Photography, War, Outrage

Author(s): Judith Butler

Source: PMLA, Vol. 120, No. 3 (May, 2005), pp. 822-827
Published by: Modern Language Association
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 PMLA
[

theories and
methodologies

Photography,
War, Outrage

THE PHENOMENON
OF "EMBEDDEDREPORTING"
SEEMEDTO EMERGE
JUDITH BUTLER WITHTHE INVASION
OF IRAQINMARCH
2003. ITISDEFINEDASTHESIT
uation inwhich agree to report only from the perspec
journalists
tive established by military and governmental authorities. They
traveled only on certain trucks, looked only at certain scenes, and

relayed home only images and narratives of certain kinds of action.

Embedded reporting implies that thismandated perspective would
not itself become the topic of reporters who were offered access to
thewar on the condition that their gaze remained restricted to the
established parameters of designated action. I want to suggest that
embedded reporting has taken place in less explicit ways as well: one

example is the agreement of themedia not to show pictures of the

war dead, our own or their own, on the
grounds that that would
be anti-American. Journalists and newspapers were denounced for

showing coffins of the American war dead shrouded in flags. Such

images should not be seen because theymight arouse certain kinds
of sentiments; themandating ofwhat could be seen?a concern with

regulating content?was supplemented by control over theperspec

tive from which the action and destruction of war could be seen.
Another implicit occurrence of embedded reporting is in the Abu
Ghraib photographs. The camera angle, the frame, the posed sub
jects all suggest that those who took the photographs were actively
involved in the perspective of thewar, elaborating that perspective
and even giving it further validity.
In her final book, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Susan

Sontag remarks that this practice of embedded reporting begins

earlier, with the coverage of the British campaign in the Falklands
JUDITH BUTLER isMaxine Elliot Profes in 1982, where only two photojournalists were permitted to enter
sor of Rhetoric and Comparative Lit
the region and no television broadcasts were allowed (65). Since that
erature at the University of California,
time, journalists have increasingly agreed to comply with the exigen
Berkeley. Her recent books include Pre
carious Life: Powers ofMourning and Vio cies of embedded reporting to secure access to the action. But what is
lence (Verso, 2003) and Undoing Gender the action towhich access is then secured? In the two Iraq wars, the
(Routledge, 2003). visual perspective that the Department of Defense permitted to the

822 ? 2005 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

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 i2o.3 Judith Butler 823

1+
media actively structured the cognitive ap consider that the photograph, in framing re
ft
prehension of the war. And though restrict ality, is already interpreting what will count 0
ing how any of us may see is not exactly the within the frame; this act of delimitation is
same as dictating a story line, it is a way of surely interpretive, as are the effects of angle, &
interpreting in advance what will and will not focus, and light. 3
a
be included in the field of perception. For our purposes, itmakes sense to con
3
In my view, itwon't do to say, as Sontag sider that the mandated image pro visual
y
repeatedly does throughout her writings on duced by embedded reporting, the one that
O
a.
photography, that the photograph cannot by complies with state and defense department o
itself provide an interpretation, thatwe need requirements, builds an interpretation. We o
captions and written analysis to supplement can even say that the political consciousness *!!
the discrete and punctual image, which can thatmoves the photographer to accept those

only affect us and never offer a full under restrictions and yield the compliant photo

standing ofwhat we see. Although she is right
thatwe need such captions and analyses, she
nevertheless leads us into another bind ifwe
agree that the photograph is not an interpre
tation. She writes thatwhereas both prose and
painting can be interpretive, photography is
graph is embedded in the frame itself.We
do not have to have a caption or a narrative
at work to understand that a political back
ground is being explicitly formulated and
renewed through the frame. In this sense,
the frame takes part in the interpretation of

merely "selective" (6), suggesting that itgives thewar compelled by the state; it is not just a
us a partial imprint of reality. Later in the visualimage awaiting its interpretation; it is
same text, she elaborates: "while a
painting, itself interpreting, actively, even forcibly.
even one that achieves photographic standards The question that concerned Sontag in
of resemblance, is never more than the stating On Photography (1977) and Regarding the
of an interpretation, a photograph is never Pain ofOthers was whether photographs still
less than an emanation (light waves reflected had the power?or ever did have the power?

