Question: is it "good" to show images of people near-death? 

For example: a friend is dying in the hospital and several mutual friends start a Facebook group just to keep abreast of the daily status and offer help to the family and one another.

 What if one of those friends takes a picture of the sick friend while visiting in the hospital, then posts that image on social media? (The sick friend is unresponsive, bloated, mouth agape, and lying crooked in bed...totally unaware of the camera or anyone/anything.) He cannot give consent in any way. 

When my grandfather had a stroke in 2008, I rushed home to see him and be with family. I grabbed my camera and film, thinking I'd get some photos of him and the family, not knowing how my family would react. The day he took his last breath, I asked permission from my grandmother, aunts and uncles, to take some photos of Papaw in bed. It was incredibly difficult to press the shutter. It felt slightly obscene. I really was out of my depth, and looking back now I realize that the camera was just a shield for me. I was ashamed of myself for where I was in my life, and the camera was something to hide behind. I had the film developed later and I've kept the photos in my dresser all these years. They are surprisingly intimate, and quite good, if I may say so. But even still, I'll never show them to anyone. 

All these years later, I don't know that I would take those photos again today. If I'm faced with saying goodbye to a loved one, I don't know that I'll pick up my camera...and I take my camera everywhere. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't take any photos near the end, but I think they should be in context, and not simply to show how sick/thin/near-death the person is. A group photo with the person awake and alert? Sure. But unresponsive and crumpled up in the hospital bed? Why? 

I think that if the person can't give consent, don't post the photo. If it serves no good, don't post it. If it will likely bring unnecessary sorrow to loved ones and family, DON'T post it. 


Comments

Thersites said…
This is definitely a cultural thing. The Romans were big on "death masks" or casting's of their ancestors faces taken after death. Those practices were again resurrected in the middle ages, renaissance Italy, like in the death mask of Dante mentioned in Dan Brown's DaVinci Code series.

But I'll agree that context is everything. It has a place... a place where the "sacredness"/sanctity of life is honored. And IMO, the internet/Social media can be rather "profane".
Thersites said…
I watched an interesting video a while back on death, and how much it has been "devalued" in our culture. Deaths are now "statistics" rather than super-natural experiences with deep and "unspoken" meaning. If I can find it again, Ill post it.
Death no longer signifies "something"... it has become a negation having a negative "value".... the absence of health.
Our culture prohibits death from having symbolic value.
recap from the video...

I suspect that this is because of the universality of capitalism with it's universal injunction to "enjoy". For this reason, "death" has been banished/repressed from the cultural conversation.

During the enlightenment, cultures banished the irrational and placed the "mad" in asylums. Today we banish "death" and place all aspects of it "off screen" ob-skena/ obscene. There is no longer any reverence in death (like Roman ancestor worship or Egyptian pharoah worship).

Death has no meaning today. The dead HAVE BEEN thrown out of our societies symbolic circulation. They are no longer being's with a role to play. Death has become simply a social line of demarcation separating the dead from the living. Death has become a statistic to be modelled in a simulation and avoided and used as a metric to judge the living (bureaucratic/governmental performance as part of a political narrative). The dead are no longer buried in the local churchyard, but exiled to cemetery ghettos on the fringes of the cities/suburbs or ossuaries under ground. As individuals, we no longer see the value of our deaths in terms of the collective (as Titus Andronicus viewed the honorable deaths of all his sons for Rome or "terrorists" who view death as a symbolic weapon) Suicide has become an unsignifiable "event" without economic value, but with immense "symbolic" value. The goal of the modern project has become the elimination/ annihilation of death itself. We've become Nietzsche's "man who lives the longest"... his "last man"... and we blink.
Thersites said…
Death forecloses our identity. What are we willing to die for? Love? Friendship? Nation?
Tribe? Justice? Chivalry? Bushido? Morality? Family? Pleasure? Utility? Nothing?

Does my identity depend upon or require recognition from others, or am I okay with their misrecognition of my identity?

What makes a Morty?

I am SUCH a Mr. Poopybutthole. :(
Jen said…
Ok I actually watched the whole thing. Aren't we all a Mr. Poopybutthole to some degree?

