In "Televisual Politics: Negotiating Race in the L.A. Rebellions," John Thornton Caldwell looks at how the race riots in Los Angeles during the early 1990's were portrayed and influenced by the media and news coverage. I found many parallels between the article and the coverage surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. But a commonality that stood out as particularly disturbing to me is that in both cases people are selling - and buying, keepsakes and merchandise documenting the events.Caldwell uses the example of people buying VHS tapes of the events in L.A. for $19.95. He says that "The big response also contained the threat by commoditizing it" (page 322). In other words, he says, people become less disturbed and overwhelmed by the various major issues that arose during the race riots by purchasing, or consuming, the news as if it were a commodity. This is a concept that can definitely be seen during the aftermath of 9/11, where street vendors and major retailers sell all kinds of keepsakes and trinkets memorializing the attack on the World Trade Center (for example the Christmas ornament pictured above). By purchasing these items, people are potentially able to reduce an otherwise terrifying and overwhelming experience into an object or collection of footage, making it easier to connect with and move on from.
This process, Susan Sontag would argue, is the same thing that happens when we take, look at, or collect the photograph of a horrific or tragic event. On Page 9 of "In Plato's Cave," she says "As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people take possesion of space in which they are insecure". To this effect the act of picture taking, or even looking at a picture, becomes an event all in itself, Sontag says. I would argue that there are inherently emotions associate with this event, which is likely why our perceptions of an experience are forever changed once photography (or purchasing memorabilia) is introduced.
Sontag's comment that photographs "help people take possession of space in which they are insecure" is worthy of further analysis. How do photographs helps us claim space? How do they offset insecurities? What is it about the phographic medium that is "calming"?
ReplyDeleteTaking a photograph gives a person the power to add validity to an experience by capturing and preserving it in a tangible, shareable medium. Just as the tourist feels compelled to take a photograph of a famous monument when on vacation (even though the same monument may have thousands of pictures easily accessible online), they provide physical evidence that an event occurred and that the people captured existed. Otherwise, the only evidence of these would be memory, which cannot be shared directly and disappears inevitably over time. Taking a picture is soothing because we are subconsciously making an effort to preserve this that would otherwise vanish. Viewing a photograph can be calming because it helps us remember that an event occurred, or they can provide physical proof (versus intangible memory) that something occurred just as we remember it.
ReplyDelete