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Giving more thought to the *visibility of grief* in our society and media. What is socially “acceptable”, comfortable, what is not, who is allowed to grieve and how. Grief is expressed differently across cultures and belief systems. Going to do a longer thread tonight...
These thoughts will be a bit messy as I consider how I want to write more full length about this (again). But, thoughts are messy, like death, grief, and life itself. That's the core of it. The complexity, humanity, the unspoken. Society avoids these things for various reasons.
My media background, with my thanatology studies, what I continue to learn from different communities in terms of culture, expression, practice keep opening my eyes to how literate (or illiterate, really) we are, how inequitable we are, in death, grief, culture and expression.
I once read Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others for book club. The shame, shock, lure of witnessing pain, suffering. As voyeurs we are drawn to images of bodies in pain, nudity. But whose bodies, pain, nudity as acceptable is dictated by certain dominant perspectives.
There is an element to witnessing others' pain, particularly those from targeted and underserved communities, that helps (privileged) people reconfirm their own safety, security - the "that would never be me" mindset. As long as someone else is suffering, we are safe.
Then there is avoiding witnessing pain of others, again experienced by targeted, underserved groups, where the "that would never be me" mindset is again. Avoidance bc privileged perspectives cant empathize w/ the humanity, rawness, realness, the unspoken but often experienced.
When narratives of pain and suffering are taken back by targeted and underserved/underrepresented, a disruption occurs. We are comfortable when pain, death, suffering is told through a mainstream, Western, male, white lens. But to hear truths challenges what we have been told.
I bought a piece from @eyebuyart that speaks to taking back narratives, rejecting voyeurism. Robyn McCallum's piece I bought, the Sacred and Profane, is abt male gaze in art, how women aren't to tell, consume. What we see w/ C Teigen is the male, western, white gaze in grief.
What do we expect, when the fact and reality, biology of menstruation is still so stigmatized, dismissed, underfunded and supported, made to be evil? Menstruation, fertility, reproduction, menopause, death - the biological life of the female sex is made invisible.
Along those lines - death in the western context, summarized by Phillippe Aries - Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to Present an excellent summary of how we professionalized, institutionalized, made invisible death, dying and relegated it to men in white coats.
I have thought a lot about how in the process of dying, in death, in eulogies, obituaries, and in speaking of the dying, the dead - we sanitize, edit, "present" death. We reduce it, we edit it, we simplify and we twist. The complexity, humanity, dark, ugly, quirks - get..erased.
The politicization of death is another thing. People don't think death is political. Natural death is one thing. Death by other means is absolutely political. Life expectancy, mortality rates, murder, social determinants of health - all political.
Along those lines, honouring those in death, "politicizing" their death, is absolutely valid. This piece on ritualized mourning wear in black communities touches on the economics and politics of grief, and expression. https://nursingclio.org/2020/08/13/fresh-to-death-african-americans-and-rip-t-shirts/
Along another line, this was a piece that inspired something I wrote last year that I hope to revisit around grief and abortion - a very stigmatized subject but important one. https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/talking-about-abortion/and-the-taboo-of-death-column-Pope-2?fbclid=IwAR0uha0kZDdMDD3iMBKNU5aY2duh9wS4WaWMUx8gnhJeCXhAnru3XxIh8jQ
Where some people can't grieve openly, concepts of complicated or disenfranchised grief, is related to the performance of grief, and how we expect people to conduct themselves according to our values, standards, and expressions. There is no normal in grief, with a few exceptions.
Grief and loss are evitable. The more we comfort, help others feel they are not alone, is good. It's time platforms were used for the spectrum of life experiences. Grief and loss are part of being human. The more we can speak about it, connect, the more life literate we will be.
AnyWHOOSITS, thanks for listening. I'm giving this thought to how I can adapt previous things I've written to add to the conversation on visibility of grief and death. Lots more to say on topics of death photography, culture +++, but I need to walk my dog now and live life. :)
