Introduction

A recent Canadian public awareness campaign for the Special Olympics features athletes with disabilities photographed individually against a white backdrop.1 The accompanying captions challenge discourses of pity and laud the individuals for their athletic abilities. As a long-time disability rights activist and photographer, I was intrigued by the images for their contradictory messages; they simultaneously reproduced and challenged mainstream discourses about disability. I am struck by a similar feeling when I consider the work of Nina Berman, a contemporary American photographer whose recent work presents images of disability and disfigurement of American war veterans. Seeking to understand these images in light of the detrimental impact that representations of people with disabilities have historically had, it is important to consider the work of Haller and Ralph who note that while these representations have begun to change, problematic discourses still abound.2 Berman herself describes her images as ambiguous, having multiple interpretations.3 This paper is an attempt to understand the complexities of contemporary documentary representations of people with disabilities through an exploration of Nina Berman's Marine Wedding, a work that focuses on one Iraq war veteran and his bride to be.

The paper will argue that while images produced by Berman center on disability, they do so while reproducing problematic modes of representation of people with disabilities. However, staying away from facile charges such as the "impossibility" of representing the "Other", the paper will explore the complexities for the documentary photographer of at once being implicated and being removed from the experience of disability. Specifically, I will argue that Berman's images are reflective of the tensions that arise when hegemonic and counter-hegemonic modes of representation collide. I will note that while the images could be seen to convey counter-hegemonic messages about American-waged wars, they could simultaneously be read as hegemonic in their normalizing discourses about people with disabilities and disability.

In order to support my argument, I begin with a brief overview of theoretical discussions of the main modes of photographic representations of people with disabilities. I then apply these theoretical understandings to the work of Berman providing examples from Marine Wedding. The paper ends with a discussion of the cautions and recommendations for documentary practice on issues of disability and representations of people with disabilities. Before proceeding further, it is important to note that the term disability is used in this paper to denote the "social process that turns an impairment into a negative by creating barriers to access".4 Hence, whether the impairment is a disfigurement or the loss of an arm, the disability is located in normative societal constructions of perfect bodies. Berman's work takes on societal notions of the perfect body by centering images of wounded soldiers with varying impairments due to war.

Modes of representation in documenting disability

In an article on the problematic of representing the "Other", Alcoff notes that it is not the credentials of the speaker, or person doing the representation, but the actual context of the event of representation that matter.5 As the author argues, "one must also look at where the speech goes and what it does there".6 In other words, the intentions of the photographer when speaking for the "Other" are not what we should always question; what is problematic is how these representations are received by the audience considering the socio-historical context of how the represented group has been constructed. Furthermore, as Moeschen argues, photography's assumed ability to accurately portray "reality" has played a key role in constructing representations of marginalized others.7 In the case of representations of people with disabilities as the "Other", these have tended to portray them in ways that reinforce problematic notions that have oscillated between lauding people with disabilities on the one hand, and portraying them as inferior or deficient, on the other.8 These portrayals have been dangerous, such as when they were used to support the eugenics movement.9

Disability studies scholar Rosemarie Garland Thomson's seminal discussion of the modes of representation in photography provides an important starting point for the examination of how people with disabilities have been portrayed.10 Building on Garland Thomson's work, McRuer summarizes these modes as follows11

"the wondrous, which places the disabled subject on high and elicits awe from viewers because of the supposedly amazing achievement represented; the sentimental, which places the disabled subject in a diminished, childlike, or custodial position, evoking pity; the exotic, which makes disability strange and distant—a freakish or perhaps transgressive spectacle; and the realistic, which brings disability close, potentially minimizing the difference between viewer and viewed".

McRuer adds a fifth mode of representation, the hegemonic; this is not a distinct mode but represents photographs in any mode used to support a dominant agenda.12 However, as the author notes, any of the above photographic modes can also be used in counter-hegemonic ways. Berman's images can be seen as complex renderings of various modes of representation. As the discussion below will argue, many of the images can be seen to simultaneously evoke realist and exotic modes of representation that work in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic ways, and herein lies the challenge of deciphering the complexities of Berman's work.