by objects)?a material vestige of its subject in to communicate the suffering of others in

a way that no painting can be" (154). such a way that viewers might be prompted

Sontag argued that photographs can to alter their political assessment of the cur
move us momentarily but that they do not rent war. For photographs to communicate
have the power to build an interpretation. If effectively, theymust have a transitive func
a photograph becomes effective in informing tion: must act on viewers in ways that
they
or moving us politically, it is only because the bear directly on the judgments that viewers
photograph is received within the context of formulate about the world. Sontag concedes
a relevant
political consciousness. For
Sontag, that photographs are transitive. They do not
photographs render truths in a dissociated merely portray or represent?they relay affect.
moment and so offer us only fragmented or In fact, in times of war, this transitive affec
dissociated truths.As a result, they are always tivity of the photograph may overwhelm and
atomic, punctual, and discrete. Photographs numb she is less sure whether a
its readers;
lack narrativecoherence, in her view, and photograph can incite and motivate its view
such coherence can alone supply the needs ers to
change a point of view or to assume a
of the understanding. Narrative coherence new course of action.

might be a standard for some sorts of inter In the late 1970s, Sontag argued that the
pretation, but surely not for all. Indeed, if the photographic image no longer had the power
notion of a "visual interpretation" is not to to enrage, to incite. She claimed then that the
become an oxymoron, it seems important to visual representation of suffering had become

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 824 War,Outrage
Photography, PMLA
f

VI
cliched, thatwe had been bombarded by sen
sationalist photography and, as a result, our
0
0 capacity for ethical responsiveness had di
u
0 minished. In her reconsideration of that thesis
JZ
& twenty-six years later inRegarding thePain of
E Others, she ismore ambivalent about the sta
"S3 tus of the photograph, which, she concedes,
c
can and must represent human
suffering,
41
teach us how to feel across global distances,
i? establish through the visual frame a proximity
0
to suffering that keeps us alert to the human
01
X
cost ofwar, famine, and destruction in
places
that may be far from us geographically and
culturally. For photographs to invoke a moral
response, theymust not only maintain the ca
pacity to shock but also appeal to our sense of
moral obligation. She continues to fear that
photography has lost its capacity to shock,
that shock itself has become a kind of cliche,
and that photography tends to aestheticize
suffering to satisfy a consumer demand?this
last function of contemporary photography
makes it inimical to ethical responsiveness
and political interpretation alike.
In her last book, Sontag still faults pho
tography for not being writing; it lacks narra
tive continuity and remains fatally linked to
themomentary. Photographs cannot produce
ethical pathos in us, she remarks, or if they do,
it is only for a moment: we see something atro
cious and move on a moment later. The pathos
conveyed by narrative forms, however, "does
not wear out" (83). "Narratives can make
understand: photographs do something else.
likely to be effective than an image" to help
mobilize us against a war (122).
Interestingly, although narratives might
mobilize us, suggesting that they have the
power tomove us in a
sustaining way and to
alter our interpretation of the conditions of
thewar, photographs are needed as evidence
of crimes of war.In fact, Sontag argues that
the contemporary notion of atrocity requires
photographic evidence: if there is no photo
graphic evidence, there is no atrocity. The
only way to support the claim that an atroc
ityhas taken place is to supply photographic
evidence. But if this is true, then not only is
the photograph built into the notion of atroc
itybut the evidence works to establish a given
interpretation and judgment as true. Sontag
would doubtless rejoin that judgment is the
kind of interpretation, a verbal and narra
tive one, that seeks recourse to the photo
graph to substantiate its claims. But even the
most transparent of documentary images is
framed, and framed for a purpose, carrying
that purpose within its frame and implement
ing that purpose through the frame. Ifwe
take such a purpose to be interpretive, then it
would appear that the photograph still inter
prets the reality that it registers, and this dual
function is preserved even when itworks as
evidence for another interpretation that takes
place inwritten or verbal form. After all, the
photograph does not merely refer to the acts
us of atrocity but also builds and confirms these
acts for those who might name them as such.

