ABSTRACT

This essay reads iterations of Pete Souza’s “Situation Room” photograph across media contexts as an effect of an overdetermined public desire for U.S. redemption in the War on Terror. I argue that repetitions of the photograph's “about to die moment” invite a visceral identification between citizen-subjects and militarized state action through the subjunctive tense. The image’s tension reflected through the public interpretation that Hillary Clinton gasps in the photograph, speaks to a collective excitability about war victory’s imminence. If legitimacy for war builds through emotional ties staged by visual tenses and tensions, a crucial task for media criticism is opening possibilities to decathect from cycles of war drama.

摘要

这篇文章将 Pete Souza 的“战情室”照片在媒体语境中的迭代解读为公众对美国在反恐战争中救赎的过度渴望的结果。我认为，照片“即将死去的时刻”的重复通过虚拟时态激发了公民主体和军事化国家行动之间的内在认同。照片中希拉里·克林顿 (Hillary Clinton) 气喘吁吁的公开解释反映了该图像的张力，表达了对战争胜利迫在眉睫的集体兴奋。如果战争的合法性是通过视觉紧张和紧张局势上演的情感纽带建立的，那么媒体批评的一项关键任务就是开辟从战争戏剧循环中消亡的可能性。