STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

no, it's not just you--i agree.  i was actually kind of surprised when, during the first few days of reportage, images of bodies washed up onto dry land were shown on cnn and lots of internet news sites.  one that sticks with me was the lede from some reporter's story about what was going on at the convention center in NO and it said that this woman's body had been pushed inadvertently by one of the national guard trucks as it made its way through the flooded streets and wound up next to the convention center, with her pants pulled down the way they must have ended up during the high winds, and there was a closeup showing exactly what that looked like.  i was kind of wondering why no one had objected to that yet. 

i guess i have become accustomed to the usual US practice of not showing things like that, and i have to say that i think it's more respectful.  let the dead keep their dignity, you know? we know that there are lots of dead bodies and we know what that looks like--i can see both sides of the argument, but i have to say i am staunchly in the corner of "less is more" on this one.   

-- Edited by bumblebee at 18:07, 2005-09-08

Points taken, but let's look beyond what we'd LIKE to see, and talk about censorship.

There are some good points in the article- why is it ok to show people dead and starving in Africa?  Why is it ok to show dead Tsunami victims?  You see?  Plus, they are ruling out photos of graves, of people covered in sheets, all that.  I think that any responsible member of the media will show respect in their coverage as it is - that goes without saying. I see nothing wrong with showing unidentifiable or far-away images and certainly nothing wrong with people that are covered. 

The other point that is subtly made in this article (maybe unintentionallly by juxtaposition) is the paragraph where the FEMA spokeswoman talks about resptcing the bodies and then the one where they talk about how the bodies are tied up to trees and fences.  Yeah, real respectful.  They're also spraypainting them for some reason, I have been told.  I guess to ID them or their location where they were found... not sure.   So let's not pretend it's about respecting the bodies, not 100%.  The truth is in the middle here. 

But I'll also say that it really didn't hit me - the horror - until I witnessed the footage of the woman's body at the convention center or saw the body of a victim (who'd been allowed to rot on the streets for days without anyone picking her up) in a makeshift grave that her friends finally made for her when nobody would come to remove her body to the morgue. 

I really think it's the same thing as not showing soldier's coffins in Iraq.   But I am a person who'd rather err on the side of getting more info than I want than less.  The latter scares me. 

I completely agree w/ you on this, dc. 

Yeah, I don't really want to see water-logged, bloated bodies on tv, but that doesn't mean that they can't show covered bodies.  It's not a pretty picture in New Orleans, and I don't think the media (or the Bush administration, whoever is to blame) should try to sugar coat this AT ALL and pretend like there aren't people dead and dying from this disaster. 

The whole 5 years of the Bush administration has been like this, and I'm sick of it.  I feel like they want us to forget that there are troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq and forget about people that are dying in New Orleans because it doesn't reflect well on them.  We're not supposed to forget about these things:  we're supposed to hold our elected officials accountable for the things they have and haven't done and vote accordingly, and no wonder that scares the piss out of Bush.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!  This has me fired up...

i think we need to see it.  because i think for a lot of people, seeing is believing and that most times a picture (or a moving image) really is worth a thousand words.  some of us really truly don't know how bad it is and i know that's hard to believe because others of us are so well informed and affected by what's going on.

i just think there's a huge difference between being told something in the abstract versus really seeing and experiencing it.  for example, when i was a kid growing up in southern california, i knew that i came from a country that was extremely poor where many people lived in poverty and didn't have enough to eat.  but let me tell you, nothing could have prepared me or moved me as much as when i went to visit and actually saw it with my own two eyes. 

as for the respect issue, imo, it's more respectful to witness and acknowledge the death someone has suffered and be moved into action by it than to not see it, not be aware of it (in a concrete sense as opposed to the abstract) and thus, not do anything about it.

i don't consider myself "dumb," "ignorant," or "afraid" to see reality--maybe some people might want to reconsider the spirit of the "current events" thread and rethink the name-calling of people who are respectfully disagreeing with them. 

i just know that if it were my family members whose bodies were tied to poles in flooded areas so that they wouldn't be washed out to sea (that was the point of that exercise, btw, i meant to mention that before), i wouldn't want to have their faces and bodies splashed all over CNN.  haven't they suffered enough at that point? haven't their families suffered enough? do they need to see that again in order to understand that it's real? i don't think it's a propaganda issue, i think it's one of respect and compassion.  it's also not about people not wanting to see something "gross," for me it's about treating people who died in a horrible fashion with a little bit of dignity and respect when that is all that is left to honor their memory. 

