Put It in Context

If you scrolled through my Google Photos and found a random picture of me from freshman year, I would be able to tell you exactly how I was feeling/what was going on with me at the time, regardless of the expression on my face. It's almost as if any personal photograph can transport me back to a time of my life, even if there are fifty filters overlaying it (throwback to those Instagram filters from 7th grade!!) Granted, I would not be able to do this with a six-month-old picture of me, but the memories still stand. 

Now, if someone else looked at my smiling selfie at Mackinac Island, would they really know that I was actually really sick and did not want to be there? Probably not. Yet, when I look at pictures of other people, namely celebrities, I make the mistake of immediately forming judgments about them.

Let's look at paparazzi photos. For those of you who don't know, paparazzi are people whose sole job is to follow celebrities around and take pictures of them, mostly just doing "normal" things. This can range from Kendall Jenner shopping around Beverly Hills to Ariana Grande licking a donut. While all of this is super fun to look at, it can often become an outlet for criticism. 


Take a look at this picture of Britney Spears from 2008. It was taken during her "breakdown" when she decided to shave her head and attack the paparazzi with an umbrella. While this picture does make her seem like a crazy person, no one really understands the context. Britney was having a meltdown because she was distressed with anxiety from the public eye and her custody battle with her newly divorced ex-husband. She only shaved her head to feel "liberated" as if she had control over something in her life.

I don't think that any of you have really shaved your head or attacked people in the name of "liberation", but I do know that most of us have experienced a time of extreme stress or vulnerability where we might cry or "breakdown". Lucky for us, though, we don't have to show anyone this because we don't live in constant judgment by millions of people.

We want celebrities to be real people, but we don't want them to actually be REAL people. Of course, it's fun to see them hang out with their friends or go shopping, but why would we ever want to see them cry or be distressed?! It ruins our "perfect" image, indirectly removing the "attraction and provocativeness" (Sontag) of their glamorous lives.

In my opinion, photos offer the value of timeless memories but only when provided with CONTEXT. It's important for us to remember that a photo is simply one frame in the scope of life. Yes, a celebrity might have one bad hair day or have made a bad decision, but don't we all? If we don't try to look at someone else's photos the way we look at our own, we will have become consumed by "the most irresistible form of mental pollution" (Sontag).

Comments

  1. Amogh GowdaMay 5, 2019 at 6:47 PM

    Hey Dhatri, great blog post this week! I enjoyed your synthesis of personal and celebrity photos, and how they often don't accurately represent the context of the situation. Perhaps if we all had flashbulb memories, photographs would be more powerful in expressing all that was happening at the moment it was captured! However I take issue with your assumption that none of us have shaved our heads or attacked people in the name of "liberation". In fact, that is exactly the activity I am planning to pursue once APs are over! Just a friendly reminder to never overgeneralize your audience. Great post as always, though!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dhatri MedarametlaMay 5, 2019 at 7:05 PM

      Thank you for your response, Amogh! Once again, I love how you have managed to incorporate psychology ("flashbulb memories") into this post. You are truly an AP Psych legend, so I do not think you will need to "liberate" after APs. Despite this, I hope you accept my apology for overgeneralizing my audience, and I hope your head shaving goes well:) Make sure to post some pictures on Instagram, so I can see the "glo-up", as the kids say these days. Happy liberating!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tbh!

I'm going to be honest; there's no one that I'm completely honest with 100% of the time. Now, that might sound terrible, but let's think about it. I've lied to my parents about how much money I spent at Taco Bell in a week (it's SO good), to my brother about losing his sweatshirt (oops), and to my friends about how I'm almost at their house when I'm actually fifteen minutes away. Some of these could be considered white lies, but would it have made a difference if I told the truth? We seem to advertise the truth as a divine virtue. As children, we are taught to be honest, while our parents tell us about Santa Claus. In school, we are told to never waver from the truth, while our textbooks emit information from the darker portions of American history (I didn't learn until internment camps of WW2 until 8th grade). This "hypocrisy is a human universal", making it almost socially accepted to relieve the truth in favor of "what looks best...
Read more

What's in a Name?

Image
In our day to day lives, we use names to identify not only ourselves but also everything around us. For example, my name is Dhatri, which means "mother earth" in Sanskrit. My parents chose it for that reason, as well as the fact that it matches my brother's name: Dhruv. By standards, my name is my primary identification factor, just like anyone else's is for them. However, this leads me to ask the question: how powerful is a name? "...the avenue...had always been and would always be known as Mains Avenue and not Doctor Street." - Toni Morrison Perhaps, the power doesn't only lie within the name, but also within the people who are deciding on a name. In "Song of Solomon", the black community members wanted "Mains Avenue" to be called "Doctor Street" in order to remember the first black doctor who lived on that street. It was a symbol of cultural and historical significance for them. However, the legislators were able to o...
Read more

#Relationshipgoals?

Image
Seeing as it's 2019 now, I want to start my post off with the discussion of goals. But no, not the kind that you set out to achieve each year, rather the kind I constantly see on my social media pages. As I scroll through Instagram, Pinterest, VSCO, etc. I'm bombarded with posts about how someone's boyfriend is #relationshipgoals or how two people are #friendshipgoals; the list goes on and on. Despite how "cute" these posts can be, they lead me to wonder what unrealistic expectations they can often set for people. Viewers tend to forget that people who have #lifegoals have low points as well. For example, a YouTuber named Sierra Furtado became engaged to her boyfriend, Alex Terranova, with the pictures being reposted hundreds of times with the #relationshipgoals. It was seen in some of Sierra's later videos that she wasn't wearing her engagement ring - an observation that caused people to speculate whether the couple had broken up. Truth be told, the cou...
Read more