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Visual Studies
ISSN: 1472-586X (Print) 1472-5878 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rvst20
Moving images: The media representation of
refugees
Terence Wright
To cite this article: Terence Wright (2002) Moving images: The media representation of
refugees, Visual Studies, 17:1, 53-66, DOI: 10.1080/1472586022000005053
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1472586022000005053
Published online: 05 Nov 2010.
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ISSN 1472–586X print/ISSN 1472–5878 online/02/010053–14 © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/147258602200000505 3
Visual Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2002
Moving images: the media representation of refugees
TERENCE WRIGHT*
The paper takes the form of a broad-based exploration
of the visual representations of refugees across a
range of media forms. Firstly it suggests that these
media images have origins in Christian iconography.
Then the discussion considers the treatment of forced
migration in the fiction film, proposing that cinema
representations often conform to the “road movie”
genre. A discussion of contemporary issues in the
media representation of refugees points to the necessity
and direction for future research on the subject.
INTRODUCTION
… it’s what they call “compassion fatigue”,
the idea that we get so much human suffering
thrust in our faces every day from the media
that we’ve become sort of numbed, we’ve
used up all our reserves of pity, anger,
outrage … smudgy b/w pictures of starving
black babies with limbs like twigs and heads
like old men … or stunned-looking refugees,
or amputees on crutches. How is one
supposed to stem this tide of human misery?
(Lodge 1996, p.5)
World interest in refugees has perhaps never been so
great as it is today. The main responsibility for
bringing images of refugees into our homes lies
almost entirely with the focus of media attention.
While numbers of those forced to migrate increase,1
we are witnessing a global revolution in mass
communications. Owing to the increased speed and
accessibility of media technology, a “visual culture”
is emerging that relies more and more upon information
provided by pictures. The images we see on our
television screen play a crucial role in determining
how we construct our reality. One of the consequences
of our “digital era” is a considerable
reduction in communication through language, in
favour of relying on the visual image to tell the story.
As Ignatief (1998:26) puts it: “The entire script
content of the CBS nightly half-hour news would fit
on three-quarters of the front page of the New York
Times”. For journalism, the outcome is a more
simplistic treatment of current affairs. Yet when we
stop to think about how much of our knowledge of the
world is derived from pictures, we find that there is
also very little general understanding about how
visual images communicate this information. Against
this background, journalism as a profession has
become “promiscuous”, disparate and diffuse; yet
Western governments appear to be increasingly
responsive to public opinion. It is becoming increasingly
important not only to analyse the ability of
visual images to create new discourses, but also
necessary to examine the social and institutional
constraints on their function. The power of the visual
image has received little attention in research on the
media representation of migration. Yet, with photographs
in mind, Malkki (1995:9) has pointed out that:
“photographic portrayals of refugees are, in our day,
extremely abundant. Most readers have probably seen
such photographs, and most of us have a strong visual
sense of what ‘a refugee’ looks like”. The visual
representation of refugees plays an essential, yet
neglected, role in forming the stereotype of “the
refugee”.
The consequences for the world’s displaced
peoples raise the following questions:
l What role do visual images have in constructing
our concept of “the refugee”?
l How do refugees gain public attention?
l Why are some instances of forced migration
covered by the media while others are ignored?
l What determines the type of media treatment that
refugees receive?
l What moves people to respond to visual images of
forced migration?
While these questions have formed the starting point
for a longer-term research project, this essay begins to
address the question of the role of media images in
constructing the concept of “the refugee”. Its primary
aim is to outline the state of the problem of the media
representation of refugees, paying special regard to
the visual image. This means that, by necessity, the
topics covered in the paper are wide-ranging. And
while some issues have been covered in depth, others
have been identified more as key points for future
research and discussion.
*Terence Wright is Senior Research Officer at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford where he runs the “Moving Images” project funded
by The Pilgrim Trust. He is also Professor in Photography – Art & Media Theory at Kunsthøgskolen i Bergen, Norway.
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54 T. Wright
Many of the pictures that we see of refugees
conform to pre-established patterns. For example, in
Christian religious painting we find a long tradition in
portraying forced migration which can be traced from
“The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden” to “The
Flight into Egypt”; such images have played a central
role in the development of Western visual representation.
When compared to contemporary images of
refugees, there are striking similarities in content and
style. Our understanding of humanitarian crises in part
may be influenced by these broader cultural traditions.
Nonetheless fashions and media have changed. During
the last thirty years a generation has grown up unused
to seeing images of European refugees (other than as
historical documents). And recently the victims of
“ethnic cleansing” in Eastern Europe have supplanted
the image of the starving displaced African.
The paper begins by examining the structure of
television news and reviews the work of the Glasgow
Media Group on the news reporting of migration. It
suggests that existing media research on the issue of
forced migration has paid scant regard for the visual
image. The media image’s wider context is introduced,
followed by an outline of some issues arising
from recent technological and institutional changes in
media practice.
The paper addresses contemporary images of
refugees in the press and looks for patterns and
common elements in their construction and usage. It
identifies some historical archetypes that are used to
portray the subject of forced migration and initially
suggests that many “standard” images of refugees
conform to patterns already established in Christian
iconography. It suggests that viewers find accord with
the images (with which they are already familiar) and
that they may evoke a familiar story line. In this
context the image of the refugee in fiction film is
examined and consideration is given to the genre of
the “migrant movie”. The paper concludes in the
identification of key topics for future research into
media images of refugees.
TELEVISION IMAGES
…television has become the privileged
medium through which moral relations
between strangers are mediated in the modern
world. Yet the effects of televisual images
and the rules and conventions of electronic
news-gathering on such moral relations are
rarely examined. (Ignatief 1998:10)
In his essay “Is nothing sacred? The ethics of television”
(Ignatief 1998), Michael Ignatief addresses two
polarized views of television images. On the one
hand, he considers them as voyeuristic; on the other,
promoting the “internationalisation of conscience”.
