[lbo-talk] Memorial Day

[Jerry Monaco]

On 5/28/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
> On May 28, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
>
> > Don't you think that choosing this photo of _sexualized_ grief, a
> > representation of almost visceral necrophiliac desire, is in fact a
> > piece of
> > propaganda?
>
> From the rest of your post it's clear you don't mean that it's a
> piece of antiwar propaganda, which is how I see it, consciously or
> not. I've seen lots of stock images of wailing women mourning their
> dead, but there's something about the intense and frustrated physical
> longing in the photo that really got to me. Sure it was erotic, even
> perverse, but it was so out of the ordinary for grieving photos that
> it really made me notice. And it sounds like I'm not the only one.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
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>

In the case of memorial day there is no such thing as anti-war propaganda.
And yes the sexualized grief of this picture was both beautiful and
shocking.  I did notice it, but that is all the more reason to question our
own emotions.

I extended my thoughts on this picture at my own weblog, and perhaps I am
being churlish....

But truly, would the New York Times have published this picture if the woman
in this position did not look beautiful?  Doesn't the very fact that this
picture circumscribes the grief in such a sexualized way, at all make you
feel manipulated?  Whether it is manipulated for the purpose of worship for
the glorious dead in the great battles of the Republic, or for the purpose
of all of our sorrows of war, isn't this kind of manipulation intrusive, a
violation of a kind of grief that should be communal and face-to-face?

And again and again I ask; What would our reaction to this picture had been
if it was a big fat man with bare feet instead of a slender young woman?
Isn't this also a way to manipulate our empathy, because in truth the grief
of the big fat man lying face down on his son's grave is not going to be
"sexualized", it may even be looked at as grotesque.  But our empathy for
grief is not meant to dwell on the "grotesque".  And this too is another
form of manipulation of our own communal emotions.  Because in truth, much
grief I have witnessed is grotesque in this way, and not wasp-ish silent
grief, but wailing, climbing into the coffin, or hugging the grave-stone
grief of people we would judge as ugly.... and the New York Times is too
decorous to "insult" us with the truth of grief.  So yes, my first reaction
to this picture was the same as yours and the same as Carl's.  But then I
thought of the dead I've seen, of the funerals and memorials I've seen to
dead in other wars, and I felt manipulated and a little disgusted.  I was
disgusted not because of the grief of this young woman, but for the lies of
the New York Times, because they would never shoe the other realties of
grief on such a decorous day.  One visceral reaction led to another.

Jerry