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Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Let's Compare

As a few of you probably know, to your complete lack of interest, there is another social media tempest under way. This one is slightly notable, because it has moved Magnum Photos to respond, which of course has the mob going insane like a bunch of koi going after a cookie. I think I have something to say that's not just stupid cat-fighting, though. However much I enjoy a stupid cat fight.

The crux of this thing is that a Magnum photojournalist named David Alan Harvey, who I had never heard of but is apparently a solid B-lister, went to Thailand in 1989 and took some photos of and around Bangkok prostitutes. These pictures ended up, in the fullness of time, in the Magnum photo archive. Some kind of tool went through at some point (fairly recent, the bootprints of "AI" are pretty visible) and added a bunch of tags to all the Magnum photos.

A few of Harvey's photos were tagged "prostitute" and "13-18" indicating that the tagger was pretty sure these were, in the current parlance, trafficked children rather than prostitutes. How old the young women were is anybody's guess. The loudest voices of course are sure that they (male, middle-aged, white, British) can easily tell the age of a Thai woman. One might cattily wonder, and I do, how they got to be such experts at judging the ages of Thai children. Magnum has fired back claiming that as far as anyone knows they weren't underage and anyways the nude ones were dancers not prostitutes.

Two things are clear. First, nobody actually thinks any of the photos broke any laws, despite cries to the contrary. The most strident voices have cheerfully downloaded the content, and have declined to call law enforcement, although occasionally they have expressed mock fear that now they own kiddie porn. Second, there's almost certainly some dicey material in these pictures. Were there trafficked children in Bangkok in 1989? Yeah, I'm pretty sure there were. There's a lot of unknowns here in the actual photos, but it is absolutely possible that these pictures contain depictions of women under 18 years of age, engaged in sex work.

This opens up a whole ball of colonial attitudes. We're seeing a lot of projection of Western attitudes on to other cultures here, a lot of judging by Western standards. Which is not to suggest that selling kids is considered A-OK in Thailand, I'm pretty sure it's not. But it's perceived differently in Thailand, and in India, and everywhere. Every culture has its own unique take, here. This I mention merely in passing as context-setting, as it were.

I am opposed to exploiting children. There is no ambiguity there. I hold the Western attitude, 100%.

Consider now the famous Eddie Adams photo from the American Adventure in Vietnam, in which General Nguyễn Kgoc Loan executes a bound prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém.

There is no ambiguity here, the photo depicts a war crime. The war crime being committed by an American ally was never prosecuted, naturally, but that it was a murder and a war crime is not really disputed. Again, we view this with a Western gloss. I'm not going to go full-Kipling here and say "Asiatics simply don't value human life the way we do" but there is almost certainly a bunch of Vietnamese specific subtext here. Still, I am confident that in Vietnam this is still murder, and still not OK.

So here we have two photos, depicting what are to western eyes terrible crimes.

There is no doubt that some people, including me, feel differently about these photos. Eddie Adams gets a pass, as a journalist. He was merely documenting the appalling truth of the world. The General and his men are implicated. Perhaps the USA is implicated. Eddie, though, was doing yeoman's work exposing the evils of War.

David Alan Harvey, also documenting what might have been crimes, apparently does not get the same pass. The social media mob is certainly set on destroying him, and if they can manage it, Magnum in the process. To be fair, though, I also feel the distinction although not to desire to destroy.

There are differences, of course, in the crimes. I am loathe to assert that either is substantially more horrific than the other, they're both pretty clearly in "that's very bad" territory. The character of the crimes is different, in that children are victimized in one and not the other. There is also the possibility, insinuated constantly but never stated and certainly never proved, that Harvey actually took part in the crime — it is possible he himself used the services of a trafficked child. Finally, Harvey's work may have produced pictures which it is a crime merely to own.

It is certainly true that Eddie Adams was helpless to prevent the murder he recorded. It is also true that Harvey was helpless to end prostitution in Bangkok, or even to liberate a single prostitute. Neither man had the power to prevent the evil they were recording. Did Harvey have more power to wreak good, somehow?

Adams was, I believe, surprised, and reacted almost by instinct to a rapidly unfolding situation he was helpless to prevent. Harvey was not surprised, he went to brothels on purpose, and likely stage-managed his shots. He is, if not actually implicated in the crimes, at any rate more hands-on, more involved. He is in the event, voluntarily, remains there, and likely adjusts it to suit his camera. He influences it, though he is just as helpless to put a stop to it. Is this the difference?