He proposes that images cannot assert2
they can only
instantiate something if the viewer is already predisposed
in the form of a moral obligation – this
obligation has Christian roots. This echoes the view
of the philosopher Richard Rorty (1989:xvi) that “the
novel, the movie and the TV program have, gradually
but steadily, replaced the sermon and the treatise as
the principal vehicles of moral change and progress”.
Later in this paper I shall propose that refugee images
not only have their roots in Christian iconography, but
that images perpetuating this visual tradition are
reproduced and broadcast instinctively – possibly
having a subliminal effect on the viewer. This might
be taken to suggest that our moral obligation is something
of a triggered response. In contrast, members of
“other” cultures that are not based upon Christian
principles may also feel to be under moral obligations.
At least we may consider the iconography of
the visual image in the West as belonging to a wider
set of moral codes and conventions.
Another point, made by Ignatief, is that he
regards television news as a genre. In fiction film, the
standardization of plot and narrative makes it relatively
easy to see the story conforming to a prescribed
narrative or pattern. But news, which is primarily
concerned with presenting facts with little recourse
for a story-line, at first sight may appear to sit uncomfortably
under the description of a “genre”. But – then
again – they are often referred to as news “stories”.
News is a genre as much as fiction or drama:
it is a regime of visual authority, a coercive
organization of images according to a stopwatch.
(Ignatief 1998:26)
Ignatief suggests that the genre of television news is
determined by the structure and contents of the news.
However, a closer look at the use of the term may
offer different insight proposing that it is not a simple
matter of form and contents but also one of audience
expectation. For example, Neale (1990:46) proposes
that genre does not simply refer to film “type”, nor is
it limited to spectator expectation and hypothesis, but
the institutional discourses: production, marketing
and consumption.
While the News is subject to types of story –
Home, Foreign, human interest, etc.; it is strictly
controlled by time constraints. Primarily a visual
medium (e.g. the saying “no pictures, no story” which
has been attributed to the Labour Party’s key spindoctor
Alastair Campbell), it is packed into fifteen-,
thirty-, or sixty-minute time-slots with fierce competition
among stories not only to get into, but to stay in
and move up, the running order. At the same time,
without being exactly xenophobic, a type of myopia
abounds – characterized by an emphasis on the immediate
local significance of stories – as Moeller has
pointed out with regard to news stories in the United
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Moving images 55
States: “One dead fireman in Brooklyn is worth five
English bobbies, who are worth 50 Arabs, who are
worth 500 Africans” (1999:22). It seems that we, as
readers and viewers, are prepared to accept such
reporting even though it runs contrary to our
“instincts”: “we may feel there is something morally
dubious about a greater concern for a fellow New
Yorker than for someone facing an equally hopeless
and barren life in the slums of Manila or Dakar”
(Rorty 1989:191). Furthermore, Ignatief is concerned
about the over-dominance of genre when “the flow of
television news reduces all the world’s horror to identical
commodities” (1998:30). In contrast, he
recognizes the virtues of television documentaries
which “sometimes achieve the prerequisite of moral
vision itself; they force the spectator to see, to shed
the carapace of cliché and to encounter alien worlds
in all their mystery and complexity” (1998:32).
Some analysis of the television news “genre”
with regard to the subject of migration has been
conducted by the Glasgow Media Group (Philo and
Beattie 1999). Their approach, that of thematic analysis,
aims to provide a “detailed examination of the
language and visuals of a series of news reports”
(1999:180) of the major TV channels “and a study of
other textual and visual images in press reports”. The
news is divided into its constituent elements: “headlines,
interview questions, reported statements and
key visual moments”. However, despite the promise
of a “detailed examination of the language and
visuals”; “a study of other textual and visual images
in press reports”; as well as “key visual moments”
(my emphases), there is minimal reference to visual
images. The study remains very thorough, but
extremely logo-centric. For instance, in their “Race,
migration and media” (Philo and Beattie 1999)
pictures are cited only twice. The first occasion is
when: “the BBC had a report including images of
labourers on a farm in Spain, growing courgettes and
presumably contributing to the local economy”
(1999:191); the second: “The news … included
visuals of Asians entering the UK” (1999:195).
Granted Philo and Beattie do analyse the dialogue
that accompanies the images, but the nature, structure,
exact content and appearance of the visuals are left to
the reader’s imagination. We may assume that they
are referring to what Marash terms “TV Codes”
where the code for “hurricane” comprises images of
“Palm trees bending to the gale, surf splashing over
the humbled shore, missing roofs, homeless people
showing up in local gyms. You see it once or twice
most years”.3
The use of such footage, often “stockshots”
(sub-titled “Library Pictures”) has its precedents
in the history of art (see Gombrich 1960:121).
However, for Philo and Beattie the issue becomes
rather confused by their use of the term “image” to
describe the spoken or written “metaphor”. For
example, their analysis of the use of the metaphor
“flood” to describe the potential arrival of immigrants
in news reports:
The frequent repetition of images such as this
constructs a very specific view of the migration
process. It is presented in the
terminology of a natural disaster, in persistent
reported statements that go unchallenged by
journalists. (1999:183)
Moeller (1999:47) also indicates the inherent problems
of generalization and formulaic language that
accompanies images and metaphors. However, she
also refers to the economy of the visual images and
metaphorical expressions (which “can more
succinctly describe a face or a moment in time than
can paragraphs of narrative”). Moreover, she makes a
clear distinction between “image” and “metaphor”:
Words may give meaning, but in our visual
era, images are essential to effective communication
– especially in the telling of the
news. Images have authority over the imagination.
(Moeller 1999:47)
In another paper, “The media and Africa: images of
disaster and rebellion” (Beattie et al. 1999), which
examines the press and television coverage of the
Rwanda/Zaire crisis of 1996/1997, the term “dominant
image of Africa” is loosely referred to
(1999:233). Although the claim is made that the
“language and visuals of these news reports create a
vivid and pervasive image of Africa” (1999:233), at
best, visual sequences are described but not analysed.
