Tiffani Wilshire
It is in black and white. Everything you need to know is right before your eyes. A weak, Vietnamese man with squinted eyes stands in the forefront of the still photograph as a gun is held to his head by a man with no grimace or remorse on his face, just cold blooded murder as the man is shot and killed. The photo is infamous and startling today as it was in 1968 when it was taken. In the background of the men standing in the front of the photo, there is chaos. It can be inferred by the viewer that this is a time of war for the region and instantly questions arise as to who is this man being shot, what did he do to deserve this punishment? Who is killing him and why is the U.S. soldier standing in the left corner of the shot allowing this to happen. There is no salvation for this man for with no interference he was murdered.
Roland Barthes believed that a photo is a form of mummification, capturing reality and going beyond a human’s ability to intervene. In this photo, the shock factor is evident as one feels helpless in assisting the man that is being killed despite the lack of knowing what the man did to deserve this, it is natural to feel as if you want to free him. To Barthes, there is a juxtaposition between what is seen in the image and what was there when it was being taken. Photos can also not allow one to forget the things that were not photographed. From the minute the message is received by the viewer, emotion is invested to what is being seen as well as our own understanding of what is being presented before us.
The denoted understanding of this photo is that a man is being shot and killed by a cold hearted killer as the soldier stands by with clenched teeth allowing the act to happen as the war zone behind them carries on. Why during all the chaos is this man worth taking the time to kill, without the context it is still not understood by the viewer? The connotation of this photo can be perceived as something that is distant to someone who lives without war in ones life, such as Americans who are represented in the photo by the soldier allowing the two men of the same race to stand next to each other as one takes the others life. If seen today for the first time it is seen to be something from a long time ago, a war in past.
Saussure believed the meanings change according to text and to rules of language which in this case is true. The reality behind this famous photo is that the man being shot is not the victim, he is the criminal who was killed after taking the lives of American soldiers in Saigon that day. According to Eddie Adams, the photographer behind the famous picture, the man holding the gun is South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan and the man who is being shot is Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop. Often times one does not learn about the subtext of what they are looking at but once it is known as in here it shifts the attention in an entirely different direction once the true identity of what was going on at the time of the photo is learned. This photo was released the next day worldwide and gave the startling notion to Americans of what was happening overseas and enraged antiwar activists who thought this was the behavior of how the United States was handling the war, stepping aside as Vietnamese men cruelly kill each other.
It is in black and white. Everything you need to know is right before your eyes. A weak, Vietnamese man with squinted eyes stands in the forefront of the still photograph as a gun is held to his head by a man with no grimace or remorse on his face, just cold blooded murder as the man is shot and killed. The photo is infamous and startling today as it was in 1968 when it was taken. In the background of the men standing in the front of the photo, there is chaos. It can be inferred by the viewer that this is a time of war for the region and instantly questions arise as to who is this man being shot, what did he do to deserve this punishment? Who is killing him and why is the U.S. soldier standing in the left corner of the shot allowing this to happen. There is no salvation for this man for with no interference he was murdered.
Roland Barthes believed that a photo is a form of mummification, capturing reality and going beyond a human’s ability to intervene. In this photo, the shock factor is evident as one feels helpless in assisting the man that is being killed despite the lack of knowing what the man did to deserve this, it is natural to feel as if you want to free him. To Barthes, there is a juxtaposition between what is seen in the image and what was there when it was being taken. Photos can also not allow one to forget the things that were not photographed. From the minute the message is received by the viewer, emotion is invested to what is being seen as well as our own understanding of what is being presented before us.
The denoted understanding of this photo is that a man is being shot and killed by a cold hearted killer as the soldier stands by with clenched teeth allowing the act to happen as the war zone behind them carries on. Why during all the chaos is this man worth taking the time to kill, without the context it is still not understood by the viewer? The connotation of this photo can be perceived as something that is distant to someone who lives without war in ones life, such as Americans who are represented in the photo by the soldier allowing the two men of the same race to stand next to each other as one takes the others life. If seen today for the first time it is seen to be something from a long time ago, a war in past.
Saussure believed the meanings change according to text and to rules of language which in this case is true. The reality behind this famous photo is that the man being shot is not the victim, he is the criminal who was killed after taking the lives of American soldiers in Saigon that day. According to Eddie Adams, the photographer behind the famous picture, the man holding the gun is South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan and the man who is being shot is Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop. Often times one does not learn about the subtext of what they are looking at but once it is known as in here it shifts the attention in an entirely different direction once the true identity of what was going on at the time of the photo is learned. This photo was released the next day worldwide and gave the startling notion to Americans of what was happening overseas and enraged antiwar activists who thought this was the behavior of how the United States was handling the war, stepping aside as Vietnamese men cruelly kill each other.
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