They haunt us" (89). Is she right? Is it correct Something of a persistent split takes place
to say that narratives do not haunt and that for Sontag between being affected and being
photographs fail tomake us understand? To able to think and understand; this difference
the extent that photographs convey affect, is represented in the differing effects of pho
seem to invoke a kind of
they responsiveness tography and prose. She writes, "[S]entiment
that threatens the only model of understand ismore likely to crystallize around a photo
ing that Sontag trusts. Indeed, despite the graph than around a verbal
slogan." Crys
overwhelming power of the photographs of tallizing our sentiment, however, is not the
napalm burning on the skins of crying and same as affecting our capacity to judge and

running children during the Vietnam War understand events of the world or to act to
(an image whose power Sontag countenances), ward them. When sentiment crystallizes, it
Sontag resolves that "a narrative seems more seems to forestall thinking. Moreover, senti

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 12 o. 3 Judith Butler 825

1+
ment crystallizes not around the event that is ing.We see the photograph and cannot let 3"
ft
photographed but around the photographic go of the image that is transitively relayed to 0
?f
image. Sontag voices her concern that the us. It brings us close to an
understanding of 5*
photograph substitutes for the event to such the fragility and mortality of human life, the
&
an extent that the photograph structures stakes of death in the scene of politics. She
&
memory more effectively than reflection or seemed to know this already in On Photog
3
understanding (89). The problem is less with raphywhen shewrote, "Photographs state the ft
the "loss of reality" this entails (the photo innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading ar
o
graph still registers the real, ifobliquely) than toward their own destruction, and this link &
with the triumph of a fixed sentiment over between photography and death haunts all SL
o
more clearly cognitive capacities.
photographs of people" (70). 2*
ft*
It seems tome, though, that the various As much as she disdained those who are
forms of embedded reporting suggest the op always shocked anew by the atrocities ofwar
posite. If the photograph no longer has the (what does one think war is?), she is surely
to excite and enrage us in such a way
power equally alarmed by coldness in the face of
thatwe might change our political views and such images. She writes that the photograph
conducts, then Donald Rumsfeld's
response can be an "invitation ... to pay attention, re

to the photos depicting the torture in theAbu flect ... examine the rationalizations formass
Ghraib prison does not make sense. When, suffering offered by established powers" (Re
for instance, Rumsfeld claimed that to show garding the Pain 117). In the increasing out
all the photos of torture and humiliation rage and exasperation she expressed in her
and rape would allow them "to define us" as last book, in her articles on 9/11, and in her
Americans, he attributed to photography an essay on Abu Ghraib, "Regarding the Tor
enormous power to construct national iden ture of Others," one can sense the vacillation
tity.The photographs would not just commu she
undergoes?perhaps
we all
undergo?in
nicate something atrocious but also make our the face of the photograph. At times her rage
capacity for atrocity into a defining concept seems to be directed against the
photograph
of Americanness. not just formaking her feel outrage but also
It seems clear by the final essay of Regard for failing to show her how to transform that
ing thePain ofOthers that Sontag has changed affect into effectivepolitical action. She allows
her mind about at least two points. The first is that she has in the past turned against the
that photographs stillmaintain the power to photograph with moralistic denunciation be
shock us. We are not fully immune to their cause of its capacity to enrage without direct
effects. The second is that the affective transi ing the rage. Her complaint is that it arouses
tivity of the photograph has its political uses. our moral sentiments at the same time that it
Indeed, in the final chapter of the book, the confirms our political paralysis.
narrative voice is shaken. In an emotional, In "Regarding the Torture of Others,"
nearly exasperated outcry, one distinctly dif though, she is aware that Rumsfeld turns
ferent from her usual measured rationalism, against the photograph, as if the photo
Sontag remarks, "Let the atrocious images graph were a weapon of war turned against
haunt us" (115). Whereas earlier she dimin and there she
America, clearly exonerates the
ishes the power of the photograph by saying
photograph from fault: "The administration s
it only has the power to impress us with its initial response was to say that the president
haunting effects (in contrast, narrative makes was shocked and
disgusted by the photo
us understand), now it seems that some un if the fault or horror lay in the im
graphs?as
derstanding is to be wrought from this haunt ages, not inwhat they depict."

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 826 War,Outrage
Photography, f PMLA

She rages against the photograph as she times clearly beaten to death. Ifwe see as the
.2
*S does for depicting an injustice that she does sees, then we consecrate and
o photographer
o not know how best to oppose. Justas she rages consume the act. But Sontag asks us to notice
"O
0 against the photograph formaking her feel a that the dead are "supremely uninterested in
X
a; rage she does not know how to direct, so her the living" (125)?they do not seek our gaze.

