PhotoDude.com

Fri. Sep 12, 2003

Mad At The Messenger

From “The Falling Man,” by Tom Junod: “Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.”

It’s a picture that stirs strong emotions two years later, as Glenn Reynolds can attest: “Eric Muller is mad at me for posting a photo of a WTC jumper for a while yesterday [...] I posted it because I thought people needed to be reminded of the reality of what this is about, in the face of too many efforts to domesticate it [...] Yes, it’s not pretty. But that, you know, is the point.”

Eric explains how seeing the image at Instapundit flustered him in the middle of a phone call, and then says “Some people have worked very hard to avoid those photos of falling bodies for the past two years. And those people don’t need to have them forced into their face in the name of ‘facing the truth’ about 9/11, or in the name of bolstering a position in some policy debate.”

I can somewhat understand those who “have worked very hard to avoid those photos,” as we humans are perplexingly diverse in functionality. There are a million ways in which different people recognize a horror (however briefly), and then process it internally so that they can move on with their lives. Some did it in a day, some still haven’t. The million manners in which that is accomplished are hard coded in our individual personalities, and yours is likely pretty unique.

I personally know people who might be upset at the sight of those images, and if they were willing to articulate it (which would defeat the purpose), you might paraphrase their position thusly: “Yes, I saw all the horrors on 9/11 and in the days afterwards. It was terrible and depressing. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, and thinking about it just makes me sad and depressed. I already have enough things in my life that do that, so I don’t think about it anymore.”

Fair enough. We all cope with whatever is on our plate as best we can. But I have to point out that though many have been upset by this one infamous image, it is perhaps because it has become the most representative image of a much larger aspect of that day. Credible reports and eyewitnesses estimate more than 200 people fell to their deaths from the towers. That is the reality represented in that one image. In the book Here Is New York, there is an image that spreads across two pages, and in that one image of one instant from that morning, five people can be seen jumping.

It is a shocking punch in the gut. But it is what happened.

In a later clarification, Eric adds “...I’m not arguing for either turning away from what happened that day, or for denying it. I’m arguing that a responsible journalist (of Instapundit’s sort) ought to give his readers at least a measure of control over when, and under what circumstances, they see such an image.”

First of all, no offense to Glenn intended, but I would take issue with holding a blogger to journalistic standards on their personal site, no matter how accomplished they are, nor where else they are published. I also think it is reasonable to expect that if you go to an individual’s web site on 9/11, you might expect to see a bold expression of their feelings about that day. And I’d guess, on average, there’s about a 50-50 chance you’ll disagree with that expression, whether it is in text or pixels. It may even be upsetting, or get you flustered.

But that’s the kind of day it was.

As for the image itself, in the LA Times (registration required) photographer Richard Drew articulately responds to the reaction: “People ask how I could coldbloodedly photograph someone dying. I never saw it that way. I made a photographic record of someone living the last moments of his life. And every time I look at it, I see him alive.”

“I have photographed dying. As a 21-year-old rookie photographer on a supposedly routine assignment, I was standing behind Robert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated. That time, there was no telephoto lens to distance me. I was so close that his blood spattered onto my jacket. I saw the life bleed out of him, and I heard Ethel’s screams. Pictures that, shot through my tears, still distress me after 35 years. But nobody refused to print them, as they did the 9/11 photo. Nobody looked away.”

“In the World Trade Center photo, it’s about personal identification. We felt we knew Bobby Kennedy, but we didn’t identify with him. We weren’t wealthy scions of a political dynasty or presidential candidates. We were just ordinary people who had to show up for work day after day, more often than not in tall office buildings.”

“Just like the guy at the World Trade Center.”

“That’s what unsettles people about the picture. We look at it and we put ourselves in the jumper’s place. And we ask, ‘Which option would I choose? Would I wait and pray for help as the flames licked at me, or jump through fresh air and sunlight, to certain death?’ ”

There is clearly something more at work here than just the content of the picture, as the past 50 years are filled with examples of much more horrible images that we accept as historical record, whether it’s a stack of emaciated corpses at Dachau, the Zapruder film, or even the recent morgue photos of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

Part of the unique horror of 9/11 was its nearly universal empathy. With thousands of air travellers, office workers, firemen, government employees, and people of every stripe dying so suddenly that day, nearly all of us were struck with a new empathic knowledge of our own mortality; “That could have been me, or a loved one.” (for me, it was photographer Bill Biggart).

Therefore, photos of the manner in which you might have died can certainly be distressing. What is notable to me is that the image in question is a graphically tame representation of what really happened to thousands on that day. Yesterday, in talking about the book, “Here Is New York,” I said, “You feel it when you turn the page, and it takes you several seconds to realize what you’re looking at: a severed woman’s leg, flayed almost beyond recognition except for the shoe and toes. It brings home the grisly method of murder thousands suffered that day, harshly, in a way the major media never has. It’s a horrid detail, shocking in its stark presentation.”

“But it is what happened that day. And we should never forget.”

I won’t post that image here, though I was tempted. Because that image also represents a factual reality; half the victims left no remains, as they were pulverized, shredded, and flayed beyond recognition. Just like the leg in that photo. But the truth is, there’s a different image in that book that sums up the horror of that day more than any other for me. More than a picture of someone jumping.

When you first look at the full size image, you may not even notice the horrifying detail. Your eyes are overwhelmed by the scale of destruction, as the image shows the width of the north face of the North Tower. Dominating the frame is the gaping hole left by the 767, with smoke pouring from many fractures.

But when you look at it close up, nearly insignificant amidst the massive destruction, there is a solitary human form. A woman with long red hair, wearing a black top and off white pants. Leaning out in search of an escape she would never find. It’s an epic image of one recognizable person looking for a way out of a horror much much larger than them, or worse than any nightmare.

To me, that image says it all about that day, in a far more horrific manner than a picture of someone falling.

And I think there’s also a larger point here. You can be angry at Richard Drew for taking that picture, and you can be mad at Glenn Reynolds for publishing it again on the second anniversary, but then you exemplify the cliche about “killing the messenger.”

You might think about redirecting your anger, not at the medium that presented you with the reality of that day, but at those who perpetrated it and put those innocent people in the position of having to make the most horrible choice you can imagine.

The choice about which you’d just as soon not be reminded is now a part of the historical record of that day. Like it or not.

And it wasn’t just the Falling Man, or the woman with the red hair, they are merely representative. There were thousands of victims, and hundreds of photos of them, many of which are preserved online. If that’s too grisly for your sensibilities, then look at the photos of the missing. They’ll tear your heart out, too.

Or don’t. But don’t blame an archival medium for recording the reality of that day for the historical record, or those who now remind you of what that reality was.

Blame those who created that reality by crashing planes full of innocents into buildings filled with innocents.