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The front page of one of the newspapers in Costa Rica yesterday morning featured an uncensored photograph of two victims of a horrific car crash. If you are disturbed by graphic images, do not open the link.
I am a fan of self-censorship, but sometimes, things like this cross a line that I agree shouldn't be crossed. But, is our reluctance to view death, to recoil at its imagery (even though YouTube betrays our secret desires to see it happen to someone else, e.g., Jeremy Lusk, with their pageview counts), innate or is it born of Puritanism and chauvinism and probably a few other things? I've long felt that some things can't be unseen, and I wish I hadn't viewed certain things. We know that you can become accustomed to violence and death. I imagine that ER Cougar and hostile can view a broken body without emotional scarring; my friend who is a pathologist in San Francisco says he's seen some heinous things in his time, but that now it only affects him when it's someone he knows.
Culturally, I wonder if we avoid putting images of death out in the media for all to see because we want to spare the feelings of relatives, avoid scaring little ones, or we've decided that modernity is no place for unnecessary witnessing of death.
I prefer not having images of death in the mainstream. If people want to see them, the internet will oblige, but I'd rather it be an active choice to view such things rather than a passive plop in my lap with the morning news. I remember people being very upset about this image when I was in college. The photographer became depressed over what he had seen and the state of his country (South Africa ca. 1994) that he killed himself.
However, this image, once shocking, seems strangely beautiful. Would anyone balk at publishing it today? Would the evening news anchor say with a pained expression and furrowed eyebrows, "We warn some viewers that the following image is graphic and shocking?" Is that enough?
I don't know. I just know that I like our perhaps unwritten rules in the States. That newspaper cover was a bit much for me.
Spoiler for WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT!!:
I am a fan of self-censorship, but sometimes, things like this cross a line that I agree shouldn't be crossed. But, is our reluctance to view death, to recoil at its imagery (even though YouTube betrays our secret desires to see it happen to someone else, e.g., Jeremy Lusk, with their pageview counts), innate or is it born of Puritanism and chauvinism and probably a few other things? I've long felt that some things can't be unseen, and I wish I hadn't viewed certain things. We know that you can become accustomed to violence and death. I imagine that ER Cougar and hostile can view a broken body without emotional scarring; my friend who is a pathologist in San Francisco says he's seen some heinous things in his time, but that now it only affects him when it's someone he knows.
Culturally, I wonder if we avoid putting images of death out in the media for all to see because we want to spare the feelings of relatives, avoid scaring little ones, or we've decided that modernity is no place for unnecessary witnessing of death.
I prefer not having images of death in the mainstream. If people want to see them, the internet will oblige, but I'd rather it be an active choice to view such things rather than a passive plop in my lap with the morning news. I remember people being very upset about this image when I was in college. The photographer became depressed over what he had seen and the state of his country (South Africa ca. 1994) that he killed himself.
However, this image, once shocking, seems strangely beautiful. Would anyone balk at publishing it today? Would the evening news anchor say with a pained expression and furrowed eyebrows, "We warn some viewers that the following image is graphic and shocking?" Is that enough?
I don't know. I just know that I like our perhaps unwritten rules in the States. That newspaper cover was a bit much for me.