For example, a television report is accompanied by:
…an image of the emaciated frame of a
young child, lying on the ground where he
has collapsed from exhaustion or disease with
his aid biscuits lying on the ground beside
him, just beyond his outstretched hand. An
older child stops, looks down and walks past.
(1999:238)
Here there is no attempt to consider how the visual
image and the narration work together to contribute to
the report, nor how the film sequence has been
composed. Similarly, in their analysis of the tabloid
press, they describe the launch of an appeal by The
Mirror:
“Please Save Me” read the headline under a
photo taking up most of the front page of a
refugee child captioned “the frightened eyes
of a child beg for help”. (1999:255)
Granted there may exist a sentiment that this may be
more acceptable in the printed press, where photographs
might be considered to have a more simple
illustrative function, but certainly this should not be
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56 T. Wright
the case with television. Television is primarily a
visual medium and much of its meaning is to be gained
from the “language” of the visual image. For the study
of television news the balance between “textual” and
“visual” analysis needs to be re-examined.
THE BROADER PICTURE
Within minutes he was totally lost, as the
programme – a love story, he surmised –
elided confusingly with the commercials
every two minutes, it seemed … Eventually
he saw the credits roll and he knew that it was
over, whatever it had been. (Boyd 1984:116)
The context of the image is a matter that can seemingly
go unnoticed. And the extended definition of
genre takes into account the broader picture (beyond
the immediate newspaper setting). The shock tactics
employed by The Mirror (11 April 2000) with its “Go
On, Look Away” headline next to the photograph of a
starving child, appeared in stark contrast to the images
in the paper’s accompanying colour supplement which
featured a fashion shoot of a European model posing
amongst the huts and inhabitants of an African village.
The semiotician, Roland Barthes (1977:15),
describes the press photograph as a “message”. Yet it
is not one that is self-contained, it is integrally bound
into the “source of emission”, “the channel of transmission”
and “point of reception”. In order to
understand the mechanisms determining the “photographic
message”, we must also take into account the
“staff of the newspaper”: the group of technicians
who choose and compose, treat (title and caption) the
image. The newspaper’s readership is the “point of
reception” – the public who read the paper, who have
different expectations of their chosen publication and
a different regard for the same photograph in
different papers. In our reading of The Daily Telegraph,
for example, our perception of the photograph
will be influenced by our prior knowledge. In
common parlance people often refer to themselves as
“a Telegraph reader” or “a Guardian reader”, not
only suggesting a preconceived allegiance to the
paper but also anticipating certain expectations to be
fulfilled during reading. It is the whole institution of
the newspaper, that operates as a vehicle of communication,
that transmits a series of “lateral” messages
which contribute to the understanding of any photograph
that may appear in it. In addition, the
circumstances in which the image appears may also
direct the spectator towards meaning. In the wider
context, this means that if a photograph appears on an
advertisement hoarding, newspaper, gallery wall or
family album, the viewer’s response may be predetermined,
as certain expectations will be required to be
fulfilled.
The recent changes in the media institutions and
working practices have been brought about by the
increased speed and availability of media technologies
(Neuman 1991). One consequence is an
emerging “visual culture” that places a new emphasis
on the communicative power of visual images.
Another is a demand for more simplistic presentation
of news items. Journalism has become more “promiscuous”,
disparate and diffuse (Alter 1997); yet
Western governments appear more responsive to
public opinion. There has been a global increase in
the number of displaced persons, while the foreign
stories in the media have been subjected to budgetary
cutbacks and consequently a significantly reduced
output (Stone 2000).
In addition to the ways that the image of the
refugee is constructed through media representation,
there is a need to address the reception of these
images. In this context not only is the relationship of
the image to the text or spoken word paramount, but
also the wider editorial and institutional constraints
on reporting incidents of forced migration, as well as
the wider social and political agendas (Adams 1986,
Chang and Lee 1992). This raises questions regarding
the social function of refugee images and whether,
through the process of categorization, they act as a
way of coping with a social “problem” to provide a
sense of absolution of responsibility, or to stimulate
empathy and to motivate a public response (Benthall
1993; Dyck and Coldevin 1992).
THE VISUAL IMAGE AND THE REFUGEE
Looking at these images, I know what
happened several thousand years ago when
the Egyptians built the pyramids. I understand
what it must have looked like when the
Mayas constructed their extraordinary cities.
He’s brought something biblical to it, he
didn’t just do a reportage. (Robert Pledge
1993, Contact Press Images/Europe,
discussing Sebastiäo Salgado’s photographs
of the Serra Pelada goldmine)
In the case of refugee images, it might seem strange
to question “where do pictures come from?” It seems
fairly obvious that they are “taken” of a particular
person in a situation of migration in a specific location.
However, as Malkki (1995:9) has indicated,
there exists a “tendency to universalize the ‘the
refugee’ as a special ‘kind’ of person not only in the
textual representation, but also in their photographic
representation”. For example, in the 1930s, when the
photographer Dorothea Lange took her famous
photograph “Migrant Mother”, the situation was not
quite so straightforward. It seems that Lange was
driving through the countryside, looking for an
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Moving images 57
image that would satisfy a preconceived idea. This
will be discussed in greater detail later. However,
with most news images we see, there is a sense of the
picture-makers not offering an unbiased impression
by photographing what is there; but by looking for
images that conform to the camera operators’
preconceptions. Indeed sometimes it is difficult for
the “reality” to get through the editorial “obstacle
course”. Although I might shoot pictures that I feel
are “non-stereotypical”, as well as some that are (for
fear of being chided by those who have commissioned
the assignment), it is more likely that those
who occupy positions further along the editorial
chain will choose the more predictable images.
In taking a “snap-shot” overview of media images
of refugees – and in recognition of the biblical origins
in forming the prototypes of some of these images – I
would make a tentative proposal that media images of
refugees can be classified in the following categories
of “image types”. There is a possible distinction in the
representation of refugees between “old testament”
and “new testament”: those depicted in a state of
degradation (rags and ruin) derived from Adam and
Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This “Fall
of Man” stereotype usually features a couple or small
group in states of degradation, isolation, nakedness,
etc. In contrast there are those who are depicted in the
style of Mary and Joseph’s “Flight into Egypt”:
people who are displaced but not necessarily destitute.
