Visualizing the Past: Flashbulb Images
Pearl Harbor has been represented for Americans for more than sixty years in photographs of exploding and burning battleships; so September 11 has come to be represented in photos and videos of the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center. In both cases, visual images of destructive attacks capturing the actual moments of death and destruction have come to stand in for larger historical events, for “turning points in history.” As evidence of the force of the images of exploding battleships at Pearl Harbor, they have continued to be reproduced throughout the postwar period, reaching a crescendo of sorts during the 50th anniversary of the bombing in 1991 when they appeared in many magazine and newspaper publications, such as the cover of Timp magazine. The same image, of the listing and burning ship USS Arizona, appears on the front page of the official brochure handed out at the national memorial in Honolulu.
By 2001, the evolution of technology meant that Americans not only saw images of the attacks, they saw them as they occurred, transmitted in televised accounts that now constitute a densely documented video record of “history.” In addition to the sheer magnitude of destruction and death at the Trade Center, one reason that most people think of that site as representing September 11 (rather than the Pentagon or the Pennsylvania crash) is that the New York attacks produced a longer sequence of events leading from plane crashes to explosions, fire, and ultimately collapse of the towers. These events produced a vivid photographic and video record which, in turn, has been reproduced and circulated widely in media accounts, making images of the twin towers the signature icons of September 11, just as burning battleships are the icons of December 7th.
As catastrophic events that were quickly broadcast to national audiences through electronic media (radio in 1941; television and internet in 2001), Pearl Harbor and September 11 share the distinction of being among a handful of historic moments regarded as turning points in lives and histories. Appropriately, psychologists have coined the term “flashbulb memory” for memory of momentous events such as these—events sufficiently important to rivet the attention of an entire society, leading people to remember where they were when they first heard the news (Neisser 1982; Sturken 1997). For Americans who came of age in the mid-twentieth century, Pearl Harbor was the most important “flashbulb memory.” For Americans at the turn of the century, it is now September 11. In both cases, the metaphor of “flashbulb” suggests the role played by visual images in signifying memory of more complex events.
But what do these images mean? Obviously they mean different things to different viewers. For many Americans the horrific scenes from the World Trade Center heightened a sense of awareness of membership in a national community under atttack, marking a new feeling of vulnerability in a changed world. Similar sentiments have been attributed to Americans of 1941 and 1942, upon viewing images of exploding ships in Pearl Harbor. In writing about the role of photography in World War II, Susan Moeller (1989) noted that photos of exploding and burning battleships became the defining images of Pearl Harbor for a national population going to war . These images brought home all the anxieties of a world going up in flames—just the kind of world at risk that demanded U.S. mobilization.
Narrating the Nation
The meanings of such historic images are expanded in stories that locate them in scenes that become moral dramas, embedded in wider historical contexts, linking events with implied causes and consequences. In asking about the cultural significance of historic events or “flashbulb memories,” we can ask what kind of stories they evoke. In so far as “Pearl Harbor” is already coded as one of the mythic stories in American history, invoking it as an analogy for September 11 mobilizes a pre-formed narrative that provides a framework for interpreting events that continue to elude understanding. Popular books and films that have retold the Pearl Harbor story to American audiences over the years typically represent the event in terms of an elemental, even mythic narrative structure that begins with (1) a surprise attack, causing (2) dramatic death and destruction, leading to (3) a determined response from a unified nation. As argued elsewhere, even when documentary filmmakers have set out to retell the story without recourse to “Hollywood” images or propaganda, they end up reproducing the same elemental narrative (White 2001), a structure that represents events as a moral story with actors embodying committed citizen subjects.
In summarizing these elements of the Pearl Harbor story, it is important to note that the meanings of Pearl Harbor for Americans are neither static nor singular—they have evolved throughout the postwar period and continue to be contested. For example, the significance of Pearl Harbor for many Japanese Americans, who endured racial discrimination and internment at the hands of a government unable or unwilling to recognize their loyalty to the nation, has emerged in recent years as a more important part of Pearl Harbor’s public memory.
