Regarding the Pain of Others

Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others addressed several issues regarding the depiction of pain and suffering, with specific emphasis on war photography. She examined how war is interpreted and understood through photographs. She claimed that “one of the distinguishing features of modern life is that it supplies countless opportunities for regarding (at a distance, through the medium of photography) horrors taking place throughout the world.” She examined how the constant barrage of images desensitized the viewer to images of horror. She also discussed the role the media plays in creating an “illusion of consensus” and how the media manipulated and continues to manipulate the public.

Larry Burrows, "Yankee Papa 13" 1965

Before the 1960s, the media had no desire to cover stories about Vietnam. However, by the mid- 1960s the number of press corps in South Vietnam had tripled. By August of 1964 the number had grown to 419. These journalists entered Vietnam, not with the hope of helping to end the war, but with hopes that they would capture a great story and a great shot that would be worthy enough to be shown in a high-profile newspaper or magazine.  And if they were lucky, an image they took would appear on television. The Vietnam War was also a time when war photography began to expand. Photographers like Larry Burrows and Nick Ut and their photographs became well known and Ut even received a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of “Napalm Girl.”  These photographs displayed and exploited the suffering of others was viewed daily in American and the ethical problem of consuming images of suffering comes into play.

 

"Napalm Girl", Nick Ut, 1972

 

 

 

 

Vietnam did happen, and because the era's most powerful symbol of damaged ideals and the loss of trust, unity, shared myths, and common values. Like a magnet, which draws steel shavings scattered on a sheet of paper into a particular form and pattern, Vietnam gave visible shape to the great cultural changes sweeping over American society, defining, more that nay other event, the era and its pains.

Sources:

Robert Griffith and Paula Baler, Major Problems in American History Since 1945

Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._news_media_and_the_Vietnam_War