They may be portrayed with a few possessions
sometimes accompanied by a means of transport. In
one illustration, “Dva Begstva” (“Two Flights”) by I.
Gur’ev, that appeared in the First World War Russian
publication Rodina: illiustrirovanji zhurnal die semeingo
chteniia (Motherland: Illustrated Journal for
Family Reading), No. 1, 3 January 1916, the connection
between the Holy Family’s flight and that of the
refugee family has been made quite explicit
(Figure 1).4
There is a third category: “Exodus”, the
mass movement of people that may suggest the outof-frame
presence of a pursuer. In addition, we find
the “Madonna and Child” image a regular occurrence,
which may be incorporated with any of the other
categories.
While there are always inherent problems with
classificatory systems, they can have the virtue of
providing a working model for analysing the problem.
In the long run they may be abandoned, adapted or
adopted, as their appropriateness only becomes
apparent during the research. It is beyond the scope of
this paper to examine all three categories in turn, so
the “Fall of Man” category has been discussed
initially, followed by an introduction to the “Madonna
and Child” image.
EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN
Th[e] process of coming to see other human
beings as “one of us” rather than as “them” is
a matter for detailed description of what unfamiliar
people are like and a redescription of
what we ourselves are like. This is a task not
for theory but for genres such as ethnography,
the journalist’s report, the comic book, the
docudrama, and … the novel. (Rorty
1989:xvi)
Although the media images of refugees that appear in
the newspapers, on our television and cinema screens
are relatively recent phenomena, the subject of forced
migration has a long pictorial tradition. For example,
in Masaccio’s painting of “The Expulsion from Paradise”
(c. 1425–1428) (Figure 2), the image of Adam
and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden by
an angel contains many of the same constituent
elements as some of today’s press photographs. When
comparing Masaccio’s painting with the photograph
by Darren Whiteside, taken in East Timor, that
appeared in The Guardian (21 September 1999)
(Figure 3), both images show a couple in distress
escorted by an armed guard(ian). The background of
Figure 1. I. Gur’ev, “Dva Begstva” (“Two Flights”),
1916. Motherhood: Illustrated Journal for Family Reading,
No. 1, January 3, 1916. (With thanks to Professor Peter
Gatrell, University Manchester.)
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58 T. Wright
each image is fairly sparse save for a piece of architecture
– in the former: the gates of paradise; in the
latter: a ruined abandoned building. Indeed one could
further propose that many of today’s images of
migrants and refugees conform to biblical precedents.
Besides its connection with the Masaccio painting,
Whiteside’s photograph has stylistic similarities to the
Christian icon of the Madonna and Child; as this is an
image that reoccurs with predictable regularity.
Having looked at photographs of refugees
over several years, one becomes aware of the
perennial resonance of the woman with her
child. This is not just any woman; she is
composed as an almost madonnalike figure.
(Malkki 1995:11)
One difference in Whiteside’s photograph, is that the
child (though breast-feeding) is holding an empty cup
– if this detail were featured in one of Hogarth’s
paintings, we should be expected to look for the
symbolic meaning of “poverty”. This too may have
biblical origins where the cup operates as a symbol of
human destiny – signifying the way in which God
allots an individual’s fate. It may be likened to
receiving a cup that may overflow with blessings,5 or
to having a cup that may contain “fire and brim-
stone”.6
However, a similar more contemporary
appearance of the Madonna and Child icon is
Dorothea Lange’s classic photograph of the American
depression, “Migrant Mother” (1936).
Dorothea Lange’s famous “Migrant Mother”
is a timeless madonna. The “holy mother”
theme captions the image, placing it so that
we apprehend the universal in the guise of the
immediate, the sacred incarnate as the
humble. (Trachtenberg 1988:70)
According to Lange’s own account of the photo-shoot:
I saw and approached the hungry and
desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I
do not remember how I explained my
presence or my camera to her, but I do
remember she asked me no questions. I made
Figure 2. Masaccio, “The Expulsion from Paradise”,
c. 1425–1428.
Figure 3. Darren Whiteside, “East Timor”, in The
Guardian, 21 September 1999. Photograph by Darren
Whiteside/Reuters. Photograph supplied by AlertNet
(www.alertnet.org), the Reuters Foundation website for the
disaster relief community.
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Moving images 59
five exposures, working closer and closer
from the same direction. I did not ask her
name or history … I knew I had recorded the
essence of my assignment. (Lange
1960:42–43)
It appears that she had recognized, in the woman’s
situation, the potential for a cultural/religious icon
and had instinctively captured it on film: “Lange
knew she had found precisely the ideal image she was
searching for” (Levine 1988:26). Images such as
these have become long-standing cultural icons that
can automatically elicit the appropriate emotional
response. Some constitute a variation on a theme and
some images evoke other images. Just as the “Migrant
Mother” had caused Trachtenberg to place the photograph
in the tradition of the “timeless madonna”; so
Moeller on encountering a photograph of a Somali
infant (1992) reflects back to Lange’s “Migrant
Mother” (1936):
Confronted with two images of a mother
breastfeeding a child … we react with greater
emotion to the photograph of the African
child … we know with a fair degree of
certainty that the American infant will
survive … The African infant, it seems,
cannot possibly survive… (Moeller 1999:39)
Strictly speaking, Lange’s “Migrant Mother” photograph
does not actually show the activity of breastfeeding
as Moeller indicates. One of the six images of
Florence Thomson and her children, taken by Lange at
a migrant labour camp in Nipomo, California does
feature this activity, but this was not the frame finally
chosen by Lange.7
Indeed I find it difficult to make
much of Moeller’s comparison. However, whether her
conjecture is (or is not) appropriate, the point remains
valid that an image has the potential to induce the
viewer to relate it to a visual tradition of much greater
length than the immediate news setting. To reinforce
this point, I would add to this collection by comparing
Don McCullin’s photograph of a mother and child
from the Biafran famine (1970) (Figure 4) with a
detail from Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenthcentury
painting “St Luke Drawing a Portrait of the
Virgin” (Figure 5). Both images show clearly how a
contemporary photograph can conform to a pictorial
Figure 4. Don McCullin, a twenty-four year old mother
and child awaiting death, “Biafra”, 1968. With kind
permission of Don McCullin.
