Two unrelated photo-shoots — both of which use incongruity to startling effect — have been in the news recently. One was the Vogue India spread that showed poor Indians “modeling” high-end fashion accessories. This drew outraged criticism from those who didn’t care to be reminded that stark poverty exists in the same world where some people can splurge on obscenely priced luxury items.
Middle- and upper-class people have reacted with peculiar self-righteousness on behalf of the poor, even resorting to pious platitudes such as this one from an NY Times messageboard: “Poor people are the ones closest to God. They are His children and this ad mocks them.”
I wonder whether the above commenter would personally like to be in the shoes of poor people, given their hotline to a Higher Power. It’s also unclear how exactly the shoot is “mocking” the poor; the photos seem just as likely to be mocking consumerist societies or commenting on social disparities. I’m not seriously suggesting Vogue had altruistic motives — they probably just wanted to create a novel, good-looking spread, and personally I think they succeeded — but the viciousness of the responses is revealing.
After all, this photo-shoot can’t worsen the plight of poor people (being poor does that) or increase the apathy of the privileged towards them. What it can do is make people who own $200 umbrellas very uncomfortable indeed. Or as a comment on the Intent Blog (http://www.intentblog.com) suggests, “Maybe India is embarrassed by the poverty and wants to hide from it.”
The other set of pictures is from a campaign for the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Using photo-shop techniques, the campaign depicts revered personalities in contexts far removed from their real lives, e.g. one photo has Nelson Mandela, surfboard under his arm, standing on a beach. Most pertinently for Indians aching to take offence at something, Mahatma Gandhi is shown working a barbecue, a beer bottle in his hand. Each photo is accompanied by the words “Life is much easier, if you don’t speak up.” The underlined word “Debate” sits next to the newspaper logo.
At first glance, this can raise hackles, but if you breathe deeply and count to 10, it’s possible to see the deeper message: that these men might have led more personally comfortable lives if they had chosen not to raise their voices against injustice. But the pictures do take getting used to, and the Gandhi one is especially provocative because of the association of meat with a man for whom vegetarianism was part of a larger moral code.
It’s possible to argue — as a commenter on Ads of the World (http://adsoftheworld.com) does — that a more realistic depiction of Gandhi leading an alternate “easy life” would have been to show him walking the streets of London in a suit and bowler hat. Then someone pitches in: “Life for Gandhi & Mandela would NOT be easier if they didn’t speak up. Instead, they would still be living in oppression and would never even be allowed to have a barbecue or a leisurely surf.” Someone else replies that “Ghandi” loved cows, “so he wouldn’t want a BBQ at all”, and the debate soon gets farcical.
I can’t wait to see what will happen if a news item about these photos makes it to Rediff.com — that bastion of simian chatter between non-resident Indians — given our habit of deifying our icons to the point where it’s impossible to see them as human beings or examine their lives closely. (Never mind that Gandhi’s deeds are admirable precisely because he was a man, not a saint.) As one commenter on Ads of the World philosophically puts it: “Some men have the ability to save the world, but who will save the world from their fanatical followers?”
