War
isn't easy to watch; that doesn't mean we should look away.
by
Charlotte Rodriguez
An explosion whips through the small village of Trang Bang on
the morning of June 8, 1972. Panic stricken villagers scurry
to safety after a sky raider of the South Vietnamese Air Force
drops a napalm over Trang Bang, a small village approximately
25 miles away from Saigon, Vietnam. Nick Ut, a photojournalist
for the Associated Press (AP), sees the villagers running from
their burning houses. Ut snaps a photograph of the severely
burnt Kim Phuc as she tries to escape to safety with her family.
Ut retold his story in a 1999 interview:
I
thought 'Oh my God' when I suddenly saw a woman with her
left leg badly burned by the napalm. Then came a woman
carrying a baby who died, then another woman carrying
a small child with its skin coming off. When I took a
picture of them, I heard a child screaming and saw that
young girl (Kim Phuc) who had pulled off her burning clothes.
(Faas and Fulton 2)
What the world would see is a picture of a severely burnt young girl who tore her clothes off in an attempt to relieve her pain. The horrified look in Kim Phuc's face would forever be embedded in the minds of anyone who comes in contact with her photograph. In one photograph, the world would see the horrors of the Vietnam War and the lost innocence of a little girl.
When faced with the task of photographing pain, a photographer is often forced into an ethical dilemma.
A photographer must quickly decide whether or not to capture that one unpleasant image of a human being in pain and that one vulnerable moment in this individual's life. How then can photographers justify their intrusion into the lives of these individuals by photographing their pain and exposing their suffering to the world? Some critics accuse photographers and the media of exploiting people's tragedies by sensationalizing newspaper and magazine headlines and photographs for profit. How then can a photographer decide in a split second whether or not to capture a photograph of someone suffering, when others would rather forget and turn away from the sight of another human being in pain? Where does the photographer's responsibility towards his profession end and to his fellow human being begin?
To determine whether Nick Ut acted as a responsible photojournalist, it is important to define the role of an ethical one. An ethical photojournalist portrays an event in the most objective way possible without staging the event or having his subjects pose to create a conjured "reality." An ethical photojournalist treats his subjects as human beings, not as objects to be manipulated, and does not just photograph with the sole intent of creating headlines and selling newspapers and magazines for profit.
When
the wreckage of Princess Diana's car accident hit front-page
news, the paparazzi were suspected of contributing to the accident
that killed the Princess of Wales. How is this different from
Ut's photographs of Kim Phuc? The paparazzi had chased Princess
Diana with the one objective in mind—to sell tabloid magazines.
In Nick Ut's case, critics argue that he objectified Kim Phuc
and her family, demonstrating insensitivity toward their emotions
and undermining their fragile state just as the paparazzi did
to the Royal Family. They argue that he preyed on Kim's and
her family's tragic circumstances.
Through carefully examining the events that occurred in Trang Bang, we can determine Nick Ut's intent in choosing to photograph Kim Phuc and whether or not he objectified his subject. After taking a photograph from a distance, Ut placed his camera aside and made his way to help Kim Phuc and her family. As soon as Kim Phuc got close enough, he poured water from his canteen over Kim's severe burns and focused on getting Kim and her family to the nearest hospital. Ut told the doctors and nurses that he photographed Kim Phuc and the morning events in Trang Bang, urging them to treat Kim Phuc immediately by telling them that her photograph would be shown everywhere throughout the world.
If Nick Ut chose to help Kim Phuc first and neglected his role as a photojournalist, Kim Phuc's story would not have been told. If Ut did not take the picture as it was happening, the world would not have seen the horrible reality of the Vietnam War, and history would not have been the same, for there would have been no recorded evidence or accurate depiction of the tragic events in Trang Bang on June 8, 1972.
Photographers
and photojournalists have a responsibility to portray the
events of history as accurately as possible; however, they
have also an important responsibility to portray the person
in these photographs—the subject, or "the other"—with
human dignity. Nick Ut's photographs were an accurate portrayal
of Kim Phuc's story even according to by the subject herself.
In a 1997 interview, Kim Phuc, "I see the picture and the
documentary [referring to a film that was made about her life
in 1997] that makes me remember all the time. I saw the airplane.
I saw the fire, I got burned. [I was so scared and crying
and running] out of the fire" (Faas and Fulton, 1). Kim Phuc
commented that she wanted the world to learn about her story
and see her photograph. She added, "Let the world see how
horrible wars can be" (Faas and Fulton 2).
Nick Ut did not stop at just photographing Kim Phuc and her family on that morning of June 8, 1972. He actually followed Kim Phuc through her stay in the hospital to her eventual homecoming in Trang Bang. By photographing Kim Phuc's recovery, Ut did not simply portray Kim Phuc as a victim or sensationalize her by only capturing images of her in pain. By showing her photographs during a happier time in her life, Nick Ut turned Kim Phuc's tragic story into a complete account of a human being's enduring human spirit in overcoming adversity.
In
portraying Kim Phuc's tragedy, he also captured an accurate
reality of war on film. When Nick Ut took the pictures of Kim
Phuc and her family in the heat of the moment, little did he
realize the picture would go so far to help expose the horrible
truth about the Vietnam war—that war injures and kills
not just the soldiers fighting but innocent men, women, and
children. His photographs reached out to the American public
and forced them to acknowledge the pain and suffering of Vietnamese
civilians. In response to the growing negative media coverage
like Ut's photos, public opinion about the Vietnam War began
to change, even driving many Americans to protest against the
war. These Vietnam War photographs were essential in exposing
the brutality of war and sparking social change in American
society.
Susan
Moehler, the author of Shooting War, best explained
the significant influence of the media on America's views
about the war, writing that the press helped legitimize internal
dissent within the government and the military.
They helped
protest specific policies and specific events. They helped
frame the antiwar issues. Photographers in particular helped
the country visualize the conflict far better than they had
in previous wars. With vision came emotion, and with emotion
came discontent. (Moehler 412)
The lessons learned from Vietnam and Kim Phuc's story are still valuable today in how we evaluate the present media, view the events around us, and create an understanding on what is really happening. Consider the coverage of the Iraq war. What images of the war battles have you seen? Most of the media coverage only shows distant images of tanks and shots of victory. Rarely, if ever, do we see images of the injured or the dead. In a way, this filtering of war images and footage could be used to rally public support for the war. If the media shows horrifying and explicit images of the injured and the dead, the public outcry against the war might become stronger and the Iraq war would not enjoy as much national support. The public needs to be presented with an accurate picture of reality, in which both the good and bad are both truthfully portrayed. Accurate portrayal of events such as what happened both in Trang Bang and Iraq not only have historic value but also are essential to educate and inform the public. Our society must continue to evaluate tragic events in history and learn to avoid the tragic mistakes of the past.
As
a journalistic medium, photography stands as the most potent
in evoking emotion from our guts. Through feelings of sadness,
rage, and sympathy, we feel compelled to understand the complex
social issues the photographs bring to light. Through Nick Ut's
photographs, the world realized that war does not choose its
victims, nor spare the innocent—even children like Kim
Phuc. War does not take sides. The South Vietnamese army bombed
Kim's village accidentally. It would have not mattered whether
American, South Vietnamese, or North Vietnamese forces were
responsible for the bombing. The sad truth is that war kills
and injures people and everyone loses in the end no matter what
side you are on. War claims its casualties and does not discriminate
in choosing its victims.
Charlotte Rodriguez
is a junior at USC's Rossier School of Education with the
aspiration of becoming an elementary school teacher. Charlotte
hopes to change the world with her writing and teaching in
the near future.