Figure 5. Detail of Rogier van der Weyden, St Luke
Painting the Virgin. Fifteenth century.
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60 T. Wright
tradition and, in turn, demonstrate the power of the
visual image to invoke the viewer’s response. Another
reason for choosing the van der Weyden painting is
the reflexive nature of the image: the painting itself
shows the image-making tradition itself in the making
(Figure 6). According to a sixth-century legend of
Greek origin, St Luke was the first person to make a
portrait of the Virgin, thus reputedly initiating the
iconography of the Madonna and Child. With regard
to another pictorial tradition (mentioned earlier),
among other symbolic elements, sculptural figures of
Adam and Eve decorate the Virgin’s throne, to
suggest that Christ will atone for their Original Sin.
Although primarily a Christian icon, the image of the
Madonna and Child has attained a broad secular
appeal. Similarly, as befits a cultural icon, Lange’s
“Migrant Mother” has appeared in a number of subsequent
incarnations, enhancing its status as a
representation of the “universal mother” .
Whether images of migration and starvation tend
to be more closely associated with biblical imagery
than do other news items remains to be examined. For
the moment we can cite close associations in photographs,
film sequences, the written as well as the
spoken word:
Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the
piercing chill of night … it lights up a biblical
famine, now in the twentieth century. This
place, say workers here, is the closest thing to
hell on Earth. (Michael Buerk, BBC Television
News, November 1984)8
In returning to the book of Genesis and with regard to
Adam and Eve’s expulsion, Moser (1998) demonstrates
how biblical stories provided the model for
images of pre-history. While this is not my precise
concern, she does examine the extensive influence of
the bible in establishing a narrative framework.
Pictures which focused on Adam and Eve inspired
illustrators in making their depictions of early human
life: Adam and Eve next to the tree of knowledge in
the Garden of Eden; their expulsion from Paradise
(their original “homeland”); and their labours in the
wilderness. According to Moser, stories from both
biblical and classical origins have proved to have a
great visual potential. The bible itself has provided
inexhaustible inspiration for visual representation and
suggests that biblical illustrations were significantly
responsible for the spread of Christianity. The proliferation
of biblical imagery has been of great
importance.9 Artists highlighted key iconographic
themes that enabled people to make sense of their past
and their own place in the world. Some biblical iconographic
features were to become closely associated
with secular imagery. At the same time contemporary
icons can be endowed with the same power and status
as religious icons:
…what never failed to strike me most of all –
and by now I had been in almost every house
– were the eyes of the two inseparable
guardian angels that looked at me from the
wall over the bed. On one side was the black,
scowling face, with its large, inhuman eyes,
of the Madonna of Viggiano; on the other a
coloured print of the sparkling eyes, behind
gleaming glasses, and the hearty grin of President
Roosevelt. I never saw other pictures or
images than these … they seemed the two
faces of power that has divided the universe
between them. But here their roles were …
reversed. The Madonna appeared to be a
fierce, pitiless, mysterious, ancient earth
goddess, the Saturnian mistress of this world;
the President a sort of all-powerful Zeus, the
benevolent and smiling master of a higher
sphere. Sometimes a third image formed,
along with these two, a trinity: a dollar bill,
the last of those brought back from across the
sea, or one that had come in a letter of a
husband or relative, was tacked up under the
Madonna or the President, or else between
them, like the Holy Ghost or an ambassador
from heaven to the world of the dead. (Levi
1944:120–121)
However, the image of the expulsion from the Garden
of Eden symbolizes the struggle to gain salvation and,
in this context, artists have created visual icons to
emphasize the predicament of humanity. It would
appear that an “iconography of predicament” has
emerged. It provides an essential visual resource that
Figure 6. Rogier van der Weyden, “St Luke Painting the
Virgin”. Fifteenth century.
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Moving images 61
can be drawn upon when human catastrophe is to be
represented.
“ON THE ROAD”: MIGRANTS IN FICTION FILM
…the East of my youth and the West of my
future. (Jack Kerouac 1957:20)
Kerouac associated his proposed journey across the
United States with frontiersmanship: the early American
pioneers and an indulgence in “dreams of what
I’d do in Chicago, in Denver, and then finally in San
Fran” (1957:15). His semi-autobiographical novel On
the Road, in which Kerouac’s “heroes” travel around
the United States in the quest of new and exciting
experiences accompanied by a sense of chaos and
despair, can be seen as a forerunner to the “road
movie” genre of feature film which gained its ascendancy
in the 1960s, for example Dennis Hopper’s Easy
Rider (1969). Although “on the road” movies are not
essentially about refugees, they possess striking similarities
in structure to those narratives that have
attempted to highlight the issues of migration through
the medium of fiction film.
While the fiction film may appear to be (literally)
a world apart from the “real life” crises of refugees, it
nonetheless possesses the power to establish cultural
values and norms. This may be achieved through such
devices as visual metaphor or symbolism. Even some
of the most fantastic of movie genres (e.g. science
fiction) encourage viewers to compare and contrast
the “what if?” scenarios as presented on screen with
their own life experiences. As such, they contribute to
our developing a sense of the world and play an
important role in forming public opinion.