And on the way our society views death ...I suppose when so many people have no belief in anything supernatural, we are left with terror at the thought of death. There are now "death-doulas", professionals who sit and guide the dying person and family through the process. Supposedly they are less medical than hospice, and add a sense of normality to the process. Years ago I would've thought this ridiculous, but not anymore.

In sitting with my dying friend this week, I was just quiet. I used to feel the need to talk and express my feelings to the dying. Not this time. I didn't want that time together to be about me. He knows how I feel about him. I thought he just needed a hand to hold. So I just held his hand.

I know that I don't know you IRL, but if you are a Mr. Poopybutthole, you're not alone in that. I think it's very human.
Jen said…
Oh, and on identity. I think I've been misrecognized more often than not. I think we've talked about this before. I chose an occupation based on a desire to do good. But that occupation isn't my identity. Neither is mother, sister, friend, etc. I think maybe just a small handful of people know my true identity. And even I forget it regularly. ❤️
Jen said…
And here I am rewatching 30 Rock and Seinfeld.

I'm really out of touch and I can't keep up!
I have the opposite problem. Between Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, etc... I seldom re-watch anything.... and it takes me 30 minutes flipping through movie titles I've never seen merely to decide "what" to watch next.
btw - I finally discovered just "who" the "other" is. He/She is the "thief of our enjoyment". THAT is why we dislike/hate them.
This Zizek lecture is the most amazing explanation of "everything" that I have ever experienced...

I never understood what a "friend" was from reading Plato's "Lysis". Now I know what one is, someone who "enjoys" what I enjoy (w/minor differences) and whom I enjoy seeing enjoying. I don't "hate him" for "Stealing mine". I'm not jealous of his enjoyment. I'm "happy for him".
...it even explains what depression is and why it works as it does and why it is becoming more and more common in our society.
Jen said…
I'll have to give it a watch.
Mitch fusco said…
Hi Jen, this was not always the case early photographer's were asked by the next of kin to make pictures of there loved ones after death. Times have changed and it is no longer PC to make these images.

There is the thought that it is best to remember them in better health rather than being reminded they have gone.
Jen said…
Hi Mitch, this post isn't about memento mori, rather taking photos of a person who is alive but in the process of dying, and unable to acknowledge the camera. When someone is alive but unable to give consent, and in the most vulnerable moments of their life, I have to question the purpose of a photo. Is it for the sake of the photographer? Even worse, is it put on social media for the sake of the photographer? There are a million different scenarios here, but in my most recent experience, I found it unnecessary and inappropriate even. This was not for the sake of the grieving family, which is what Memento Mori is all about. This was to draw attention to the photographer, and that's something I have a problem with.
Always On Watch said…
The only near-death photo I've ever taken was that of Mr. AOW. I didn't do a close-up.

I have taken several funeral-home photos, typically to show to family members and close friends who couldn't attend the funeral.
Jen said…
I've done the same thing, AOW. I took photos of my grandfather after he died. I honestly think my attitude about this (and a lot of other things) changed quite a bit after my daughter died. I'm much more "protective" and private than I used to be.
Always On Watch said…
Jen,
I can understand your attitude changes.

A lot of my attitudes about a lot of things changed during the 12.5 years I did caregiving for my husband. For example, I'm more and more aware that we have limited time on this earth.
Jen said…
Amen to that! I had a conversation about that yesterday and how it feels more urgent than ever to really LIVE each day. 💗
Always On Watch said…
My awareness of the urgency of living life is one reason that I remarried within six month's of Mr. AOW's passing. At my age -- nearly 70 -- I'm no longer wasting time.

To hell with the self-righteous busybodies who criticize(d) me for remarrying so soon. They are not living my life!
Jen said…
Congratulations AoW!! That's just wonderful! Life really is beautiful and I wish the very best for you and Warren. Ignore those busybodies. They're just projecting their own sadness at you, anyway.

Wow, what a trip down memory lane...I clicked the link to Beak's blog. I didn't start blogging until 2007 but I can't believe this group of bloggers has known each other for so long.

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