BAGnewsNotes

Work With Me, Baby

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by John Louis Lucaites

Anxiety over nuclear bombs is perhaps more pronounced today than anytime since the Cold War, marked by a persistent worry about unfriendly nations, renegade scientists, and terrorists of all stripes gaining access to enriched uranium and nuclear warheads. And yet, outside of a few editorial cartoons here and there, images of “the bomb” are missing in action.  For all the talk of nuclear terror, you might expect to see the image of the explosion at Nagasaki or any of the hydrogen bomb explosions obliterating Pacific atolls.  These were a staple of the Cold War era, but despite other similarities with the War on Terror, they are not to be seen.

At least that was the case until late last year when this image appeared on the front page of the NYT website as the anchor to a story about the debut of the 2007 Miami Beach Art Expo titled “Work With Me Baby.”

The photograph, created by fashion photographer (and music video director) Seb Janiak, clearly puts “the bomb” back in the public eye, but it does so in a manner that functions as an artistic challenge to the prevailing optic of the Cold War image of the bomb.  The Cold War visual relied upon a logic of absence (there was no destruction to be seen, just the explosion in all of its grandeur), the formal perfection of the “mushroom cloud” (the explosion cast in terms of abstract symmetry), and it operated under the complete control of a technologically sophisticated. military-industrial complex (only with such access could one get close enough to take such pictures, whether from 35,000 feet or in the Marshall Islands).

In place of the structured absence, the target of destruction is now evident as we witness the immolation of an actual city (Los Angeles). 

Seeing The Enemy

(This is a post in two parts, one appearing here and
the other appearing at No Caption Needed.)

“If you stare into the abyss long enough …”

by John Louis Lucaites and Robert Hariman

He is the Prince of Blackwater, Erik Prince, founder and CEO of Blackwater, Worldwide, the largest and most notorious of more than 180 private contractors—mercenary firms— hired by the U.S. government to “fill the gaps” of security in Iraq to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.  He is something of a recluse, but in recent times he has become the public face of America's privatized, “shadow army” which currently hosts more personnel on the ground in Iraq than the U.S. military.

The photograph above, which appeared in this week’s Washington Post, is ominous and foreboding.  Shot through a glass door, the viewer is separated from Prince by an invisible barrier that is marked by the Blackwater brand.  Cast in dark shadows and apart from the contrasting light, he is framed at a slight but nevertheless low angle that puts the viewer just beneath the line of sight of his icy cold stare, a look which expresses his utter contempt for those on the other side of the glass, and by extension all that they stand for, including the rule of law.

It is easy to imagine the head of Blackwater as the Prince of Darkness, and the media have done a pretty good job of that.  But what if Prince is a scapegoat for our collective sins and the all too easy willingness of the American public to allow their government to fight a war on the cheap, or in a way that sidesteps accountability?  What if, when we stare into the abyss that is Blackwater and all that it stands for in Iraq, the abyss stares back at us?  What then do we see?

One possibility is the following photograph that we came across in The Daily Telegraph while traveling in England recently.

Fighting in the Trenches

by John Lucaites

In the “Great War,” cultural historian Paul Fussell writes about trench warfare as a troglodyte world in which the soldier experiences an “unreal, unforgettable enclosure and constraint, as well as a sense of being unoriented  and lost.”  He concludes that “the drift of modern history domesticates the fantastic and normalizes the unspeakable.”

This quotation came to mind this past week when I encountered this photograph, which led off a Washington Post slideshow of Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) visiting the troops at Ft. Benning during the recent summer recess.

According to the caption, the senator “takes part in virtual reality firearms training.”  He does this, mind you, while still wearing a suit and tie, though he’s taken off his jacket, presumably to give himself a bit more flexibility to engage the “enemy.”

The Fighting Romneys

by John Lucaites

A few weeks ago, The BAG suggested I take a look at the Romney campaign.  And I did.  And I struggled.

And then this past week in Bettendorf, Iowa, the “family values” candidate who looks like Ward Cleaver was asked whether any of his five sons had served in the military or were planning on enlisting to fight the "war on terror."  His response was that his sons had “decided” not to because they had other career priorities (rather like Dick Cheney’s response to why he didn't serve in Vietnam).

