Why was this image neatly swept away from our collective memory post 9/11? I personally think it is extremely relevant, a reminder of the human suffering endured on that tragic day.How would you react if you were in the falling man's shoes? Would you jump, or rather perish in the fire? Confronting this choice is one of the main reasons why the picture is such a polarized topic. The stark truth of the matter is rather unnerving, it is extremely difficult to make such a decision in even the most cogent state. Rather than facing the question at hand, the American way is to sweep it under the carpet. Hopefully forgotten through the sands of time.
The documentary brought up an interesitng point, referencing
Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. If the frank brutality of war is represented in that picture, should we look away because it gives a human face to the statistics. Just like the falling man is more than a # amongst the 3000+ dead.I would like to hear some of your views on this, plus I didn't want to waste my 2000th post on the K thread.
Aser
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I don't think the image was swept away. People just got squeamish about it and they still are.
My wife just filmed a commercial showing people floating up up the sky - for an airline. But in order to sell the idea to the client the whole falling man idea had to be dealt with and became this huge issue about how people floating in space could lead them to think of the falling man. If you're trying to sell seats on a plane its
Anyway they got around the issue - the people in the ad only go up or they appear to be floating. The next day after the ad goes on air another ad shows up with a guy who leaps out of a building falling on his back and we are watching him as he falls towards the ground. He hits the ground, bounces up and walks off chatting on his mobile.
I don't even want to know what it might be like to be close to that situation. During the program, somebody gave a great point. These were people trapped 90+ floors in a building. They're so desperate for air that they were hanging outside windows, on the 100th floor (!). Hell, I get dizzy when I go up a tall ladder and look down. These people were not mountain climbers, used to the idea of being at amazingly tall heights. These were everyday people that came to work, that day, expecting another ho-hum work day. Not being blocked off from rescue, 100 stories above a city.
Anyways, as for peoples reactions to the picture (for the most part, people seemed to have not liked it one bit), I think we can chalk it up to the fact that it hits close to home. This isn't someone on the other side of the planet. It's someone who works some regular job just like them. People can relate to them on a level of 'what if that was me'. People have a very hard time understanding the plight of other people that are not, as they see in their own eyes, the same as themselves. The reality is that we're all connected in more ways than we can imagine, but that's a whole other topic.
I got a little off track, but the point remains that we can't just sweep ugly truth under the carpet. That's why we must remember things such as this. It's ugly, but it's truthful. People need to be aware of these things and other ugly truths. It builds empathy, something that's in desperate need. When all you have is apathy, you get tragedies such as Katrina last year, such as the Holocaust, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such as starvation, war, disease in Africa, the shithole our environment is in, and so on and so forth. Think of it like this, the world is a house that needs maintaining. When people become apathetic to the degree of not caring of maintenance is kept up, eventually the house becomes unliveable. I know, it's a pretty lame analogy, but at least it's honest.
Sorry, I know I rambled on pretty long there and got off topic, but I thought I would just share some thoughts. If you've read this far, thanks for the patience. Peace.