However, in contrast to the documentary film,
which (arguably) has an ability to promote social
change through highlighting (and raising questions
about) a specific problem, the fiction film has some
distinct disadvantages. The most obvious is that (by
nature) it does not offer the viewer an “actual”
portrayal of “reality”. No matter how well scenes have
been recreated, or how closely based upon a “true
story”, we know them to be “acted out”. In this context,
the feature film can afford to draw heavily on
symbolism. For example, Xavier Koller’s film Journey
of Hope (Reise der Hoffnung) in which a family of
Turkish farmers sell their possessions with the intention
of taking up a new life in Switzerland. On the
journey they are exploited by traffickers, they have to
negotiate the dangers of crossing the Alps and are
finally apprehended by the Swiss police. An early stage
of the film features a seemingly casual shot of the
protagonists heading down the road (to an uncertain
future) while a ploughman, placed on the skyline,
fulfils a compositional role of enclosing the shot and, at
the same time, symbolizing the traditional life of toil
and hardship that is to be left behind (Figure 7). The
husband, as the prime motivator for the couple’s migration,
leads the way and his wife (somewhat reluctantly)
follows. This thematic shot, early on in the movie,
encapsulates the plot acting as a visual summary of
“the story so far”. Based upon “true” episodes from
life, Journey of Hope is also able to portray scenes that
would be difficult to film in actuality. For example,
there is a meeting with a trafficker where the would-be
migrants hand over the payment for their passage. This
is shot convincingly in “documentary style”; though
this element of verisimilitude becomes interrupted by
music which accompanies his counting the money after
the couple has left the room (Figure 8).
The general narrative of Journey of Hope is a
familiar one. It is reminiscent of the “road movie”
genre. Together with other migrant films: El Norte,
Figure 8. The trafficker counting the money, Journey of
Hope.
Figure 7. “Road shot” from Xavier Koller’s film,
Journey of Hope (Reise der Hoffnung). Permission to
reproduce the images of the Academy Award winning film
“Journey of Hope” was granted by the producers Catpics
Ltd, Zurich, Switzerland.
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62 T. Wright
for example, the plots fit conveniently into this genre.
In El Norte the journey begins for two young Guatemalan
Indians following the politically motivated
murder of their parents. They aim to migrate to the
United States. On the other side of the border, the
brother and sister find that their new reality contrasts
strongly with their vision of a Promised Land. As
illegal aliens they are hounded by the immigration
authorities and the film results in the tragic consequences
of their embarking on the journey. Thus the
story-lines of Journey of Hope and El Norte are
similar to such cinema classics as Midnight Cowboy,
Easy Rider, Badlands and Thelma & Louise. For
example, at the beginning of this genre of film we
usually witness a dispensing of objects that symbolize
the life to be left behind. In Journey of Hope the
protagonists take the irreversible step of selling their
farm animals; in Badlands the childhood home is set
on fire; and in Easy Rider they throw away their
wrist-watches (Figure 9). Usually two characters set
out on an adventure – they meet various good, bad
and ugly characters en route – a major set-back is
resolved and, although their final goal (end of the
journey) is reached (or may be in sight), it is likely all
to end in disaster. The end of the journey can be a
physical, spiritual or psychological destination or may
involve aspects of all three. Without making too much
of it, a case could be made for finding biblical precedents
in the narrative structure of the “road movie”:
the character(s) who contest(s) the authorities is set
against accumulating odds, and is finally sacrificed
for the cause (of freedom or justice, etc.). The road
itself has a special meaning of a physical and metaphorical
nature, representing freedom or discovery.
The “road movie” perpetuates the allegorical tradition
derived from the “Journey of Life” that occurs
frequently in Christian literature. Looking further
back in literature it can feature the theme of “the
quest”, for example similar to the narrative of
Homer’s Odyssey. The film structure is that of an
episodic journey through which characters can be
involved in the process of self-discovery or learning
about each other and/or themselves along the way,
this can be in the form of a life-changing experience.
As the “road movie” has its own rules, iconography
and conventions, it means that the “movie migrant” is
set on a predestined course from point A to point B.
The implications for the narrative are that the end of
the journey is finite (and often stated in the early
stages of the film) and the drama is acted out sequentially
in chronological time.
In terms of human psychology, there is usually an
underlying theme of self-discovery. Yet, at the same
time, the protagonist (usually male) is caught between
the two worlds of his past and future. Contrasts are
established between home and “life on the move” –
for example in Journey of Hope these are characterized
in terms of the growing tensions between the
heroine and hero, respectively. The migrant is also
cast as the outlaw – wanting to become part of the
new culture, yet having to resort to elicit means to
attain this goal. The individual (outlaw – as in the
Robin Hood legend) set against the power of the state
can come to represent freedom. In addition, the
elements of frontiersmanship in the protagonist’s
pursuit of a new and better life suggest that the
migrant movie has much in common with the genre of
the “Western”. In Journey of Hope the protagonists
are portrayed possessing both dignity and courage.
They engage the viewer’s sympathy and
understanding.
Nonetheless, there is a central problem in classifying
films in “genres” in that many do not fit quite
so neatly into such categories. So the characteristic of
the “road movie”: the disastrous end (needless to say)
shares characteristics with the “disaster movie”. This
film sub-genre usually involves a natural or humanmade
catastrophe against which a cast of (often quite
predictable) human “types” would be confronted by
their personal weaknesses. Earthquakes, fires (e.g.
Towering Inferno) or plane crashes have become
popular subjects for this kind of movie that flourished
during the 1970s. To an extent Journey of Hope
conforms to Yacowar’s Disaster Movie basic type,
“The Ship of Fools”: “the dangers of an isolated
journey provide the most obviously allegorical
disaster films, given the tradition of The Road of
Life” (1977:91). Similarly, we find that the migrant
feature film The Boy Who Stopped Talking (De
Jongen Die Niet Meer Praatte) shares much with
Yacowar’s basic “Disaster” type, “Survival”: “A
respectable variety of disaster films detail the problems
of survival after a disastrous journey”
(1977:91). This film, set in Holland and eastern
Turkey (with Dutch and Kurdish dialogue), follows
the boy, Memo, from his Turkish village to join his
Figure 9. Irreversible step: selling the animals, Journey
of Hope.
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Moving images 63
father, a dock-worker living in Holland. Seriously
disturbed by his up-rooting to an unfamiliar setting,
Memo decides to become silent. With the help of a
sympathetic teacher and his making friends with a
local boy, Memo gradually adapts to his new
situation.
