Credit: Cagle
“Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic and carnivalesque in a vibrant democratic public culture. We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible. Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think capture the carnival of contemporary democratic public culture.
By guest correspondent Elisabeth Ross.
Earlier this week, the New York Times reported the death of Walter Cronkite with the headline, “Trusted Voice of TV News.” That sentiment was echoed in obituaries across the country, many of which also suggested that there had been a decline in the character and credibility of news coverage from the days of network television. The Times story also included this front-page photograph:
This image of Cronkite seated in front of television monitors hardly seems noteworthy, beyond serving as a fitting visual tribute to the news anchor whose career spanned the history of television news itself. Of course, much has changed on both sides of the camera. Cronkite’s pose here captures a sense of the newsroom as command center, a somber stage free of the competing visual cues of contemporary media sprawl.
Consider the subtle background: barely visible behind Cronkite, stacked next to the active screen in the image, are three additional monitors, each blank, waiting for a control-room command. In the hierarchy of the nascent television newsroom of the 1950s, man still dominated machine, and the trustworthiness and reliability of the medium rested largely in the projection of the self-assured anchor. The era’s bulky media equipment ensured that control over media images lay in the hands of a few professionals. In the days before the now essential teleprompter, the news is literally in Cronkite’s hands.
Most obituaries could not help quoting Cronkite’s signature sign-off, “And that’s the way it is,” a trademark phrase that, together with news show titles such as “You are There” and “See it Now,” played on the early television audience’s need to be reassured that they were experiencing something real. Television anxiety is, after all, as old as television itself. The medium that came of age during McCarthyism and the Cold War was prone to a paternalistic model of the authoritative screen, one whose audience–with far fewer screens to choose from–was alternately transfixed by and mistrusting of the powerful images newly anchored in their living rooms.
Not that there haven’t been dissenting voices. Director Hal Ashby’s 1979 film Being There mocks the very idea that TV can bring the audience “there,” “now” or anywhere resembling reality. When the simple-minded main character Chance Gardener, played by Peter Sellers, leaves his television-riddled home for the first time, he is armed only with his remote control. The little hand-held piece of equipment appears laughable (and is promptly put to humorous effect by Sellers). It soon becomes clear, however, that Chance and everyone else is already enmeshed within an enormous technological apparatus–one in which the news can never be “the way it is.”
In the thirty years since the release of Being There, equipment such as bulky cameras and big screens has been augmented by powerful small technologies such as the portable, wireless digital recording device. The possibilities for visual media experiences that could be called “You are There” and “See it Now” have grown, as has the media savvy of the viewing public, which itself is armed with increased means of capturing and deploying images through an ever-expanding variety of media outlets.
Cronkite’s death was lamented by most commentators as the end of an era in television news. Certainly there has been a changing of the guard, not least because the public is no longer limited to the chronic mindlessness of network news. When that change opens possibilities for increased reflexivity and citizen participation, “the way it is” can take on richer meaning, expressed by competing voices and disruptive images, meaning that hopefully reflects the complexity of relationships that in turn drives the critical consciousness of the viewing public.
Photograph of Cronkite from Bettmann/Corbis. Screen grab from Being There (Director Hal Ashby, Warner Brothers, 1979) taken on 7/23/09. Elisabeth Ross is a graduate student in the program in Rhetoric and Public Culture, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University. You can contact Elisabeth at e-ross@northwestern.edu.
The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has been the occasion for commemorating a moment of national triumph—by some accounts “the” moment of national triumph in the post-World War II era—with slideshows of “remembrance” at many of the major media outlet websites (e.g., here and here). The photos at these slideshows display a ritualistic pattern of representation that features heroes (both the astronauts themselves, as well as the engineers and technocrats that made it all possible) and images of the earth as if shot from the heavens, a vantage that no ordinary mortal could ever achieve. But more than that, these slideshows are dominated by images that fetishize the technology itself, as with the photo above of the Saturn V rocket that hurled the Apollo 11 astronauts into space.
The photograph is a sublime display of raw and unfettered power. I am typically reluctant to concede the generally all too easy identification of a phallic symbol, but it is pretty hard to avoid the ascription here. The long, thin projectile is literally “blasting” off from the launch pad, powered by nearly 7 million lbs. of fuel (according to the caption). And it is not hard to imagine it as a representation of a nationalist (notice the red, white and blue color scheme) and technological orgasm, a physical expression of force further accentuated by the sheer size of the photograph itself, a 10 X 20 inch reproduction at the website where I encountered it, that far exceeds the dimensions of my 22 inch monitor and requires that I scroll up and down to see the entire image. Indeed, in its own way the photograph as such functions rather like the foldout in a “girlie” magazine that requires the viewer’s active participation in order to take in the somewhat “larger than life” object of desire.
