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  • Essay / Reflection on “A sea of ​​sorrow is not a proscenium” Article by Levi Strauss

    Rwanda. The name of a country that is now known only for an unofficial and openly ignored genocide. A million people massacred in the space of a hundred days, and yet nothing was done to help them. In Lévi-Strauss's article "A Sea of ​​Sorrow Is Not a Proscenium" he seems to indicate that the reasoning behind this is that these types of images are too common and their meaning has been suppressed. Images do not make us want to act but direct us towards acceptance, they remind us of what we are free from. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay I believe that Levi Strauss' main argument seems to be that the media's coverage of the Rwandan genocide was too little, too late and that they lacked any sort of meaning and therefore effect on readers. This gap between what the camera captured and reality led Levi Strauss to a work by Alfredo Jaar entitled “The Eyes of Gutete Emerita”. The room consisted of two light boxes that showed a block of text in each box, there were ten lines of text in each box and they stayed there for forty-five seconds. The text then dissolves and a new text appears, this time five lines per box and lasting thirty seconds. This then dissolves to allow the following lines of text, this time only two lines remain "I remember his eyes", "The eyes of Guete Emerita". These last two lines last fifteen seconds, then suddenly the image of Gutete's eyes appears, filling both frames. Then, before you can react, they disappear, leaving you with that image burned into your brain. The reason Levi Strauss believes this work contradicts the argument that there is no more power in photography is because it does not focus on the bigger picture. He quotes a statement by Stalin saying: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” When you focus on an individual rather than a group, you get to know them, their story, who have they lost, what they are doing now to try to move forward, you give them a name and it humanizes accordingly. them and makes you care. If you look at a picture of a pile of dead bodies it will probably make you sad, but you don't know any of them, their deaths have no personal effect on you. Jaar told you the background, the story of a woman who lost most of her family and had to continue hiding to save her life because no one came to help her. Only after learning her story are you introduced to her eyes, the eyes of someone who has seen it all personally and looking into her eyes, we perhaps see the massacre through her eyes..