Representing the "real": Straddling realism and the exotic

The exotic and realist modes of representation, seemingly contradictory, can be seen working together in Berman's 2006 social documentary series Marine Wedding in which the disfigurement and disablement of Marine Ty Zeigel is contextualized within his and our (the viewers') every day. Playing on the hetero-normative themes of weddings and family life, the series captures images of the Marine individually and with his bride Renee engaging in everyday activities: going to the pub, sitting in the park, shopping, having breakfast, etc.13

The images are realist in the sense that they present a person with disability who is contextualized within everyday settings; there is an effort to show his existence as "ordinary", thereby creating a rapprochement between the subject of the photograph and the viewer. In contrast to the wondrous or exotic modes that portray people with disabilities as exceptional or as outsiders, the realist mode utilizes normative constructions to portray people with disabilities.14 There is a rapprochement between people with disabilities in the images, and the viewer who may or may not be a person with a disability. In other words, there is a sense for the viewer that the person with a disability is "one of us", as opposed to "Other".

One such image that emphasizes the ordinariness of Marine Zeigel's existence is a photograph of him driving a car, an experience familiar and mundane to many who may see this image.15 The image of Zeigel is striking in its use of cropping and its reliance on mostly black and white tonality. In this photograph shot from inside the car (likely from the passenger seat), we find Zeigel in the act of driving, facing the front windshield with his right arm on the steering wheel. The tight cropping of the image does not allow the viewer to see who else is in the car nor on what type of road or external context that Ziegel was photographed in. The image is dark in its overall tonality and feels desaturated of all colours except for the skintone of Ziegel's face and arm. The photograph gives the sense that someone else is in the car (at least the photographer). Ziegel could be someone's friend, brother, father, spouse; in short, anyone who drives. Nothing is exceptional about this scene; in fact, the photograph evokes the "snapshot", a hallmark of amateur observational photography, seen to lack stylization and a focus on aesthetics.16 The underexposure of the image, its awkward tightly cropped angle, and its lack of saturation, all evoke the sense of an image that was taken in a hurry to document a passing moment without regard to lighting or framing. But is this really the case? As Banks notes, images need to be read within their overall external context.17 In this case, this image is far from being an amateurish snapshot; it is part of a series by an experienced professional photographer, Berman, who has carefully chosen her subject, Marine Zeigel, an Iraqi war veteran disfigured and disabled during the war, as her own description of him informs the viewer. In its realist portrayal of Ziegel as an ordinary person, Berman's photograph conveys at least three counter-hegemonic messages at once: by driving, Ziegel is engaged in an ordinary act that all Americans should have access to (as the preponderance of car advertisements suggests); Ziegel, injured during the war, still maintains a right to be included in mainstream society as opposed to the historical and contemporary exclusionary conditions experienced by American war veterans18 Ziegel, disfigured and disabled during the war, can still drive a car, which is not an act accessible for several reasons to all people with mobility related impairments. Zeigel's portrayal in this mainstream act can be seen as symbolic of Berman's forcing of the American public to literally see and witness the impacts of war, instead of keeping them hidden.

Yet despite the counter-hegemonic messages invoked by Berman's realist representation of a war veteran, I am left with an uncomfortable feeling stemming from what I perceive to be an underlying reproduction of a hegemonic representation of people with disabilities, due to the seemingly observational and social nature of the realist image. Nichols notes that observational and social documentary works are problematic.19 This is so because of observational documentary's emphasis on "neutrality" in its representations of reality20 and because of social documentary's attempts to include people with disabilities in normative mainstreaming frames that could potentially negate disabling experiences and realities. Making a link to the work of Roland Barthes on "mythmaking", McRuer notes that the realist mode is problematic because it can be used to normalize what had been seen as exceptional or extraordinary.21 As Barthes proposes, myths are a process of signification where the denoted message of a photograph or sign can naturalize the connoted message22 McRuer argues that in emphasizing ordinariness, realist photographs of people with disabilities serve to obscure or mask dominant societal norms and ideologies. In other words, we need to resist the normativity of the image and question the literal and symbolic implications of who has access to driving a car in American society. Do people with disabilities really have this access and how is this access symbolic of the intersection of classism and ableism? I would argue that these questions and what they symbolize about broader issues of access are obscured or muffled by Berman's realist portrayal of Zeigel.