The national media has been complicit with the promotion of NASA and the space program virtually from the beginning, and so I was not really surprised when, in the midst of all of the nostalgia for Apollo 11—and visual remembrances of what we might characterize as vintage techno-porn—I encountered a slideshow at the Sacramento Bee that once again seemed to make a fetish out of our more contemporary space technologies, this time in conjunction with the International Space Station and the recent launch of the Endeavour space shuttle. But what took me by surprise was the slide that ended the show:
The photograph is distinct in a number of important ways that warrant comment. First, of course, is the simple fact that the image features the technology of photography itself rather than the space technology. There is no way to know if those with the cameras are professional photojournalists or pro/am photographers, but in either case the point is clear that the spectacle we are witnessing—whether it is the blast off from a launching pad or a close-up of the space station floating ever so serenely in orbit—is not immediate to our ordinary human perception but rather is refracted through a lens that creates the appearance of closeness or distance, that can expand or diminish the magnitude of the object or event being observed, and so on. So, for example, compare the size and distance of the image of the Endeavour in this photograph with the image of the launch of the Apollo 11 above. What these photographers can see with their eyes and what they will capture with their cameras is not exactly the same thing. The photo is thus something of a reminder of both the fact and effects of technological mediation. And more, it is a reminder that the camera itself is complicit in some important respects in creating the objects of our desire; and this is no less so in observing the idealized presentation of technological wonders themselves than when we are gazing upon the eroticized body.
But there is a second and more subtle—perhaps even more important—point as well. Although the billowing plumes of white smoke indicate a powerful force, it is nevertheless a finite power, as we see that what rises must inevitably fall (pun intended). Indeed, the downward slope of the smoke is at least vaguely reminiscent of some images of the descent of the Challenger space shuttle after its disastrous explosion, and thus perhaps the image is a cautious reminder of the anxiety that seems necessarily to accompany modernity’s gamble—the wager that the long-term dangers of a technologically intensive society will be avoided by continuing progress: every step forward entails some risk, the bigger the step the bigger the risk. Put differently, for all of the positive effects and affects of our landing on the moon in 1969, our remembrances of that event have included virtually no consideration of the costs expended, including the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts, or those who flew aboard the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. And to remember Apollo 11 in this way is to idealize the event that took place on July 16, 1969, to airbrush it, if you will, and in a manner that converts our memory of that day into something of a fetish.
I wonder if we can separate progress and the risks—the triumphs and disasters—of living in a technological society quite so easily. And if we do, we surely must ponder the ultimate costs.
Photo Credits: NASA; John Raux/AP
A great deal of heat was generated over the Bush administration policy of censoring photographs of military coffins being returned to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan. (Actually, the policy had been in effect since the first Bush administration in 1991, but it was renewed by W. The policy was changed in December 2009.) The criticisms were justified, of course: democratic governments are supposed to be transparent; wars should not depend on public ignorance of their costs; military sacrifice can not be properly honored if hidden. On the other side, defenders of the status quo had argued that the images would fuel controversy about the war.
Now that the coffins are back in public view, however, the impact of the photographs seems to be far less than anticipated. (Some day governments will learn that the best strategy is to hide things in full view.) In fact, the result has been a big yawn. That may be why photographers now are doing something far more interesting that playing supporting roles in a conventional standoff. Instead, we are being shown something else.
This image from the UK is, not surprisingly, a model of ritual observance. The coffin of a rifleman killed in Afghanistan is being carried to a hearse during a repatriation ceremony at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, England. The flag-draped coffin forms one point of a triangle completed by the enormous transport plane centered in the vanishing point and the hearse in the left foreground. (The vectors are marked by the line on the tarmac, the wing/coffin and tail/two figures standing at attention.) The set also composes a rectangle as the plane appears to be the same length as the distance between hearse and coffin. The rectangle creates a strong sense of order and stability, while the triangle directs the meaning of the event from the foreground on earth through the plane to the blue sky beyond.
Thus, the photograph completes the work of the ritual practice being depicted. The viewer is being asked to acknowledge two transitions: the soldier’s remains are being brought from a foreign battleground back to the motherland, while his soul can be imagined as already winging its way from earth to heaven. Fittingly, the coffin is neither in the plane nor the hearse; the soldier is neither completely within the institution of the state nor transferred to the family. He is now forever in between and somewhere else. The institutions remain, here in idealized form: the large, impersonal, powerful plane that is nonetheless beautifully self-contained and standing at ready, dedicated to service of the individual citizen; and the small, familiar vehicle is also beautiful because built to human scale, carefully polished, designed to handle loss, and part of everyone’s fate.