E frustration with the photograph frustrates This rebuff to our visual consumerism, which
o her. To be, as itwere, a white liberal who wor comes from the shrouded head, the averted
c
$ ries the question of what one can politically glance, the glazed eyes?this indifference
do is to be self-preoccupied, guilty, intro to us performs an autocritique of the role
2
HZ spective, even narcissistic, and so once again of the photograph in media consumption.
o
a/ to fail to find a way to respond effectively to Although we might want to see, the photo
?
the suffering of others. What she forgets is graph tells us clearly that the dead do not care
that she iswriting about them and that her whether we see. For Sontag, this is the ethical

writings become one of themost honest and force of the photograph, tomirror and to call
trenchant public criticisms of these wars. She to a halt the final narcissism of our habits of

forgetswhat she offers. visual consumption.

At the end of Regarding thePain ofOth
ers, a museum piece by Wall
Jeff allows her to
think through this issue. At thismoment, we
can see her turn both from the photograph
and from the political exigencies of war to a
museum exhibition that gives her time and
space for the kind of thinking and writing
she treasures. She confirms her position as
an intellectual while showing us how Wall's
She may be right, but perhaps our in
ability to see what we see is also of critical
concern. To learn to see the frame that blinds
us to what we see is no easy matter. And if
there is a critical role for visual culture dur
ing times of war, it is to thematize the forc
ible frame agreeably and eagerly adopted by
journalists and photographers who under
stand themselves aligned with thewar effort.

piece might help us to reflect more care What we see in theAbu Ghraib photographs

fully about war. In this context, Sontag asks is that photographers and subjects can me
whether the tortured can and do look back, morialize this kind of seeing, inwhich there
and if they do, what do they see? She was is no moral outrage in the face of human suf
faulted for saying that the photographs taken fering (in which there is no "human" there,
inAbu Ghraib were photographs of "us," and suffering), the clear belief that the subjects
some critics suggested that this was again a deserve their torture and their death and
kind of self-preoccupation that paradoxi that those who deliver this torture, along

cally and painfully took the place of a reflec with those who commemorate the deed in
tion on the suffering of others. But what she the photograph, are doing justice the Ameri
asked was "whether the nature of the policies can way. It is not that some stray people in

prosecuted by this administration and the hi themilitary or security contractors failed to

erarchies deployed to carry them out makes see, to feel, tomaintain a moral perception
such acts [of torture] likely. Considered in of other persons as persons. This not seeing
this light, the photographs are us" ("Regard in the midst of seeing reiterates the visual
norm that is itself a national norm. The Abu
ing the Torture").
Perhaps she means that in seeing the Ghraib photographs do not only represent
photos,
we see ourselves seeing, that we are us; they also build an interpretation of who
the photographers to the extent that we live we are?this Rumsfeld understood?which
within the visual norms inwhich the prison iswhy those efforts to interpret their frame,
ers are rendered destitute and abject, some their purpose, the ethos they convey are criti

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 12 o. 3 Butler
Judith 827

cal contributions to this political battle that come to see is a frame, an

interpretation of 3*
ft
is taking place in part through themedium reality, that,with her, we refuse. 0
*
of the visual image. Sontag may think that ft
only written interpretations give meaning to &>
3
photographs that enrage and haunt us, and a
hers surely do; but for us to respond to those
Works Cited 3
ft
images with outrage, to be haunted by the
torture depicted there, we must also read Rumsfeld,Donald H. "Remarks." Defense Department 3"
Town Hall Meeting. 11May
0
the interpretation compelled and enacted by Pentagon, Washington. a
2004. 13 May 2005 <http://www.defenselink.mil/
2.
the visual frame, coercive and consensually speeches/2004/sp20040601-secdef0442.html>. o
w
established. There is no reason to be "against Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977.

interpretation" in the name of visual experi

-.
ence any more than there is reason to be in
-.
favor of interpretation in the face of visual
experience. Grief, rage, and outrage may be
born precisely inwhat we see, since what we
Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador,
2003.
the Torture of Others." New York
"Regarding
Times Magazine 23 May 2004: 24+. New York State
Newspapers. Gale. New York Public Lib. 17 June 2005
<http://www.nypl.org/databases/>.

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