Furthermore, the image of Zeigel driving a car needs to be read within the overall context of the Marine Wedding series. Doing so would enable us to discern an exotic mode of representation working alongside the realist mode discussed above. The exotic mode can be seen in historic and contemporary photographic representations of people with disabilities as "freaks" or outsiders, such as in the work of Diane Arbus.23 However, scholars such as Millett, argue for a more complex reading of Arbus's work, noting that her images provide a space where viewers can learn about their own perceptions of people with disabilities and marginalized others.24 Indeed, it could be argued, following Bruzzi's discussion, that this type of imagery is performative25 in that it engages the participants in performing disability as Otherness.26 However, I would agree with Clare that what enables seeing people with disabilities as "outsiders" is not their own participation in this construction, but the normative constructions of perfect bodies.27

In Berman's images, the realist normalizing portrayal of Marine Zeigel's everyday coexists with the contradictory centering of his disfigurement and disablement as something unusual. Moreover, the voyeuristic feel of the exotic mode of representation is evident in some images, such as the one where the Marine is in a grocery store and is being stared at by a child. An even clearer example is evident in an image where Ty and Renee are photographed through what seems like a peephole. In this image, the couple is sitting at a table in what appears to be the midst of a discussion; Zeigel has his legs stretched on a chair in front of him in a pose that could be said to signify relaxation. His arm is resting on the table, while Renee is holding a pen and what appears to be a small notebook. Her gaze is directed towards the notepad whereas Zeigel is directly looking at her.

On the surface, the image appears to be another portrayal of the ordinariness of Ty Zeigel's and Renee's everyday existence symbolized by an activity familiar to many Americans: sitting around the dining room table caught in the midst of talking. In her portrayal of this moment of being caught seemingly unawares (neither Renee nor Ty are looking at the photographer), Berman's photograph advances a counter-hegemonic message. The small American flag at the table between the couple works to firmly situate this veteran within the context of broader society. We are clearly told that this is a patriotic American whose place needs to be clearly affirmed in US society; witness the flag at his dining room table! Yet, his patriotism and serving his country led to his disfigurement and disablement; in Berman's images symbolic of broader society, serving one's country and its outcomes exist side by side as a reminder of what war can concretely translate into for the individual veterans.

As a survivor of war and as part of a disability rights movement that has actively worked against war in Lebanon, I am greatly drawn to Berman's images for their potential to awaken a critical sense of justice in viewers. Indeed, I would argue that in her portrayal of a veteran alongside the symbols of American pride or everyday ordinariness, Berman is advancing a counter-hegemonic message that renders visible the conditions that lead to disability and disfigurement—i.e. US involvement in war. In an article about the invisibility of nuclear war in the US, Solnit proposes that making the invisible visible is an important activist strategy in anti-war documentary work.28 Evincing a sense of responsibility, Berman's work proposes a reading of the disability and disfigurement of Zeigel, not simply as a tragic occurrence or an exotic spectacle, but as a reality that must be read within its relationship to broader US war strategy and American ideals—e.g. the dream of a white wedding, owning a dog and a backyard, etc. juxtaposed against the otherness of the veteran. Berman's work is particularly counter-hegemonic in its insistence on showing what the public has been denied access to through state-sponsored embedded photography where images of wounded soldiers are heavily censored—presumably for security reasons.29 In this sense, she forces us to see what would be too painful to acknowledge—i.e. the brutal reality of war.

However, upon further examination, the image of Ty Zeigel with Renee seated at the table also evokes a sense of exotic representation of people with disabilities that I believe exists in tension with the counter-hegemonic message of the photograph. This is particularly evident in the use of vignetting in the framing of the image. As noted above, the image is captured through what appears to be a round hole that evokes a sense of peeping into the privacy of the couple. However, the vignette in this image is not created in postproduction (e.g. with the use of photo processing techniques) but is achieved with what appears to be an actual hole through which the photographer shot the image. Moreover, the out of focus flowers that intercede between Ty and Renee and the photographer's vantage point convey a sense that this photograph was taken at a distance with an attempt to hide the act of photography from its subjects. It is unclear whether Berman is making a statement about surveillance, or is being self-reflexive about her intrusion as a photographer into the lives of this couple. Or, she is perhaps making another statement altogether. Regardless of the intent, as a viewer who is aware of the exotic mode of representation and the problematic representations of the "Other" referred to earlier by Alcoff, I read this image within the context of broader representations of people with disabilities as "Others" to be stared at—preferably from the safe distance afforded by technologies such as photography.30

Taking the examples provided above, Berman's work can be seen to reflect and reinforce hegemonic representations of people with disabilities. The underlying tension occurs when we read these representations within a broader narrative of war and "Americanness". In the images' portrayal of these "Others" or outsiders within the everyday American normative frames of references of backyards, flags, hunting trophies, medals of honour, dog-walking, etc., we begin to piece a narrative that clearly places the disablement and disfigurement of veterans such as Zeigel within a squarely American reality of war involvement.