Obviously, that story is too good to be true. Rituals are not merely fictions, and they don’t contain only good news. What struck me most about this photo is not the precise positioning of the ritual objects but rather the terrifying isolation being displayed in plain view. Note how nothing is connected except by the invisible vectors of visual design. Each element of this social setting stands in complete separation from the others–including the viewer from the scene itself. In place of any connectivity, we see the open tarmac, flat landscape, and immense sky. You can imagine heaven, just as you can imagine the nation, but the photograph also suggests the the story of this death is radical isolation. That soldier is forever separated from those who knew him, and that loss contributes to greater separation among all those within the community.
Nor is this the work of one photographer, or a British rather than American tableau.
This photograph is from Delaware, probably at Dover AFB. A Navy team stands at attention before a coffin that has arrived from Afghanistan. Here you see basic elements of the military ritual in the first photograph, albeit in much more humble fashion. The coffin is partially hidden, the state how is represented by a delivery van, and the sailors’ service uniforms suggest a working class destination. Most important, however, is that we again see human isolation amidst a vast emptiness. Here, in fact, that comprehensive absence can’t be contained by ritual forms. The scene is, sadly, all too revealing.
Perhaps this is the real challenge of showing the coffins. The basic question is not whether to criticize the war or support the troops, but rather how to cross the distances that already separate everyone in the human community.
Photographs by Adrian Harlen/Reuters and Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
Photo Credit: Cam Cardow, Ottawa Citizen
“Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic and carnivalesque in a vibrant democratic public culture. We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible. Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think capture the carnival of contemporary democratic public culture.
Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Sante Fe, NM, is pleased to announce “A Thousand Words: Masters of Photojournalism”, an exhibition of more than 60 great photographs from the field of photojournalism. The exhibition opens with a public reception on July 3 from 5 – 7 pm, and will continue through September 25. Additional information is available here.
Photograph taken in Ann Arbor, Michigan in October 1950 by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life.
Debates about the moral value of photography have to deal with poverty. One might think that there is little to discuss: poverty can be distressingly visible, and photographs have been a principle means for motivating efforts to help those in need. From the classic photographs by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine to those persistent Save the Children ads, images of poverty and particularly of its effects on children have raised awareness, shaped public policy, and opened pocketbooks. All that remains, one might think, would be to continue to produce compelling images of destitution.
This photograph from Haiti may not prick one’s conscience, perhaps because we can’t see the child’s face, but it remains a striking image. It also reflects the other side of the debate about photography’s moral legitimacy. One argument against the image is that the photographic depiction of poverty is in fact highly sentimentalized: a continuation of the stock attitudes–including charity, but also condescension–of the Victorian era. In short, the photograph of the poor child is a transposition of the Victorian waif from illustration into photography. For this and other reasons, photographers such as Gordon Parks and others have been accused, not entirely without cause, of simplifying or otherwise aesthetically framing poverty as an object for concerned contemplation, instead of either exploring the social fabric of the poor community or exposing the causes of its continued oppression.
This photo would seem to fall under that criticism. The image is too good: on the one hand, a near-perfect outline of the waif and, on the other hand, a composition of elegant design and rich colors that belies the child’s lack of resources. Indeed, it could be in a Renaissance painting, and both the cropping and the oddity of the one shoe draw one into a close study of the image itself and thus away from critical attention to the social and economic conditions that lie behind it.
The photograph may reflect another criticism as well. Somewhat paradoxically, photography is faulted (and by the same people) both for not evoking the correct moral response and for wearing out compassion or other charitable or progressive inclinations. (Save the Children does come to mind.) That idea could drive photographers to look for new angles on an old subject, and the image above certainly has been cropped in that manner. Instead of the typical dirty face, we see asymmetrical feet (one shod and one bare); instead of the usual sense of need, there is a strange self-sufficiency in this child’s pose; instead of the same assurance that everyone knows what is needed, wearing one shoe creates a whiff of illegibility. And so a photo that may be making poverty into art could also be reworking viewing habits to suggest that seeing is not knowing.
The debates about photography are not going to be resolved today. I don’t think one can or should avoid the work done by public art, which includes channeling sentiments and thus risking sentimentality. Photojournalism does traffic in stock sentiments, just as intellectuals rely on stock criticisms. I’ll admit that there are days when I side with Oscar Wilde’s comment that “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.” But there is still reason to take a good look at the other side of privilege, and to consider how compassion must at some point be a way of seeing.
Photograph by Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press. (This post is the second this week on channeling 19th century public art; the first is here. Another relevant post is here.)
