"The expression of satisfaction at the acts of torture one is inflicting on helpless, trussed, naked victims is only part of the story. There is the primal satisfaction of being photographed, to which one is more inclined to respond not with a stiff, direct gaze (as in former times) but with glee. The events are in part designed to be photographed. The grin is a grin for the camera. There would be something missing if, after stacking the naked men, you couldn't take a picture of them."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Essayists from the United StatesHistorical novelistsPolitical activistsNovelists from New York CityWomen activists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Susan Sontag
137 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Susan Sontag →
Related Quotes
"We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is d…"
"If America is the culmination of Western white civilisation, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then th…"
"The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there …"
"The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean Algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, t…"
"Often their [media] decisions are cast as judgments about “good taste”—always a repressive standard when invoked by i…"
"Nobody who really thinks about history can take politics altogether seriously."
"The problem is not that people remember through photographs, but that they remember only the photographs."
"Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness. The truths we resp…"
"The need for truth is not constant; no more than is the need for repose. An idea which is a distortion may have a gre…"
"Painters and sculptors under the Nazis often depicted the nude, but they were forbidden to show any bodily imperfecti…"