Yet, despite its political anti-war message, Berman's work does not present a highly politicized understanding of people with disabilities and the politics of representing the "Other" in terms of disability issues. Alcoff notes that at times we are in a position where representing the Other is an act of taking responsibility for oppression or social injustice.31 The author offers the important recommendation for us to interrogate ourselves on how we represent the "Other" should we choose to claim our responsibility in producing and reproducing oppression.32 In other words, Alcoff does not argue for the impossibility of representing the "Other" but cautions us to think about before we speak (or in this case before we photograph).

Concluding thoughts: An alternative mode of representation?

This paper has discussed the photographic modes of representation of people with disabilities, through an exploration of Nina Berman's photographic series, Marine Wedding. I noted that while her work offers a complex blending of several modes of representation, it continues to reinforce hegemonic notions of people with disabilities even as it seeks to propose a counter-hegemonic reading of what leads to their disablement. In this sense, representations of people with disabilities are "collateral damage" in Berman's bid to awaken American society to the brutalities of war. As noted earlier, regardless of the intentions of the photographer, representations of the "Other" do not occur in a vacuum, and the broader context needs to be taken into account in terms of the potential damage that these representations may inflict on those being represented. Azoulay notes that as whether we are taking photographs or viewing them, we are "members of the community of photography"33 similarly, Burns notes that photographic representations of the Other implicate not only the photographer but also the viewer of the images.34

Hence, heeding Alcoff's cautions, in the case of people with disabilities who have been portrayed as pity-provoking, exotic spectacles, or just the same as everyone else (e.g. normative portrayals in realist photography that mask inequities), I would propose adopting a "mode of resistance". This mode would highlight the resistance efforts and strategies of people with disabilities in ways that neither reify the subjects nor render them into objects of pity. In this mode, the photographer's representations of these acts of resistance is in itself a form of resistance; in this sense, the content of the images is about resistance and their existence as images resists the prevailing body of works that continue to perpetuate disabling representations of people with disabilities. Examples of such images are found in the publications and campaigns of grassroots disability movements.35

I would like to end with the example of the "Empowered Fe Fes", a youth leadership group for girls with disabilities in Chicago.36 This group links disability to social issues and to other aspects of identity, and it presents images of women involved in self-advocacy campaigns and awareness-raising work. In these images, we see the women both in front of and behind the camera. In one such image, two of the members of the Empowered Fe Fes, both using wheelchairs, are photographed in a field with others in the background (the image was captured at a community event).37 The two women are engaged in an interview, with one holding a microphone in front of the other. The woman being interviewed has a "Disability Pride" flag protruding from the wheelchair she is using.38 In a second image, a young woman using a wheelchair is shown looking through a camcorder filming other women using wheelchairs.39 The women whose faces are clearly visible are smiling and appear engrossed in the activity, which the caption tells us is occurring at a Disability Pride Parade.

Such images are powerful destabilizers of hegemonic representations of people with disabilities because they show people with visible markers of disability engaged in and capturing an act of resistance. Not only is this affirmed in the active and participatory nature of the image but also in the captions that refer to "disability pride". There is no pretense regarding the "ordinariness" of the women in the images; on the contrary, their counter-mainstream existence is highlighted in the images, captions and descriptions of the activities they are engaging in (e.g. interviewing, filming, etc.). Such images not only portray people with disabilities as activists but also portray acts of resistance, and therein lies their power to disrupt what we think we know as viewers of images. We are reminded that contrary to prevailing disabling representations, there is a possibility of representing women with disabilities not as objects of pity or as formidable and heroic survivors, but as key players in the hope for a socially just society…which they are actively shaping!