Thus far, the essential point about feature film
genres is that they restrict the subject to “types” of
narrative, yet each new narrative has the potential to
revise the tradition. For example, Ridley Scott’s film
Thelma & Louise revised the genres “road movie”,
gangster film, “buddy movie”. The characters Thelma
and Louise – in replacing the two male “buddy”
outlaw protagonists (or female/male Bonnie and
Clyde10
) with two women journeying through a maledominated
American West – retained aspects of the
anti-heroes’ alienation and “frontiersmanship”, yet
introduced a feminist dimension to a traditionally
macho genre through its portrayal of sisterly unity
and strength.11
So genres themselves exist in a state of
flux.12
One issue to be addressed concerns the nature
of genre – whether that of the feature film, the photograph,
the documentary or the television news
broadcast. In particular, the use of the generic structure
together with the ability to expand and change
the structure will be examined.
Each new genre film constitutes an addition
to an existing generic corpus and involves a
selection from the repertoire of generic
elements available … each new genre film
tends to extend this repertoire, either by
adding a new element or by transgressing one
of the old ones. (Neale 1990:56)
As discussed with reference to genre as applied to
television news and documentary images, the film’s
audience expectation as well as its “institutional
discourses” should also be encompassed in our definition
of genre:
…within each period the structure of the
myth corresponds to the conceptual needs and
self understanding required by the dominant
social institutions of that period… (Wright
1975:14)
In general, refugees have been well served by the
feature film. If we take as examples two of the most
popular films ever made, we find that the well-to-do
von Trapp family become refugees at the end of The
Sound of Music (1965) and almost every main character
in Casablanca (1942) is (or becomes) a refugee.
In Casablanca the message is very positive. In the
prologue the city of Casablanca is introduced as a
type of transit camp on “the torturous, roundabout
refugee trail”. Early on in the film as the “unhappy
refugees” (along with other “usual suspects”) are
rounded-up by the police, a pickpocket associates
them with “the scum of Europe [that] has gravitated
to Casablanca”. But such sentiments are soon left
behind. Alongside the Bogart, Bergman, Henreid
“love-triangle”, the plot follows a re-kindling of Rick
Blaine’s (Humphrey Bogart) concern for human
rights. From his initial cynical standpoint: “I stick my
neck out for nobody” and “the problems of the world
are not in my department”, we watch him wrestle with
his conscience, emotions and moral obligations to
take extreme personal risk and loss in aiding the refugees
(his rival and former lover: Henreid and
Bergman, respectively) to escape to freedom:
“through-out the picture we see evidence of his
humanity, which he does his best to cover up”
(Harmetz 1992:56).
From today’s standpoint the Casablanca story
appears as one of romantic escapism (a characteristic
it shares with The Sound of Music). Although The
Sound of Music is based on a “true story”, there is
little in Casablanca that has a basis in reality. Nonetheless,
Casablanca is a curious reflection of real-life
in that many of those involved in the making of the
film were European refugees who had escaped from
Nazi persecution. Perhaps two of the most relevant
examples are, firstly Robert Aisner, the film’s technical
advisor, who had actually taken the route
described in the film’s prologue : “Paris to Marseilles.
Across the Mediterranean to Oran. Then by train or
auto or on foot across the rim of Africa to Casablanca
in French Morocco”, then to Lisbon and America (the
intended route of the Bergman and Henreid characters
in Casablanca). Secondly, the 19-year-old actor
Helmut Dantine, who plays the part of the young
Bulgarian refugee hoping to earn passage (for himself
and his wife) at the roulette wheel. Dantine had
served time in a concentration camp for his anti-Nazi
activities in Vienna before escaping to the United
States.
In conclusion, for the refugee cause, we can put
forward three key advantages that the fiction film has
over the documentary. First, the A to B structure of
the physical journey undertaken by the protagonist(s)
means that the viewer gets the whole picture in understanding
the cause and effect of migration: the
situation left behind; how and why decisions are
made to migrate; hardships encountered; coming to
terms with a new location; etc. In contrast the documentary,
more so the news item, tends to deal with
foreign stories or home stories, often failing to point
out the connection between the two. Second, the
familiar narrative of the “road movie” is one that we
are used to seeing being played out by people of our
own culture, so the viewer is more easily able to identify
with the plight of the refugee through their
previous knowledge of the story’s structure. And
thirdly, it is the business of a fiction film to persuade
the audience to identify with the protagonist(s).
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64 T. Wright
Whether this involves our “seeing” the points of view
of the central character or of a number of characters,
our “sticking with” the plot demands a certain degree
of spectator identification.13
After all, this power to
engage the viewer is the moviemaker’s business and
that of “story-tellers” in general. This notion has been
taken to something of a melodramatic extreme by the
literary critic Walker Gibson: “We assume, for the
sake of experience, that set of attitudes and qualities
which the language asks us to assume … and, if we
cannot assume them, we throw the book away”
(1980:1). Insofar as this might involve the viewer in
sharing the decision-making and understanding the
world from the refugee’s perspective, it is likely to
generate a degree of empathy that is seldom present in
attempts to provide a factual rendition.
CONCLUSIONS
…the inclusion among “us” of the family in
the next cave, then of the tribe across the
river, then of the tribal confederation across
the mountains, then of the unbelievers across
the seas (and, perhaps last of all, of the
menials who, all this time have been doing
our dirty work). This is a process we should
try to keep going. We should stay on the
lookout for marginalized people – people
whom we still instinctively think of as “they”
rather than “us”. We should try to notice our
similarities with them. (Rorty 1989:196)
Media representations predominate in determining
how we see refugees. While there is a marked
tendency to categorize migrants as human types, the
selective nature of the visual image frequently objectifies
them, dismissing their historical, cultural and
political circumstances. The media representation of
refugees has received little direct attention. Within the
area of refugee studies, media-related issues have
been discussed (Gibney 1999), but no comprehensive
study has yet been undertaken. The most closely
related work has dealt with media representations of
war (Allen and Seaton 1999; Minear et al. 1996;
Neuman 1991) while others have examined the media
response to more general human catastrophes and
disasters (Benthall 1993; Moeller 1999; Sanger et al.