Whereas the images of exploding battleships and the burning twin towers capture the climactic moments of destruction, references to Pearl Harbor contextualize the September 11 attacks by locating them in a broader scenario of war and national history. Both events begin with “surprise” attacks represented as particularly “evil” because of their assault on unsuspecting targets. Even though the Pearl Harbor attack was executed against armed forces that had been on high alert for weeks expecting the outbreak of war in the Pacific, the “surprise” or “sneak” attack on Sunday morning, is always represented as a kind of attack on innocents, on unsuspecting young men sleeping or at play or prayer. Popular cultural narratives of Pearl Harbor typically create images of innocence in ways that amplify the vulnerability of men dying at the hands of the attacking force. See Turnbull (1996) for discussion of the strategies of personalization adopted at the USS Arizona Memorial museum to render the attack in human and emotional terms.
The “sneak attack” label, however contested it may be, expresses the dominant American perspective on the attack, revealing some of its cultural and psychological meaning for Americans. It is this aspect of the surprise attack that earned the bombing of Pearl Harbor Franklin Roosevelt’s epithet, “Day of Infamy”—a label also quickly applied to the attacks of September 11, as noted earlier. In the case of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Associated Press put out a press release a week after the bombing, that began “Born last Sunday in Japan’s treacherous attack on Hawaii, the phrase “Remember Pearl Harbor,” has overnight become the battle cry of the nation.”
As a “surprise” attack, the Pearl Harbor story told in popular accounts has the effect of stripping away the wider context for the Japanese attack, the decades long clash centered on Asia, of the US and Japan. The story focused only on the events of the attack itself and the violent death of Americans killed that day. The most popular book on the attack, Walter Lord’s Ziua infamiei, is essentially the story of events unfolding on the day of the attack, as told through the stories of survivors. This type of “experience-near” narrative, although an effective literary device for telling engaging stories, precludes a wider lens that might place the attack in a longer historical perspective. Occasional efforts to widen (or lengthen) the Pearl Harbor story by adding reference to the conflict of colonial powers in Asia that pressured Japan have met with resistance. For example, a documentary film that showed at the official memorial to Pearl Harbor was severely criticized for characterizing Japan as having its “back against the wall.” Similarly, efforts to widen the lens of public attention on the September 11 attacks by discussing American policies and actions in the Middle East, have also met with protestations that they demean the memory of those who died that day. For example, Rudolph Giulani, former Mayor of New York City, returned a check for $1 million given by a Saudi Prince because the Prince, in a letter to the Mayor, encouraged efforts to examine the conflicts that provoked the attacks.
If images of destruction were all there are to the Pearl Harbor story, we might ask why it has become such an oft-repeated part of American history. Those images, after all, seem to be only about defeat, about a military force caught unprepared at the hands of an apparently superior enemy. There are at least two dimensions of the story that construct a more positive story—one with a moral imperative. On the one hand, acts of heroism emerge in the context of the battle, signifying the patriotism of citizen subjects. Even if the battle was lost, individual acts of bravery personify citizens willing to sacrifice themselves for the nation. Secondly, and more importantly, the larger Pearl Harbor story does not end on December 7. It begins there, but ends with the recovery and response of a nation that unites to fight a prolonged war ending in ultimate victory. Even though the visual images only record a kind of cataclysmic defeat, resulting in the death of thousands of Americans, the invocation of “Pearl Harbor” calls up a longer story, one that ties the defeat to a national response leading to victory in the war.
Here the metaphor of “awakening” conveys the sense of an isolationist nation stirred to action while “sleeping” (just as the U.S. battleships and their crews were “sleeping” in Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning, December 7). The metaphors of sleeping and awakening have also been extended to September 11. For example, on Veterans Day, November 11, 2001–just two months after the attack—a former Army chief of staff and veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam speaking at the national veterans cemetery in Honolulu used the metaphor of “sleeping giant” to refer to America prior to September 11. This image, commonly used to describe the state of unpreparedness prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, works pragmatically to signal the need for a similar resolve to win the war on terror, just as the U.S. had won the second World War.
“Weyand, a former Army chief of staff who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, said America should never again take some sort of strange pride in being regarded as a “sleeping giant,” because the cost of each awakening “has been paid in the blood and lives of too many of the American veterans whom we honor this morning.”