There is a degree of hypocrisy to this position, of course, particularly for a presidential candidate who is relatively supportive of the President's “surge” strategy.  But then again, calling politicians hypocrites is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Not because they are inherently different than anyone else in this regard – in most cases they aren't – but because they are constantly in the public eye, scrutinized as if they were supposed to be perfectly consistent in thought and deed.  Who among us would want to be judged to that standard all of the time?

But Romney did not stop there.

He continued: “...[O]ne of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president.  My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties [in Iowa], most of them with his three kids and his wife.”

Read that last sentence again, then look at the photograph above, taken from the “Five Brothers’ Website.”  It is of three of the five Romney brothers after having completed an annual bicycle race across the state of Iowa.

Now look at this photograph:

It is of five brothers from the town of Waterloo, Iowa.  They were known as the “Fighting Sullivans.”  All five of them died on the same day during WWII when the ship they served on suffered a torpedo attack off of the Solomon Islands.

Choosing not to serve in the military because of career priorities is one thing.  Riding around the countryside in a political “campaign” and “strategizing” photo ops while out of harm’s way would seem to be something different altogether.  Even the allusion that they are similar is an obscenity.

John Louis Lucaites is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the department of communication and culture at Indiana University. John, along with Robert Hariman, are co-authors of the newly released No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and the blog No Caption Needed.

(image 1: fivebrothers.mittromney.com. image 2: castletown.com)

The Image at the End of the Tunnel

(original modified for fit)

by John Louis Lucaites and Robert Hariman

The caption reads, “Seeing Iraq as it is (at least through the window of an armored vehicle).”

The image appears in the NYT Magazine and introduces Michael Ignatieff’s mea culpa for having supported the war in Iraq. He’s right, of course. He did get it wrong and for many of the reasons that he identifies. But at the core of his apologia is the claim that he, and by extension others, were wrong because they confused “the world as it is with the world as they wish it to be.”

Good advice, surely, which then is followed by his resolution to be “less swayed by my emotions” in the future And right there Ignatieff is on the road to being wrong again. To see what is at stake, take a look at the photographs accompanying the article. The six images stitched together were shot while looking out of an armored vehicle. The viewer is separated and sealed off from the surrounding environment by bulletproof glass. (The window also has the look of a small television screen, another emotional buffer.)

What we see is a thoroughly fragmented Iraq, a world of disconnected moments in space and time; although we clearly see what is there, it is hard to know what it might mean. We have no sense of context outside the vehicle and no basis for response to what is seen. Each fragment appears as a specimen, something to be handled objectively and perhaps pieced together, but having little value in itself.

Thus, the images remind us that politics is susceptible to what James C. Scott calls Seeing Like a State. Scott reminds us that “Certain forms of knowledge and control require a narrowing of vision,” and political control can depend on seeing the world from a distanced, amoral perspective. This “tunnel vision” separates the viewer emotionally from the scene in order to maximize strategic rationality without regard for complexity or moral consequences. As Scott documents, when such political thinking is backed by state power, the results can be catastrophic.

Ignatieff’s essay is a thoughtful meditation on political judgment, but it inadvertently provides a recipe for making additional mistakes. Many were swept away by moral zeal in supporting the war, but some of those who opposed it made better judgments precisely because they could imagine and emotionally register the havoc that would result. Becoming less emotional may be good advice for some, but it is not the key to practical wisdom and it is not likely to make sense of Iraq.

As one can see from the photographer’s vantage: by emphasizing the tunnel vision of the armored vehicle, the picture demonstrates how a narrow perspective from a secure position, however accurate, still is part of the problem. Any solution will require multiple points of view and less emotional detachment. Ignatieff knows as much: he concludes (rightly, though inconsistently) by calling for leaders “acquainted with grief.”

The same is true for the citizens who elect those leaders, and for that we need other images. Flag-draped coffins, for example. . . .

