If anyone is interested, here is the link to an article about the pictures we discussed in class today. It turns out the pictures were published on the cover. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4964024/
also, here are the links to the actual pictures. at least two of them.
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/soldiers-coffins.jpg
http://slapnose.com/images/blog/0404/0404_coffins400x496.jpg
I think that it is a good thing they were published. They depicted the truth (anti-war and/or memorial).
7 comments:
how is the truth anti-war? personally, my being uncomfortable with the photos is that i think it separates the soldiers from what they died doing. If there were facts about the soldiers i would feel like it was doing honor for what they did. But using their deaths to make an anti-war crime is plainly disrespectful.
What do you mean "an anti-war crime"? Is that a misprint? I think we got hung up a bit in class today talking about "if they're doing this with the pictures, then it's OK, but if they're doing that with the pictures, then it's not." Conditionals and hypotheticals are useful when there's missing information, but now that you have access to more information, what are you finding WAS being done with the pictures? Remember to be as specific as you can in these evaluations: who in fact was doing what, and in what context?
This is kind of on a different topic but at the end of the article there was another one and it talked about how pictures have been influencing peoples persepective on war. It said "The pictures of prisoners being abused in Iraq have also dramatically changed the image of the war." I am interested to know if you think that these pictures are disrespectful as well?
My take on the pictures is that for me personally it brought the war to reality. because its not being fought US ground (and we never have seen a war fought on US grounds) on certain occasions i forget the severity of the situation, because i dont fully understand it. I find myself getting caught up with other aspects of the war and this picture made me more level headed i feel.
just for to clarify - when i said "anti-war" i meant people who use those pictures to say "the war is bad, we are being lied to look at how many people are dying". (verses those who use the pictures as a memorial)
I agree with Phoebe- i think that these pictures make the war seem more realistic.
There are few people who would disagree with the notion of war as being an unpleasant enterprise. I'm not sure on this, but I imagine a certain part unpleasantness of war is derived from the fact that in war people die. This is a sad a reality, but nonetheless, a reality. From the advent of photography, the medium has been used to portray an instant of authenticity, a flash of actuality. I do not maintain that photographs convey the truth, because to say that would be to dismiss the endowment of sociopolitical bias, symbolism, and agenda that encapsulated in a photo. Rather, a photograph conveys a truth, as much, if not more, than any other form of journalism. People can vent endlessly on the appropriateness of the discussed photographs, saying they are inappropriate, unpatriotic, subversive, or other gobbleteegook, but ultimately do to certain constitutional provisions, cough, the first amendment, ahem, a picture of anything can be taken* (child pornography excluded) without legal reproach. Aside from that it is up to the viewer to endow the photo with meaning. There is long history of war photography that I find more controversial than caskets on a plane. Check out Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Robert Capa to name a few.
is it really the media's job to interpret for us what is honorable and what should be anti-war? I mean in all honesty, if the raw truth is presented in the form of only a picture, how is that either disrespectful OR anti-war and why do we have to assume that it HAS to be one or the other. I think that the pictures can and should be presented for interpretation. No soldier should be disrespected for doing his duty, but at the same time, death is going to occur in war and that cost should be identified truthfully as well; as a high price paid for the sake of the cause.
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