1991). Others have considered ethical issues in media
representation (e.g. Winston 1988). In addition, other
related areas of study on representations of culture
and ethnicity have taken place within visual anthropology
(e.g. Alexander 1998, Banks and Morphy
1997, Lutz and Collins 1993, Marcus 1995) and
media and journalism studies (e.g. Gillespie 1995,
Hawk 1992, Hess 1996, Shaheen 1988, Skovmand
and Schrøder 1992).
The purpose of this paper has been to provide the
foundations for research into the specific problem of
the media representation of refugees. Yet in doing so,
it has made some general observations on the nature
of representation by means of visual images.
Although it may be the intention of journalists (using
the term in the broadest sense to include editors,
camera operators, etc.) to provide “realistic” images
that offer a transparent view – a window on the world,
they are constrained in their having to conform to
cultural and institutional practices. This not only
should be taken to include the long and rich tradition
of making visual images – and here I proposed an
“iconography of predicament” which draws upon
images derived from the Christian iconographic tradition,
but also the “invisible” political and social
constraints on the media. While media representation
may result in objectifying “the refugee” in the role of
the “illegal alien”, the feature film image of the
refugee as protagonist presents a role that is immediately
recognizable to the audience, and one that has a
high potential of gaining their sympathy. In this
context the whole story is played through from cause
to effect. The “A to B” structure of the “road movie”
genre means that we see the conditions that initiate
the migration, the hardships of the road and what is to
be found at the journey’s end. As such they contrast
with documentary films (and news footage) where the
whole story either remains set in a remote location, or
begins at Dover. In future, this point will be examined
in detail. In the meantime I propose that this reflects
the way our society deals with the issue of migration
not only from the media perspective but also by
government and the aid agencies themselves. While
the media division between “Home News” and
“Foreign News” may cause part of this, it mirrors the
government’s ways of dealing with refugee (as
opposed to asylum seeker) issues – the Foreign Office
and the Home Office, respectively. It also appears that
the many non-governmental organizations deal either
with crises abroad or with “home-based” crises in the
U.K.
A central problem of the feature film is that it is
a work of fiction and as such does not have the
power of conviction of the news report or documentary.
In addition, the genre can result in simplistic
portrayals – easily identified heroes and villains (for
example, the man who counts the money in Journey
of Hope and the rather implausible element of a
murder mystery that acts as a sub-plot to The Boy
Who Stopped Talking). On the positive side, the
notion of genre does not suggest that representations
remain fixed, but can be modified by subsequent
representations. Finally, any complete account of the
media representation of refugees must include
factors that exist beyond the immediate setting of the
visual image. This means that we should not only
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Moving images 65
consider the accompanying captions, text or
commentary, but the narrative sequencing of the
images as well as the stories and advertisements that
“encapsulate” refugee pictures. It is only when all
these factors are taken into account that we can
begin to understand the media construction of the
image of “the refugee”.
NOTES
[1] According to UNHCR (as of 1 January 1999) there were
21.5 million “people of concern”.
[2] In an earlier paper (Wright 1992:275) I had referred to the
Ancient Greek philosopher Cratylus who considered that, as
he could not be certain about anything in the world, he
could not pronounce on it, only point to things with his
finger. Similarly pointing the camera produces a visual
image that is non-assertive, unless qualified by a caption or
commentary.
[3] Quoted in Moeller (1999:42).
[4] My thanks to Professor Peter Gatrell for drawing my attention
to this image (see Gatrell 1999).
[5] Psalm, 23:5.
[6] Psalm, 11:6.
[7] The appearance of the “Migrant Mother” in Midweek Pictorial,
17 October 1936, was partly overlaid by a map and the
attention-grabbing headline “Look in her Eyes!”. This
makes a curious comparison to The Mirror’s reverse order
to the viewer with its “Go On, Look Away” headline.
[8] Quoted by Helen Fielding (1994:97).
[9] Moser points out that although the early Christian images go
back as far the fourth century, they drew upon the (even
older) classical tradition. She makes reference to The
Golden Race and the five ages of Hesiod – similarities
between the classical and biblical schemes seen in the story
of the expulsion from Eden – both led to a degradation. In
Hesiod’s case the concept was one of regression from an
earlier idyllic state.
[10] Even when the “outlaws” form a male/female partnership,
they tend to conform to their respective sexual stereotypes
as in Malick’s Badlands, for example.
[11] Back-handed recognition of the film’s relation to existing
genres led to it being referred to as “Bitch Cassidy and the
Sundress Kid”.
[12] See Wright (1975), who traces the patterns of change in the
structure of the Western from 1935 to 1975.
[13] Rorty refers to this as “imaginative identification”
(1989:191).
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FILMOGRA PHY
Badlands 1973 (95 minutes) colour. Director: Terrence
Malick. Feature. U.S.A.
Casablanca 1942 (102 minutes). Director: Michael Curtiz.
Feature. U.S.A.
De Jongen Die Niet Meer Praatte (The Boy Who Stopped
Talking – English title) 1997 (110 minutes) colour.
Director: Ben Sombogaart. Feature. Netherlands.
Easy Rider 1969 (94 minutes) colour. Director: Dennis
Hopper. Feature. U.S.A.
El Norte (The North – English title) 1983 (141 minutes)
colour. Director: Gregory Nava. Feature. U.S.A./
Mexico.
Midnight Cowboy 1969 (113 minutes) colour. Director:
John Schlesinger. Feature. U.S.A.
Reise der Hoffnung (Journey of Hope – English title;
Umud’a Yolculuk – Turkish title) 1990 (111 minutes)
colour. Director: Xavier Koller. Feature. Switzerland.
The Sound of Music 1965 (174 minutes) colour. Director:
Robert Wise. Feature. U.S.A.
Thelma & Louise 1991 (130 minutes) colour. Director:
Ridley Scott. Feature. U.S.A.
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