If the murder Adams witnessed had unfolded over a day, or an hour, and Adams had walked around and through the scene, recording every detail of it somehow, would we condemn him for it the way Harvey is being condemned, or would we view him purely as a journalist still?

I don't know the answers here, but there is something going on here.

15 comments:

  1. Mary Ellen Mark photographed the underage brothels of Bombay 40 years ago, caused a minor kerfuffle, but maybe being a woman made it ok?
    Mark

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To an extent what we are seeing now is a coordinated smear campaign against Magnum, so there's that.

      I think I do feel more comfortable with a woman taking these kinds of pictures, to be honest, however fair or unfair that position is.

      Delete
  2. You've snookered these sad bastards at every turn.

    Please continue.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're missing a key component of the story. DAH has had a reputation for decades as a playboy, behaving occasionally in overeager and aggressive ways with women. I can't speak to the veracity of that claim, but it was the primary factor in his recent suspension from Magnum. He was accused within the group of sexual harassment, which proved to be the final straw after the tagging/sexworker scandal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What are you saying? DAH wouldn't have been suspended by Magnum over an internal accusation of sexual harassment, if it weren't for the "tagging/sexworker scandal"?

      How does the Parr/Butturini "scandal" factor in all this?

      Really appreciate your insights as a Magnum member.

      Delete
    2. Play nice. I direct you to the Comments and Moderation policy, in which I note that attacks on other commenters will be looked at with jaundiced eye.

      Attacks on me, of course, are fine. I mean, I guess,
      within certain broad limits?

      Delete
    3. Pretty sure Blake isn't a Magnum member, so I assumed your remark was either sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek.

      Delete
    4. https://www.google.com/search?q=blake+andrews+magnum

      ... no sarcasm intended in my reply to Blake, I misinterpreted the search results, apparently his blog is cited by a Magnum member he interviewed.

      His remarks here seemed to me to indicate insider knowledge, which I think would be most valuable amid the twitter torrent of rampant speculation.

      Either that, or it is more speculation.

      Delete
    5. Roger that, I apologise for the misinterpretation! Carry on.

      Delete
    6. Just want to add, really glad he posted the comment, because I checked out his blog "B" and found this awesome content courtesy Peter Brown Leighton:

      "when the eye, the camera and the execution of the print all come together that’s when photography happens. If the results require some sort of academic treatise to support them in order to be understood, or if they’re primarily serving as ballast for a book design [...] you have to work harder to capture my interest. There’s an old phrase: Don’t trust the teller, trust the tale. If one’s work is so far removed from the average viewer’s capacity to engage [...] for me, the party’s usually over [...] So much conceptual work comes across as too holy, clever and trendy, or self-referential."

      I'd like to think of my recently-added manifesto as the TLDR; version, Leighton may disagree.

      Delete
    7. Haha, I'm not a Magnum member and I have no inside knowledge on the DAH situation. Just making an educated guess based on available info. And I agree with Peter Brown Leighton's sentiments.

      Delete
  4. Last week I had a brief skim-through of Pall Horriday's um ... trail of half-baked and unfinished projects, strewn higgledy-piggledy across the internet, like a child leaving assorted candy wrappers in its wake.

    There's something weirdly fascinating about this chap, that poses some interesting questions.

    Let's start here: Did Magnum kick his puppy or piss in his cornflakes? Do they have history? Did Martin Parr snub him at a gallery opening? Is he bitter at being passed over for inclusion in the Elite Of Photography (apparently how he sees it)?

    Does he suffer from Pithecophobia? Did his Italian vacation go all wrong? Did all his street photography turn out boring AF? (Well, yes, yes it did)

    Surely this merits deeper investigation: What made Pall the angry little grinch he has become?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul's a serial failure, or maybe more accurately a serial almost-success. Yeah, his photos are kind of blah, but that in and of itself isn't always a barrier to success, god knows. He's sort of a perennial administrator of things, not always with great results. Always on the fringes, never on the inside. Failed PhD (so much more painful than just not starting). He runs a cash cow program at a good institution, so again, "at" a good school but likely not "of" it.

      This is the story of his life, and, while I am unwilling to psychoanalyze a fellow from his social media presence, it's not impossible that he carries a great deal of frustration.

      Delete
    2. Yep, given his monomaniacal focus, I'm pretty sure if he turned his attention to something that actually mattered, the man could move mountains. What a fucking waste of energy.

      Delete