Hollywood films gleefully celebrate slow-mo death and dismemberment, but real-deal death is something we North Americans have a hard time dealing with as a culture. We put it off. We avoid mentioning it in the presence of children. In the media, not only do we resist images of bodies (especially American or white ones), in some cases, we even resist images of caskets.
That’s an excerpt from a blog post by Carolina Miranda about why she’s okay with photographs of the dead. It’s in response to this article by Joerg Colberg, who’s photography blog I read religiously, and who considers photographs of death to be sensational.
I remember when I got Annie Leibovitz’s book, A Photographer’s Life. Among the photos of her parents at the beach and various celebrities hanging out in her studio was one photo that stuck with me, of Annie’s life-partner Susan Sontag, dead in her hospice bed. Annie even stated that she didn’t know what else to do when Susan died, so she took her portrait. The photo is beautiful, and loving. And I remember thinking that this was something that Annie Leibovitz could pull off, but not me, if I were in the same situation.
That speaks to my own conflicted feelings about this issue. I agree that it’s ironic that Americans celebrate death in movies (from Hostel to Kill Bill to Heathers to Final Destination to Pan’s Labyrinth) but yet in life, it’s almost considered crass to use the words, “he died.” Instead we substitute for it vague phrases like “passed away” or “crossed over” that are rather meaningless, when you really think about them.
I agree that we shouldn’t hide from the fact that the world and its inhabitants can be evil to each other sometimes. But at the same time no one, including myself, wants to see dead bodies every night on the news. I think there’s a way to do it right, but I also think there are many ways that photographs of death and violence cheapens and sensationalizes the story. I’m not scholarly enough to define the difference, I just know it when I see it.
Your thoughts?
#1 by Brian M on October 22, 2012 - 7:58 pm
Interview a nurse, a veteran, a veterinarian, or a small animal rescuer, and you’ll likely get a perspective that is outside of mainstream’s avoidance; everything from planning out details bluntly to examples of things they want to avoid.
#2 by dharmapupil on October 24, 2012 - 6:17 am
Your post brings two things to my mind.
First, I have been present in the last 12 years at the deaths of all of my immediate family (Mother and Grandparents) and I find nothing scary or macabre about the subject. I consider myself privileged to have been with them. Perhaps I’d feel differently if they had died suddenly or from other-than-natural causes. The fact that the deaths of our loved ones are usually hidden away from us in hospitals or ‘homes’ is a large part of what makes our society so weird about it. (I just wish I had thought to take pictures.)
I also never use euphemisms when talking about death. When I speak of my family and others, I simply say “They died.” I have gotten some very shocked reactions, but I’m not afraid of the reality. I do phone contact work sometimes, and when I speak with someone in Spanish I have never gotten a euphemism. “Se murio (dead)” is all I’ve ever been told, so maybe this fear of death is an Anglo/Norteamericano thing?
Second, I was in high school during the Vietnam War. Every night on Walter Cornkite. I did ” see dead bodies every night on the news”. I firmly believe that seeing the unvarnished truth about what was going on led directly to the intensity of the protests that eventually caused the end of that war.It was certainly instrumental in MY active participation in protests and civil disobedience in support of that end.
I also think that if we were shown what is going on in Syria and Afghanistan we would have a much swifter resolution of these conflicts due to the level of public outrage that would be generated.
Thanks for a thought-provoking essay!
#3 by dharmapupil on October 25, 2012 - 12:49 am
Strangely, look what I found in my inbox today…
http://listverse.com/2012/10/24/memento-mori-victorian-death-photos/