. Initial images of people clinging to something stable for safety only to be pulled under by the current bombarded television viewers on the twenty-four hour media networks, and in the airport a few days ago I saw a picture that shook me to my core. It was on the cover of Newsweek, and showed a mother and a father crouched over a young dead child, holding him and weeping with an immeasurable sadness. I walked away from the news stand rack with my head down, choked up with emotion and sadness for these people whose lives lay in ruins before them.
Now if the person who took this picture were reading this, they might think to themselves "job well-done. That's exactly what I wanted to convey with that picture, it was a very real moment that captured the essence of the devastation that the tsunami wrought." Unfortunately, were I to meet the person who took that picture, they wouldn't finish the thought before I'd have knocked his or her lights out in a blinding and righteous rage, preferably with the very camera they took the picture with. Who was this "photojournalist" to invade this most darkly intimate moment between a husband and a wife, mourning while the very embodiment of their life and love together lay dead between them, unable to return the expressions of care and emotion they offered it?
Ours is a nation sick with perverse voyeurism, and not of the sexual nature. While Americans went crazy as shithouse rats when Janet Jackson or the woman from Desperate Housewives exposed their bodies to a national audience, there is no reaction, no uproar, no cries for "morality" while we take in the last moments of a husband being ripped from his wife by the current, or as a family mourns its loved ones lost to the sea. We seek it out, break it as "exclusive," and congratulate the mercenaries who offer it up. I saw a "piece" on Fox News in which the reporter interviewed a young boy who lost his entire family to the wave. Internalize that for a moment. The boy was about seven or eight years old. He lost his mother, father, brothers and sisters. He was alone in the world, and here is an American news channel shoving a camera and a microphone at him, to get the "human element" of the disaster. Unbelievable. I flipped the channel as soon as I could. There was no reason for me to see or hear anymore.
The pictures of children in hospital beds, mothers looking for their children in makeshift morgues and the like are simply invasive, and ought to be offensive to anyone with a sense of shared global citizenship and an ounce of active conscience. While we as Americans may have grown numb to the voyeurism we promote on "reality television" and the like, this hardly seems a noble way to help, even while Americans congratulate themselves for their economic generosity to the people affected. I guess this is the return on the investment. If we're going to give you money, we want to see you suffering. The camera loves you, baby.
We know that there are people, many people, whose lives were destroyed that day. Is it not enough to get a "sense" of the impact? Must we as a nation, or worse as consumers, demand that we know "the full story," a euphamism which justifies our jones for the perversely dramatic? Must our photojournalists snap away, must our field reporters insist on probing the depths of human emotion so that advertisers get the most bang for their buck? Can we as Americans ever just look away, out of respect for the dead and the living who mourn them, if not for human decency itself? It seems that journalistic integrity has been exchanged for advertising rates, and American consumers lap up the pain and anguish they get in between commercials like Pavlov's dogs.
posted by MK | 10:04 AM
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