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Dozens queued up to shake the hand of the 100-year-old Steer, who sat in a wheelchair, the French Legion of Honor and the U. S. Pearl Harbor Survivors decorations hanging from ribbons around his neck.
Both attacks, Steer said matter-of-factly, were “both very clever military actions, and very successful, very well planned. We let our pants hang out a little. They surprised us completely and they are still surprising us.”
By invoking images of a war that had also begun with a catastrophic defeat sixty years ago, but had been won decisively, American commentators and audiences could construct an optimistic frame for the 9-11 attacks. At the same time they could enunciate an idealized image of national community, transposed from the dominant national narrative of Pearl Harbor.
And just as the visual resonance of smoking towers and burning battleships might evoke comparisons with World War II, another visual image emerged the very next day that summarized a mood of patriotic resolve. A photograph of firemen raising an American flag on a tilting pole in the middle of debris from the collapsed towers quickly became a signature image for the World Trade Center attacks. This image graphically reproduced the most circulated image from the Pacific War: that of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima (Bradley and Powers 2000). The image of Marines pushing up a makeshift flag pole on Iwo Jima has had a long and prolific history in American popular culture, generating countless copies and now rendered in statues large and small, including the official U.S. Marine monument to the Pacific War in Washington D.C. (Marling and Wetenhall 1991). The image of firemen hoisting a flag amidst the destruction of September 11 not only resonated visually with the Iwo Jima photo (the WTC pole even tilted at an angle much like that of the pole righted by Marines in 1945), it could tap into the narrative of victory emerging from costly battles, signified by the actions of men displaying their determination to “keep the flag flying” in the face of violent warfare. The substitution of firemen for Marines says much about the different kinds of “wars” represented in these photos, as well as about the way in which police and firemen stand in for soldiers in representations and remembrances of the World Trade Center attacks.
It is this triumphal dimension of the story, about a massive collective response, personified by heroes such as the Marines and firemen raising the flags, that underlies the usefulness of Pearl Harbor as a narrative of the nation, of a nation willing and able to unify behind a war effort. As a story of recovery from defeat through the actions of citizens willing to sacrifice for the nation, Pearl Harbor is a parable of patriotic subjectivity. Commentators who referred to Pearl Harbor in the first moments of reporting on September 11 often commented about this aspect of the Pearl Harbor narrative. A newspaper article the next day observed that “In one sense, memories of Pearl Harbor offered hope,” quoting former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger to the effect that “Pearl Harbor brought us together to face a problem. Maybe this can do the same.” (“America recovering from the ‘second Pearl Harbor’,” Agent de publicitate Honolulu, September 12, 2001). Very similar remarks were made by visitors to the Arizona Memorial the day following the attacks, reported in a newspaper story in The Honolulu Advertiser. Even though the memorial was closed on September 12, for security reasons, Honolulu reporters sought out visitors there to explore thoughts about symbolic associations of the two events. Army Col. James C. Rasnick, was quoted as saying, “It [Sept 11] is a wake-up call, just like it [Pearl Harbor] was . . . They’ve awakened a sleeping giant.” (Gordon, Cole and Blakeman, Honolulu Agent de publicitate, September 12, 2001). This dimension of the story—of a nation galvanized to fight in the face of adversity—now underwrites public support for war in the Middle East, first in Afghanistan and then Iraq (even though there is no direct evidence of complicity of Iraq in the September 11 attacks).
The narrative of surprise attack and mobilization to fight a war is not just a story told to represent past events. From 1941 to 1945 the image of Pearl Harbor was widely circulated (in posters, songs, newsreels, and so on) to stir a nation. Calls to actively “remember” the bombing were part of an organized campaign to generate a collective resolve to fight a war; to mobilize a national population. Just as the mythic story of Pearl Harbor could be used to engender patriotic responses needed to fight a war, so the comparison in 2001 is used to evoke similar sentiments today. These uses of the analogy between Pearl Harbor and 9-11 are especially evident in speeches made during national ceremonial occasions where ritual practices routinely recall the sacrifices of a nation’s soldiers as a way of expressing sentiments of patriotic loyalty. For example, in a speech given by President George Bush on Pearl Harbor Day, he compared Pearl Harbor and September 11 in precisely these terms:
On the morning of December 7, 1941, America was attacked without warning at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the air and naval forces of Imperial Japan. More than 2,400 people perished and another 1,100 were wounded, triggering our entry into World War II.
