Elie Wiesel's “Art and the Holocaust: Trivializing Memory” and James Arnett’s “Taking Pictures: The Economy of Affect and Postcolonial Performativity in Noviolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names” explore the detrimental connection between images and the underrepresented as established by the superior majority. Images, in this context, include different art forms such as film and photography.
The concept of images Wiesel and Arnett describe encompass images that are particularly used for profit, and consequently fail to benefit the underrepresented population depicted in these works of art. Wiesel would argue that the images he describes fail to accurately represent the true experience of the Holocaust, while Arnett would argue that the images he describes fuel particular sentiments towards Africans. In both instances, there is an unhealthy, growing fascination with images of the minority group.
Wiesel's “Art and the Holocaust” delves into the topic of representation and objectification of the Jewish-Holocaust experience in entertainment. He questions art’s right to represent historical atrocities such as the Holocaust. Wiesel writes, “How can one ''stage'' a convoy of uprooted deportees being sent into the unknown, or the liquidation of thousands… ''produce'' the machine-gunned, the gassed, the mutilated corpses, when the viewer knows that they are all actors” (Wiesel 2). Yes, what is shown in the arts and entertainment about the Holocaust may depict snippets of what occurred to the Jewish then. However, a reenactment, be it a film, art piece, or other form of entertainment, acts as nothing more than a scratched record of what truly took place. Wiesel insinuates that no performance can ever fully grasp the damage done. After all, how well can a stage of actors depict a historical tragedy? Wiesel explains what the Holocaust represents, stating that it was “the negation and failure of human progress; it negates the human design and casts doubts on its validity” (Wiesel 1). Thus, reenacting or reproducing these images would turn the people affected by this tragedy into simple objects of entertainment.
During the Holocaust, the Jewish were reduced to being tools of production for the non-Jewish majority. However, Wiesel would argue that this continues to be the case even after the Jewish had suffered through the Holocaust. Just as their physical bodies were used for the advancement of production during the Holocaust, they are also used after the fact when their memory, struggle, and history are exploited through the reproduction of art imitating all they had endured. Thus, partaking in these images reduce the Jewish to being means of profit. This objectification disregards the fact that the suffering Jewish people are human too, consequently stripping them of their very humanity.
In "Taking Pictures," Arnett critiques the North’s fixation on images of suffering minorities, particularly Africans, as it pertains to NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel We Need New Names. Arnett argues that the developed world, or the North as described in his essay, has a continuously growing hunger for images of the suffering, underrepresented. He explores the way in which Bulawayo depicts Africa and Africans in the novel through images, and what these images represent to the North. He writes, “It becomes clear over the course of the novel that Bulawayo's critique of the developed world’s appetite for images of suffering is a funhouse mirror that shatters stereotypes held by… Africans of ungoverned, unproblematic wealth often associated with American life” (Arnett 151). Arnett argues that Bulawayo’s writing serves as a commentary on the North’s fascination with images of the underrepresented community in Africa. His choice of the term ‘funhouse mirror’ showcases the North’s distorted craving for these images. Similar to a funhouse mirror, these images reflect and consequently satisfy the North’s distorted concepts on the people depicted in the images, images that are merely, if that, inspired by reality.
Furthermore, Arnett defends Bulawayo’s writing as being a both performative and materialistic critique of the circumstances the characters, both Northerner and African, are in. He states, “Bulawayo’s novel relentlessly critiques presumptuous Northern superiority to postcolonial subjects and dissects how postcolonial suffering is commodified and teased by Northerners in a materialist affective economy that is grounded in the production and dissemination of telegenic images of suffering” (Arnett 152). Essentially, Northerners thrive off of the suffering Africans depicted in these images. The sentiments that come attached to these images, the affective economy, are what feed Northerners into solidifying a supposed superiority. This concept is fleshed out in several instances in Bulawayo’s novel, including when, for example, the children interact with the NGO. The NGO serves as the perfect example of the North’s appetite for images of the underrepresented, and thus becomes the epitome of what Arnett dubs the affective economy.
Arnett’s discussion on affective economy plays a crucial role in the depiction of the African community. Affective economy is the economy of feeling, or what it means to exchange feeling and emotion. It calls attention to the exchange of the material for the emotional. In the case of the NGOs, Northerners partake in this affective consumption when they consume images of the Africans. When Northerners bring back photographs from their expeditions and use the images to promote NGOs, they are partaking in an affective economy that keeps their projects alive. By consuming images of the Africans and subsequently donating to NGO, it enables the North to feel better about themselves. It makes them feel like almost warriors or patrons if they feel pity and give to causes that address these so-called atrocities depicted in the images. There is then a shift from pity for the Africans, to almost relief that the viewer is not in that situation.
This key concept, although not directly identified, is also explored in Wiesel’s “Art and the Holocaust.” The photographs of Africans taken by the NGOs mirror Holocaust-inspired art, such as films, that emerged post-Holocaust. When individuals outside of the effect of the Holocaust engage with Holocaust-inspired images, for example, it evokes a similar sentiment to what Arnett describes Northerners feel when they engage with the images of the Africans. This sentiment is one of pity and simultaneous relief in that the person on the other side of the screen is not the one experiencing what the image depicts.