-- Edited by bumblebee at 20:11, 2005-09-08

I have to agree with Bumblebee. Maybe I'm being naive but I just don't see this as a damage control ploy by FEMA. Bush banning the coffin pics--obvious damage control. But I actually believe that this has to do with respect for the dead. It's true that a better opportunity for the control over what scenes are photographed is in the hands of the photographers and the papers that employ them, but I still don't think this is a deliberate attempt to filter out of self-protection. I take your points about not hiding from reality, but just don't think that it's necessary to rob the dead of dignity by showing their decomposing bodies in the national media, at least not in a situation like this. How much of an outcry do you think there would have been by victims' families and survivors if papers had started printing pics of mutilated body parts after the Trade Center?

I'm putting back my emotional response because several people saw it before I deleted it earlier & asked me to for perspective.

blubirde wrote:

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\We want to stick our heads in the sand and pretend the bad things don't exist, or that they aren't as bad as someone else said they were.

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This SO offends me - think about if your family was in the midst of this - I didn't talk to my own mother for 10 days - knowing that she was ok, but sometimes you just want to hear it from her, you know? My sister STILL doesn't have electricity & they really don't know when they will get it back - my 3 year old niece, after being without electricity & having to be outdoors so much got over 150 mosquito bites & threw her guts up for 2 days, to the point that it was feared that she had contracted West Nile. My uncle was supposed to be buried on Monday, the day the hurricane hit but was "put on ice" in a morgue with no electricity & instead buried over a week after he died. My family is in boats in that water TOXIC water on a daily basis trying to save people / survivors & risking their lives in the process. And people just keep tellling us how luck we are because everyone is ok, but that doesn't make the situation less painful or difficult for them. So don't insult me in that I am sticking my head in the sand or am dumb or ignorant just because I would rather not have to cry over something else - like dead bodies of people that I really don't want to see on tv.

And i really don't think we can leave it up to the reporters to show dead bodies with dignity & respect, I mean really......

I'm sorry if this is rude, but until you are in the middle of it, really, i'd rather not hear any more political speeches. I guess I'll stop reading them.

-- Edited by laken1 at 21:19, 2005-09-08


I also want to say this:
i just don't think the families / friends of the survivors / victims of 911 got any flack & it's kind of unfair - they didn't have to fight political war with fellow americans because we all had someone to blame, the terrorists. After 911 nobody told the people that got out alive how lucky they were, they were still "survivors" but in this situation unless you were left at the superdome or the convention center then you aren't a victim of this disaster. Unless you are poor you aren't affected - at least that is how it feels.

-- Edited by laken1 at 21:54, 2005-09-08

dc wrote:

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Actually, they did. I saw plenty of pictures of people jumping from buildings and several pictures of body parts. This was mainly in documentary form, but I saw it in pretty much all media and I wondered what the people's families thought when they saw it...

I saw the pictures of people jumping but I never saw any mutilated dead bodies. I always kind of figured that was because the photographers and/or papers felt that was beyond the pale.

And this is not a response to sephorablue or bumblebee, but I think I'd have a lot easier of a time taking this at face value if the dignity of some of these these people had respected by the buffoons at FEMA before they became corpses. There really hasn't been a whole lot of respect for human dignity - for those living or dead (think of the convention center) - from these people up to this point. That's when I start to think it rings a little hollow and of self-preservation.

That's a very good point--the way those people have been treated throughout is about as far removed as you can get from respectful. 

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BTW, speaking of FEMA and 9/11, I have a friend who somehow wangled her way down to ground zero immediately after the collapse. She spent a few days there helping organize supplies & relief for the firefighters and rescue workers before somebody got organized enough to kick her out. She said that at one point she was giving a tour of the area to some FEMA people who had just arrived, and this woman tossed my friend her camera and said, "can you take a picture of me in front of the wreckage?"

Words fail. Happily, my friend tore her a new asshole.

Hey laken - thanks for reposting. My sincerest condolences to your family.

I can completely understand all of your points and my heart goes out to you. I just really hope that you don't feel like you are getting "flack" from anyone here. Nobody is referring to the victims' families (you are so right about the fact that victims are all over, not just in the superdome and convention center). I think people are making more broad references to our culture not wanting to see ugliness, not your family or any of the victims' families not wanting to see their loved ones. In any event, I started this thread as a freedom of the press thing, and certainly regret any distress it has caused you. Your voice has been very valuable and enlightening in this thread, though, so I hope people read it and that you continue to contribute to the debate.

A lot of us are sorting out feelings here though - while we may not be in the middle of things, I do hope you indulge our debating the political implications. But sometimes in debating political things, people think in the abstract and you've reminded us of the personal here, which is important.

I am not changing my position on censorship (though I think it's important to note that I have no desire to see dead bodies), but I do think it needs to be said that nobody thinks the victims' families are hiding from reality. In fact, I think helps for us to understand more what you're going through.

I hope that makes sense....