Legacy of a Photo

What is the legacy of a famous photo from the Vietnam War, or of any of the recent wartime pictures of Afghanistan or Iraq? Do they have a strong enough impact to raise a call to action? Or has society become desensitized, avoiding that which causes moral discomfort, or, more chillingly, have we become aesthetic consumers of such imagery? Tatjana Soli, for The Millions, discusses this.

From the piece...

Kim Phuc’s picture, taken not quite three years before the fall of Saigon, was at a period when most American troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam, during the policy of Vietnamization — handing over duties to South Vietnamese counterparts— devised by President Nixon. The napalm strike the photo records was ordered and carried out by South Vietnamese military. Does the fact that the bombs were aimed at North Vietnamese military hiding in the village, that the burned civilians were an unintended consequence, change the picture’s power? Or is the horror of unintended consequences precisely the point?

The most recent pictures to bring similar public outcry were of humiliation and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Politicians said it was an isolated incident, an unintended consequence of the war. Since then, additional photos of abuse both in Afghanistan and Iraq have come to light. Congress voted to keep those new photos from the public, citing their indecency. Historically, governments have wanted portrayals of war to create public support for the sacrifices of a country’s soldiers. But Vietnam reversed those expectations.