The Statue of Liberty is open for business again for the first time since 9/11. As a result, New York photographers have had to deal with the task of finding a distinctive angle on one the the most familiar images in public art. This one shows the lengths we all are expected to go to see the icon anew:
A child’s arm points upward while the massive statue looms above. The photo is not likely to find its way into a photography textbook: we see nothing whole but instead only a truncated pedestal, sectioned statue, and disembodied person. You have to peer into the image to locate the child’s small arm, which then makes the statue’s bulk all the more overpowering. Distinguishing features are cut out of the picture while proportion is mangled. In its place, attention is drawn to the institutional concrete and the heavy metalwork, and to the fragility and impermanence of the child’s limb.
But the photo is not cutting anything down to size. Instead, it may be depicting a relationship between the national icon and the viewing public. Note now the child’s arm is reproduced by the arm of the statue. This is the only correspondence visible between the living person and the icon. The parallelism is likely to be symbolic: and so, just as the statue is a token of America’s past, so is the child a sign of its future. As both are aligned, and as the one is there to provide inspiration to the other, the implication is that America’s future will continue to be true to the ideals and aspirations of its past.
At this point, some would quote the text at the monument, say, about “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” but my point is not to endorse a specific sentiment. I do want to suggest, however, that the sentimental work of the 19th century public artwork is being continued today in two registers–by the statue itself and by its photographic reproduction. Neither is innocent of complicated motives, but if you accept (as I do) that democracies depend on sentiments just as they depend on critical reason, then it is interesting to see how public arts continue to evoke such admittedly formulaic emotions. Sometimes photography simply relays another artwork and much of the time it draws on its own iconography. The image above does some of each.
An image of obvious fragmentation should also alert the viewer to its own limitations. This view of the national monument makes it seem even more, well, monumental, while reducing actual citizens to the miniaturized status of a small child who can, of course, do little more than look and point. The state may loom too large, and the people are now all but invisible individuals and certainly not masses that might be not so much huddled as unionized. But perhaps that is too much of a stretch. On the other hand, if we are to follow the lead of the photographers, we should be willing to consider more than one angle on our national icons, and on the state of the union they represent.
Photograph by Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times.
Photo Credit: Alberto Pizzolia/AFP/Getty Images
“Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic and carnivalesque in a vibrant democratic public culture. We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible. Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think capture the carnival of contemporary democratic public culture.
By guest correspondent Nathan Atkinson
When catastrophe strikes we can always count on photographers to offer up images of citizens helping their fellows in times of need. These images usually focus on the drama of rescue amid dangerous circumstances. Firefighters work to save property and lives, police officers maintain order on behalf of the helpless, and EMTS rush to aid the sick and the injured. The camera follows dutifully, recording their efforts for a public concerned, curious, or otherwise compelled to look. What’s a disaster good for if it doesn’t bring out the best in our best?
But what of those smaller, one might even say trivial acts of assistance of the sort depicted in this picture?
This photo represents the community that emerges from the mundane aftermath of tragedy. An anonymous commuter dealing with the disruption caused by the June 22 Metro accident struggles to board a train. A rider, already on board, holds the door so that another might enter—a telling courtesy given that our usual stance on public transportation is one of unenlightened self-interest.
In holding the door this woman—the hand looks female though the figure is invisible behind the equally anonymous office-casual male in the foreground—gives up a bit of her comfort for a stranger she recognizes as a resident of a community brought together by the inconveniences that follow inevitably from catastrophe. It translates the bodily pains and horrors we extrapolate from the collision photos into the harmless bisection here.
We feel guilty when angered by the minor inconveniences of catastrophe. The profound suffering of the catastrophe’s immediate victims makes our frustration with a missed appointment seem the height of selfishness. The paper held by the same hand holding the door reminds us to feel this guilt, to forfeit self-pity and our personal comfort to make room for empathy.
This picture shows us that these minor inconveniences provide the opportunity to recognize our membership in a public in trivial acts, and in the comings and goings of civic life. We rarely think of ourselves as part of a community when riding public transit. We react to the limited personal space by retreating into our audio players, cell phones, newspapers, ourselves.
The minor inconvenience to which the door-holder exposes herself echoes the small claim on our time that disaster coverage makes, our compulsion to read the paper—a compulsion the door holder shares. Her discomfort echoes moreover the discomfort we feel when we take the time to look at images of disaster. This discomfort, in turn, functions as a visceral reminder of our membership in a community. Reading the paper, looking at photos, it’s the least we can do.
Photograph by Justin Maxon/New York Times. Nathan Atkinson is a Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently completing a dissertation on the visual rhetoric of atomic testing at the beginning of the Cold War. Nate can be contacted at natkisno@andrew.cmu.edu.