Today, we honor those killed 60 years ago and those who survived to fight on other fronts in the four succeeding years of world war. We also remember the millions of brave Americans who answered our country’s call to the battlefield, to the factory, and to the farm, remembering Pearl Harbor by their deeds, their devotion to duty, and their willingness to fight for freedom. The attack at Pearl Harbor fired the American spirit with a determination that freedom would not fall to tyranny; and the United States and its allies fought to victory, preserving a world in which democracy could grow. The tragedy of December 7, 1941, remains seared upon our collective national memory, a recollection that serves not just as a symbol of American military valor and American resolve, but also as a reminder of the presence of evil in the world and the need to remain ever vigilant against it.
Now, another date will forever stand alongside December 7 — September 11, 2001. On that day, our people and our way of life again were brutally and suddenly attacked, though not by a complex military maneuver, but by the surreptitious wiles of evil terrorists who took cruel and heartless advantage of the freedoms guaranteed by our Nation. Their target was not chiefly our military, but innocent civilians. We fight now to defend freedom, secure civilization, and ensure the survival of our American way of life. (George W. Bush, Jr., National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day Proclamation, December 7th 2001).
As we fight to defend what we believe is right, we remember the sacrifice of those who have gone before us — not only the heroes of Pearl Harbor but all the men and women of the greatest of generations
Memorializing the Nation
Constructing images of patriotic citizenship, of the strong identification of ordinary people with the nation and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for its ideals, has long been the focus for national ceremonies of remembrance. In the United States, such occasions are marked on November 11, Veterans Day, and in the spring on Memorial Day—both days set aside to honor those who have fought (and died) in the nation’s wars. To these, we may add Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th and now September 11. Although not a national holiday, Pearl Harbor Day is a national day of remembrance marked with ceremonies and widespread media attention each year.
Both Pearl Harbor and September 11 are among the most densely represented events in American history. Within hours of the 1941 attack, newspapers and radio stations spread word of the bombing. President Roosevelt’s speech to Congress was carried by radio throughout the nation. Within two weeks, Viaţă magazine ran a photo spread of the attack. In addition to newspapers, magazines, and radio, the Pearl Harbor story circulated widely through the increasingly powerful technologies of newsreels and films.
In addition to newspapers, magazines, and exhibits, representations of September 11 have been amplified through today’s more powerful technologies of communication. The events of September 11, after all, were viewed even as they were happening by millions of people watching in horror on their televisions. The World Trade Center catastrophe has been recorded in an unprecedented number of photographs, videos and media programs. A television documentary about the WTC attacks titled “In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01” includes video footage shot by 118 people in the vicinity of WTC the morning of the attack, as well as video from 16 news organizations. (See “A Mayor’s Recollections of an Unforgettable Day” (New York Times May 12, 2002) The producer, HBO, collected close to 1,000 hours of film and tape for the project. That film begins with the assertion that Sept 11 attack was “the most documented event in history.”
As an indication of the degree of self-consciousness surrounding calls to remember Pearl Harbor, researchers at the Library of Congress led by folklorist Alan Lomax immediately began a nationwide project to record the reactions of ordinary people. Beginning the day after, they ultimately produced volumes of tape-recordings now held at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center. In light of this historic precedent, staff at the Folklife Center issued an urgent call over the internet on September 12, calling for participation in a similar nationwide project to record responses to 9-11, now called simply the September 11 project. (See: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/nineeleven/nineelevenhome.html )
These kinds of memory project find a more solid and enduring expression in public spaces dedicated to war memory—cemeteries, monuments, memorials, and museums. Such spaces inscribe the past in architectural and discursive forms of all kinds, providing not only visual reminders, but creating public spaces for collective practices of remembrance (Young 1993). Whereas events coded in cemeteries and monuments are always at risk of fading into the forgotten past, they also provide material and symbolic resources for the ongoing reproduction of collective memory.
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