Went to see “An Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant” last night — a piece by the theater group Les Freres Corbusier that is performed by kids telling (and singing) an idealized version of the story of L. Ron Hubbard. Mostly it is done very straight-faced, but occasionally there are some little digs — like the kid playing Tom Cruise has Katie Holmes as a sock puppet and he begins to twitch. These moments of sarcasm almost lift the piece out of the pretense that it is simply a recreation of a real Scientology pageant with only the context and audience changed. But the rest of it is high irony, very scary and very funny.
Here is a news photo of sexually abused children in Africa that paradoxically adopts or mimics the luscious light of a Rembrandt:
It seems to me that the urge to make news photos artistic, tasteful and well-composed is irresistible. We draw on our collective image banks of image archetypes and as a result the messages sometimes get all mixed up. If you didn’t know this photo was illustrating a news item about a tragedy — the children have been sexually abused at a very young age — you might think it was an image of blissful, although poor, familial life. When a tragedy is rendered beautifully, is something lost? (See photos of 9/11.) Does the beauty allow us a way in that an ugly photo would not? A means of empathy? Would we be less likely to look at an image if it were poorly rendered, badly lit and awkwardly composed? Is the “trick” of tasteful artistic composition and lighting worth it because we pay attention to what we would otherwise ignore? Is there a point beyond which the use of artistic techniques becomes suspect? If Western journalists only brought back “heroic” images of Saddam Hussein, wouldn’t their editors object? But choosing heroic images of other public figures is OK? Or rather, is giving in to the photographer’s presumably natural impulse to compose and light well sometimes OK and not OK other times?
I think the image above tells a different story than the text it accompanies. The text tells of violence, rape, abuse and legal and social inaction. Injustice and the destruction of families and fucked up lives. The image, to me, says tight family even if dad is not present, closeness, peace and warm feelings all around. Poor, but they got love.
Technically, this is irony, isn’t it? When what is said is nearly the opposite of what is meant. Or at least very different than what is meant. Not funny irony, though.
