The "war of images."

A year ago, we had no idea that the phrase "war of images" would become literal. When we tossed the phrase around, it was usually in reference to embedded journalists or Al Jazeera, that is, we were talking about the way war and its aftermath would be portrayed in living rooms around the world, and of course, we were talking about control of that portrayal. Columnists wrote tongue-in-cheek pieces casting members of the Bush administration as directors, producers and publicists, and watching CNN often turned into yet another round of "Name That Movie!" in which we all got to guess what Karl Rove's DVD collection looks like.

Abu Ghraib, obviously, suddenly and alarmingly rewrote all the rules. It wasn't just that the administration was no longer in control of the global feed. The role of images themselves radically shifted. If the toppling of Saddam's statue, for example, was the desired spin on the act of invading Iraq, the photos from Abu Ghraib were themselves an act. Not an interpretation of an event, but an event. Let's rephrase that, because the administration doesn't seem to get it: Images are no longer adjectives, they're verbs. It can't be emphasized enough that the hooded thugs who decapitated Nicholas Berg claimed to have done so as an answer to what they perceived as the overt affront of the Abu Ghraib photos.

"I rape you." "No, I rape you."

Of equal importance to them as the beheading itself was the filming and broadcasting of that beheading. We're only just beginning to come to grips with this new phase of the ongoing war. The administration seems to think the old game of spin and counterspin is still on and they've just had a nasty turn; another lunch or two with the troops in Baghdad, and it'll all be forgotten.

Hardly. We don't yet have, say, a Susan Sontag of Abu Ghraib, but we do have a few initial readings. Neal Gabler, author of Life: The Movie, attempts in Salon to understand the reception of these images and the drive to seek them out. He seems to have decided this drive has nothing to do with any sense of morality and everything to do with our need, as individuals, to attain power by maintaining a level of "knowingness" (defined in terms of information, by the bulkload, rather than knowledge).

In the Guardian, Joanna Bourke has tackled an element that's got to be among the most puzzling in this whole affair for the folks back home: "The abuse is performed for the camera. It is public, theatrical, and elaborately staged. These obscene images have a counterpart in the worst, non-consensual sadomasochistic pornography. The infliction of pain is eroticised."

And then there's Frank Rich. His column at times seems like a running commentary track on the global feed. Some might argue that he's a little too eager to review all he sees and hears as he would any other play or movie, but one only gets that sense because its his central metaphor - and it's been a reliable and potent one for years now. This week he looks at the "too perfect" juxtaposition of Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England; last week, in one of his best columns yet, Rich laid out in broader and more openly emotional terms the many ways in which the administration - once masters of image-making whose unabashed exploitation of cultural iconography and the eagerness of most mainstream media to avoid getting tagged "unpatriotic" was unprecedented - is now losing their own game: "Eventually there comes a point when the old Marx Brothers gag comes into play: 'Who are you going to believe - me or your own eyes?'"

Posted by dwhudson at May 16, 2004 10:21 AM