The past week has been especially heavy with tragedy in the United States. Our news cycles and social media feeds are replete with images and videos of the events. Below is a very thoughtful article from Mark Moring considering whether or not we should subject ourselves to images like those currently being circulated.
In accord with what Mark writes, this article is being presented without images, moving or otherwise. It is up to you to search for and view those images if you think it best. We do link to the video of Amy Pohler, which is simply her talking to the camera. – Editor
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As I write these words, late on Friday night, April 19, images are flooding our TV and internet screens. Citizens celebrating in the streets of Boston and its suburbs. Police high-fiving, breathing sighs of relief. American flags waving. Smiles. Laughter. Joy. Hugs.
I see these things, and I celebrate too. We got the bad guys, and the reign of terror has ended. The world, especially around Boston, is a safer place again. Order is being restored, healing is beginning to take place, and good has triumphed over evil.
All of the exultant images – whether they’re photographs or video – help make the events more real, more tangible; they make me feel it all more deeply. When I watch the news, I want to be more than merely informed; I want to be touched by it all.
I could just read the stories and be sufficiently brought up-to-date, but I want the pictures. I might even need them. They help me process it all and, in the end, to help bring closure. And after that, whether I actually watch/see them again, or they just remain seared on my brain, to remember.
Images remind us of the things we should never forget – the World Trade Center going up in smoke on 9/11, the “napalm girl” after an attack during the war in Viet Nam, the protestor who bravely started down a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square, the flag raising at Iwo Jima, JFK slumping over in his limo in Dallas. The list goes on.
The notion of visual benchmarks – to remind us our triumphs and our tragedies – is hardly new. Joshua’s 12 stones in the River Jordan are one of history’s great examples . . . and that was God’s idea, to have a tangible, visible reminder for generations to come.
It’s no different today. Many of us still rely in imagery for a number of reasons – remember or commemorate, to help us identify, to make us better feel and understand.
So I found it interesting that, just a couple days after the Boston bombings, I was discussing with friends about the images that were flooding our screens at that time. Repeated videos of the explosions themselves. Photographs of the ensuing mayhem and horror. Maimed victims. Blood. Broken glass, shattered lives. Gut-wrenching stuff.
I wanted to see the images to supplement the other information I was absorbing at the time. Not all of them, and not for hours on end. But a reasonable daily intake.
But others didn’t want to see the images. Some said they were simply too disturbing. Some said they could imagine the horrors without seeing the real thing. Some said the images did little to advance the facts of the breaking story. And some suggested that perhaps instead of looking at the images, we should turn away and do something more meaningful and productive – pray, love others, give, serve, act. These are all valid observations and reactions. But I don’t think the two ideas—seeing the images and reacting in a meaningful way—are mutually exclusive.
For me, and for many, such images actually prompt me to those good things. When I was a boy, I heard about starving children in Africa, but it wasn’t until I saw a photograph of one that my heart broke. That photo pushed me to learn more about it, to look into child sponsorship, to do something, anything. I believed that children in Africa would die without my help, and I could not sit idly by and let that happen.
I don’t think that would’ve happened without a soul-stirring image.
In many ways, I’ve never really changed. I grew up to be a writer, one who aches to make the written word just as powerful as the pictures, and one who admires writers who do it much better than I do.
But I am still just as driven by images as the words – driven not just to feel, but to act. To pray. To serve. To give. To love. Something.
Documentaries do the same thing to me. My friend Laura Hinson Waters’ terrific film, As We Forgive, stirred my soul for Rwanda far more than a hundred things I’d read about it. Two years later, I went to Rwanda, partly as a short-term “missionary” to play a small role in the ongoing reconciliation efforts, and partly to continue to tell their story – through words and pictures – to inspire others as well.
Docs like Not for Sale, Call & Response, and Born into Brothels have stirred my passion for the fight against human trafficking. Dive spurred me to take some steps to combat America’s despicable waste of food. (Did you know we throw away half of the food produced in the U.S.?) Even Henry Fonda’s character in 12 Angry Men has spurred me to action; I ended up being That Guy several years ago, the only one in the jury room who believed there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the young man on trial. After I convinced everybody we should at least talk about it, many ended up changing their minds, and he was found not guilty. (I still pray that we were right!)
No one would dispute the power of images – even negative ones – to affect our hearts and minds. But, like my friend, it’s also wise to know yourself – to exercise discipline and discernment when deciding just how many, if any, of these visuals you’re ready and willing to absorb. (In some ways, it’s like discernment about watching movies; for example, some people can handle violence in films, and some cannot. Know yourself.
It’s also good to ask yourself why you want the images as tragedies unfold on the screens, right before our eyes. If such pictures and videos provoke anger and a desire for vengeance – as opposed to what I’d call “righteous anger” that seeks justice – then it’s likely not a good thing. If such images make you anxious and fearful, then steer clear. If they spark a kind of voyeurism, obsessive curiosity, or a fascination with the macabre, you probably should recalibrate your intake.
But if the images stir appropriate reactions – pain, sadness, righteous anger (“I want to see justice served,” not “Fry ’em!”), compassion, love, mercy, and grace – then watch at will. And if they move you to act – to pray, to give, to go, to hug, to help – then all the better.
Parks & Recreation and former SNL star Amy Poehler, who grew up in Newtown, Mass., and graduated from Boston College, recently recorded a brief video about how the recent images from her hometown have affected her. Like my friend, she decided that less is better.
“I’ve been thinking about what these images do to our brains and our hearts,” Poehler says in the very personal video. “How can I keep myself informed and connected without exploiting people and harming myself?”
Poehler says she seeks a healthy balance between “this idea of wanting to be informed, of wanting to know the story and the people behind the story, [but] not using the images and pictures as a way of superficially connecting to something, or getting a reaction from myself [by] just using images and, therefore, using people.”
Poehler is wrestling with these questions, as we all should, and admits that she doesn’t know the answer. Indeed, the answer will vary from person to person.
Her final advice is sound, encouraging us “to know what you’re ready to see, and not see.”
God grant us wisdom as we seek that balance. When you’ll find it, you’ll know. And you’ll likely want to do something about it – something good, productive, redemptive.
The writer of Hebrews tells us to “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” For many of us, images can play a vital role in that process.
11:34 AM, April 22, 2013 – This article has been edited from how it originally appeared.
8:10 AM, April 24, 2013 – This article has been edited from how it originally appeared – Editor
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Two early cinematic experiences, both around the age of 6, hooked Mark Moring on movies for life. The first was a TV re-run of the classic-but-terrible B-movie horror flick, 1957’s The Deadly Mantis, in which a giant praying mantis breaks free of the Arctic ice and goes on a man-eating rampage. (Or should that be preying mantis?) The second was a family trip to see 1965’s The Sound of Music, Mark’s first trip to a movie theater, in which at least four things were born: a love of music, a love of beauty, a love of film, and a love of Julie Andrews (and perhaps a fifth: a serious crush on Liesl that never really died). Mark has since grown up just a little bit, and now says Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he has watched approximately 100 times, is his favorite film of all time.
Mark is a Copy Writer at Grizzard Communications, where he writes for nonprofit organizations, and an Editor at Large at Christianity Today magazine, where he supervised pop culture coverage for years. He and Nina, parents of two fine young men named Peter and Paul, live in the Atlanta suburbs, where the whole family loves watching movies.