This photo is a well known shot taken of a young refugee girl on the Afghanistan / Pakistan border. The photographer, Steve McCurry, stated that the photograph "summed up for me the trauma and plight, and the whole situation of suddenly having to flee your home and end up in refugee camp, hundreds of miles away." When I saw this photo for the first time, the first thought that came to my mind was human struggle. Her eyes clearly demonstrate the 'plight, pain, and strength of her people'. The young girl has a tattered scarf covering her dirty hair, while her eyes captured my attention with their look of seriousness, fear, and desperation. It is obvious this young child has gone through many hard times. I feel this picture does a lot of cultural and political work. Culturally this photo does a lot of work considering the subject in this image is completely different from me and she is clearly the opposite of the ‘normal’. By constructing the idea of suffering into my mind, this photo contrasts the differences between us. The subject in this photo is a young Afghanistan girl who has dealt with more than I can image. The color of her skin, her gender, and her class have all been apart of her suffering. Not many Americans would be able to look at her photo or meet her and have much to relate to. This young girl, Sharbat Gula, has grown up in a lower class, with a darker skin tone, and is a woman in a culture where gender roles are very traditional. For example, another photo was taken of her 17 years later and her husbands permission had to be obtained for her to be photographed without her burka. As a result of being on the wrong side of each of these three constraints, Sharbat has clearly been through a lot. This photo also carries political implications, since Sharbat was a Afghan refugee who fled the fighting between between her home country and the Soviet Union almost thirty years ago. It was the political problems of the Soviet's attempts to maintain a Marxist government that forced her to flee her hometown and everything she has ever known to escape to a dirty refugee camp on the border of Pakistan. Everytime I see this photo I feel sad for Sharbat and I wish I could help her, which is the result of all the cultural and political work this photo does to me.Sunday, October 16, 2011
The Fiery Eyes of Suffering
This photo is a well known shot taken of a young refugee girl on the Afghanistan / Pakistan border. The photographer, Steve McCurry, stated that the photograph "summed up for me the trauma and plight, and the whole situation of suddenly having to flee your home and end up in refugee camp, hundreds of miles away." When I saw this photo for the first time, the first thought that came to my mind was human struggle. Her eyes clearly demonstrate the 'plight, pain, and strength of her people'. The young girl has a tattered scarf covering her dirty hair, while her eyes captured my attention with their look of seriousness, fear, and desperation. It is obvious this young child has gone through many hard times. I feel this picture does a lot of cultural and political work. Culturally this photo does a lot of work considering the subject in this image is completely different from me and she is clearly the opposite of the ‘normal’. By constructing the idea of suffering into my mind, this photo contrasts the differences between us. The subject in this photo is a young Afghanistan girl who has dealt with more than I can image. The color of her skin, her gender, and her class have all been apart of her suffering. Not many Americans would be able to look at her photo or meet her and have much to relate to. This young girl, Sharbat Gula, has grown up in a lower class, with a darker skin tone, and is a woman in a culture where gender roles are very traditional. For example, another photo was taken of her 17 years later and her husbands permission had to be obtained for her to be photographed without her burka. As a result of being on the wrong side of each of these three constraints, Sharbat has clearly been through a lot. This photo also carries political implications, since Sharbat was a Afghan refugee who fled the fighting between between her home country and the Soviet Union almost thirty years ago. It was the political problems of the Soviet's attempts to maintain a Marxist government that forced her to flee her hometown and everything she has ever known to escape to a dirty refugee camp on the border of Pakistan. Everytime I see this photo I feel sad for Sharbat and I wish I could help her, which is the result of all the cultural and political work this photo does to me.
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It's really interesting how you said Sharbat Gula is on the "wrong side" of constraints, as if it is wrong to be a non-Western female living in poverty. I'm sure you don't believe any of these things is "incorrect," but it just goes to prove Dyer's discourse of what is normal and white being non-raced.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that makes this photo so striking is the fact that her eyes seem to look right into your soul, making the image more personal. I feel like this is one of the biggest messages the photographer is conveying: these people might be worlds away and be leading completely different lives from ourselves, but they're not unlike us.