John Louis Lucaites is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the department of communication and culture at Indiana University. John, along with Robert Hariman, are co-authors of the newly released No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and the blog No Caption Needed.

(image: Benjamin Lowy/New York Times Magazine. nytimes.com)

"W" On His Own Two Feet

by John Lucaites

The President seems to be looking for just about anything these days to prop himself up.  So when his "Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors" issued 35 recommendations this past week, he jumped on it, directing Robert Gates to implement them immediately.  And, of course, it was a perfect time to take a jog on the South Lawn with two veterans who had lost legs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The image above, featured in the NYT, fits a recent pattern of portraying the president as miniscule, a Lil’ Bush.  In this instance the White House dominates the image, but note too how it is somewhat hidden behind a veil of trees and bushes, peaking out as if to suggest the potential for majesty, even if its occupant is not up to the task.

The full irony is made explicit in this shot from WAPO’s “Day in Photos.”

It portrays what appears to be a pot-bellied president being propped up by the amputated veterans, each seemingly stronger and more stable than he.

(image 1: Andrew Councill for the New York Times; image 2: Chris Kleponis-Pool, Getty Images)

There To Be Seen

“This is not a wartime President.”

by John Lucaites

This picture was taken at Ft. Benning, Georgia on January 11th, the day after President Bush announced his plan for the “surge” and while meeting with military personnel and their families.  So far as I know, it did not show up anywhere until last week, leading Time's “The July Surprise” by Joe Klein.

This striking visual argument stands in stark contrast to the president’s mantra that “I didn’t want to be a wartime President,” a claim we have heard increasingly over the past year, and which was repeated again the previous Tuesday in Cleveland.  With the quality of a Magritte, one could imagine “This is not a wartime President” written across the bottom of the image.  But it also has the mark of a bad snapshot, one  ordinarily thrown away.  It certainly would not show up in the typical family photo album.  So why does it show up in Time – arguably an American family photo album?

Over the past few weeks I’ve called attention to the photojournalistic presence and absence of “hands” and “feet.”  Here we get both together,  magnified by the cropping just below the shoulders, removing the faces and the affective attributes that go with them.  If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the first thing to notice is that this image is soulless.  And since it is the man in the middle who is featured, distinguished by red tie and business suit against a uniform field of camouflage, we have to assume it is his soul that matters most.

But what really distinguishes the photograph is the tension between hands and feet.  The shoes differentiate those who fight (and die) from those who call the tune.  They are there in almost any other picture of the president reviewing his troops, of course, but they are almost never featured as such.  Here, the focus on them requires us to account for the difference, and the hierarchy.  And then the hands.  Notice the hands of the soldiers are neither “at attention” nor “at ease.”  Rather, they seem to be in some liminal state,  neither here nor there.  LIke the military is in Iraq, perhaps?  But look at the president’s left hand.  It is checking that his jacket is buttoned, and thus properly draped and presentable.  His concern, in other words, is how he looks for the camera.

Contrast this image with any of the White House photographs from the original event and you will see a very different portrait, as the president shakes hands and mingles.  They are obviously all part of a grand photo-op – and of course, we know that – but they still coach our suspension of disbelief.  Only in the Time image above does the camera call attention to itself, and by extension to the spectacle being performed and recorded: The president is not there to support, let alone lead and protect.  He is there to be seen.

John Louis Lucaites is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the department of communication and culture at Indiana University. John, along with Robert Hariman, are co-authors of the newly released No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and the blog No Caption Needed.

(image: Brooks Kraft/Corbis for Time. Fort Benning, Georgia, January 11, 2007. time.com)

The Billary Problem

by John Lucaites

What do we do with Bill in pictures with Hillary?

If Bill Clinton were as relatively lesser known or recognizable as most candidates for “First Lady,” the problem might be easier.  After all, there are a host of conventions for photographing candidate and “wife.”  The candidate is generally featured – sometimes because he is physically larger, sometimes because he is slightly in front of or above his spouse in the frame—usually in sharper focus, looking at “his” constituency.  "She" will usually be behind him (or besides), but often in softer focus, seeming to model how the audience should look at him, or looking toward the audience as if guided by his gaze.  (There are variations and exceptions, of course, but they generally reinforce recognizable conventions and forms.)

