More on Images in Advocacy: How do we Face the Horror but Retain Hope?

I saw “Born to be Wild” this past weekend, a 40 minute IMAX movie about two women in two countries rescuing orphans of two different species – elephants and orangutans. It was moving, it was beautiful, and it left me feeling hopeful. The realities were not glossed over – the reason there are orphans, after all, is because elephants are being poached and orangutans’ habitats are being destroyed for palm plantations – but my tears were from watching one of the now-fully-grown orphaned orangutans released to the wild. It was just that beautiful.

And I thought afterward – if we had videos like that, but for farmed animals, what could their impact be?

Marji mentioned Emotional World of Farm Animals in the comments of last week’s post – it is a non-graphic video, and perhaps it is just as inspirational as Born to be Wild. I have seen only the intro so far – I will watch it soon (now that I know it’s non-graphic!) – and while it’s not fair to compare it to the IMAX extravaganza of Born to be Wild, I wonder how much more impact we could have with non-graphic images if we put those kinds of resources into producing them.

Back to graphic images – last night I was surprised and intrigued to realize that one of my favorite photographers, Chase Jarvis, blogged about the work a friend of his, Chris Jordan, was doing on the albatross at Midway Island. I’ve blogged about those albatross myself, and remember when I first read about them in Satya (oh, Satya, how we miss you!). Those albatross – babies dying in the hundreds of thousands each year, as they starve to death with bellies filled with plastic – are one more heartbreaking example of why animal rights activists need to be environmental activists as well.

Albatross on Midway Island -- Credit: Chris Jordan

The work that Chris Jordan is doing is both difficult and beautiful. It is graphic, but it is not like slaughterhouse footage. It is emotional, and in the video you will see animals you know are close to death in addition to the bodies of already dead albatross, but there was something different about it for me, something watchable.

Perhaps it was that it had a level of distance that comes with photojournalism, perhaps it was that the human actions causing the deaths were so far removed. Whatever the difference, I was able to watch it, and I was inspired by it, even though the subject was sad. I had a similar emotional reaction to Born to be Wild, though visually Born to be Wild was beauty and life, rather than death.

Here are some of Chris Jordan’s thoughts from the video (transcribed by me, any inaccuracies are my own):

I have this message that I really believe in, which is about facing the horrors of our time. Allowing ourselves to know the reality of the time we live in. However hard that is, however much it hurts, however much we feel grief or shame or anger or rage or whatever. I think that’s step number one, is to face the reality of our time. The impact that I hope this work has, is as a wake-up call.

It’s hard, because I know these images are really horrible to look at. And what I don’t want to have happen is for people to be traumatized by them, and to fall into feelings of paralysis or despair or hopelessness.

Most of us probably agree with his last statement. It resonated strongly with me because after watching Earthlings a few years after I went vegan, I did feel traumatized, and I did fall into despair and hopelessness and rage, and my activism was paralyzed.

Here is the video for those interested in more of what Chris Jordan has been doing on Midway, and his thoughts on what he has seen:

So how do we walk that line? How do we face the horrors of our time, work to get others to do the same, and yet avoid being traumatized? How do we retain some hope, and impart that to others as well?

Mary wrote about messaging last week as well, and she summarizes in a very clear way the overall state of messaging in the animal rights movement. One of the commenters, Kezia, said something very interesting, very powerful:

There’s an Indian proverb marketers love: “Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”