The problem is that Bill is neither unknown nor unrecognizable, and, at least of late, his presence is precisely to be “seen.”  So what are photojournalists to do?  Should they simply follow convention and treat Bill like any other spouse, standing “beside his woman”?

Even if gender differences didn’t already complicate this problem, Bill’s notoriety does.  And one has to believe that photojournalists know this.  And so we, too, have to assume that they are quite conscious of every picture they take with Bill and Hillary in it – the "Billary problem" – regardless of whether they follow old conventions or seek a new way to adapt.  In other words, what we are getting here is not the ordinary “window on the world” that we like to think photojournalism offers.  Instead, we have a situation where every photograph is crafted to its effect.

Hillary And Obama:The Issue At Hand(s)

 

(Bloggers Note: I am pleased to welcome John Lucaites to BAGnewsNotes as a regular contributer to lend us his expertise on political iconography, media imagery and visual rhetoric.)

by John Lucaites

A few weeks ago, The BAG posted covers of the newly released Gerth/Van Natta and Carl Bernstein Hilary Clinton biographies.  Because the images are so similar, I've chosen to compare them with a sample of cover shots of Obama biographies published this year.

The Obama images are in line with what Kress and Van Leeuwen call “demand” pictures, while the recent Hillary book covers reflect what these theorists call “offer” pictures.  In the “offer,” the image is put there for you to gaze upon, marked by the fact there is no eye contact with the viewer.  In the Hillary covers, the upward angle puts the viewer below the picture, in the role of “spectator," literally looking “up to” the subject as one might look at a statue.

In the Obama cover, the eye contact is usually direct, "demanding" we engage with the subject.  And the angle is straight on, implying a degree of equity or realism --opposed to a presentation that is “larger than life.”  Although one of the covers is more ambiguous, the eyes are still present, and because he is engaging with someone outside of the frame, it feels it might as well be us.  That Obama is smiling also suggests the demand is friendly, sociable.

In an editorial example, by the way, take this front page visual from Saturday's nytimes.com.  It offers the opening shot of a short video on "Obama and volunteerism."  Note that the image is doubled so we see the degree of interactivity in the original image (notice the backs of the heads) which gets even more  pronounced as we move into the "audience" and the viewers become fuller, more real, engaged with Obama on the wall as well as the laptop.  ... And, of course, so too do we as we move back one more step.

"Iwo Jima? Uh Oh!"

To BAGreaders,

A couple weeks ago, John Lucaites joined our discussion thread about a photo I posted from Greensburg, Kansas.  John, along with Robert Hariman, are co-authors of the newly released No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy.  Their book, and their theoretical approach to iconic photos, closely dovetails with our mission here, emphasizing how political pictures, in a completely practical sense, represent a mainspring of insight into our culture, politics and media.

The following is their "Homerian" follow-up to our Greensburg discussion.

The Migrant Mother, Times Square Kiss, John-John saluting the passing caisson, Accidental Napalm, the lone dissenter in Tiananmen Square, the Firefighter and the Baby … and the list goes on.

We recognize them  across generations, classes, ethnicities, and any other number of demographic borders.  They are what we often refer to as the “iconic photograph” – the photojournalist’s “command performance.”  They have become so important that in many instances we don’t believe that an event is actually significant unless there is an iconic photograph to mark it.

The question is, what makes an iconic photographic “iconic”?  There are numerous answers to this question, not least being their powerful emotional resonance, but at least one important attribute of all those images that seem to achieve the status of iconicity is their reproducibility.

The iconic photograph – although not alone in this regard – is characteristically reproduced across a wide variety of media and genres, and in contexts that exceed the moment of its original production, sometimes being used to mark history (as when an image such as the Times Square Kiss becomes the visual marker of  “the return to normalcy” following WW II), sometimes to fuse individual and collective identity (as when one has the image of the Iwo Jima flag raising tattooed on their arm or back), sometimes to note ironies (as in many editorial cartoons that draw on the images), and many other uses as well.