A Strange Connection

Lonely Plants. Eldorado Springs Canyon, Colorado, 2014

I’m sure you are all aware of the troubled young man who rampaged out of control in Isla Vista, California last week, killing six people, then himself.

There is a weird connection to photography there.

The psychologicaly disturbed and emotionally wounded kid who committed the horrible act was Elliot Rodger.

Elliot’s father was Peter Rodger, a British documentary film maker (Oh My God) and an assistant director of The Hunger Games.

Elliot’s grandfather was George Rodger, a British photojournalist and founding member of Magnum Photos. He was one of the photographers to witness and document the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (where Anne Frank died in March, 1945) during the last days of World War II. George Rodger’s work was published in Life, Time and National Geographic.

Weird.

As to the act itself. We are a violent society. We think there are good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys should die or be put away. There is no middle ground. We think brute force is the way to solve things (think of all our superheroes!). We don’t teach our children life skills…how to cope with abuse, with tragedy, with dysfunctional homes, with the pressures of life in a consumer-driven, capitalist economy…how to deal with conflict constructively…how to grow up…how to treat others fairly regardless of gender, race, religion, or body type…

Until we deal with that reality, meaningless mass murder will be the cost of doing business here in the United States.

P.S. Next time you go to the local movie theater for a night out, count the posters on the wall announcing upcoming features. Now count the number of those posters that depict a weapon or an act of violence. Do the division. You will very likely come up with a “pro-violence” figure somewhere around 80-90%. (Unless, of course, you frequent one of those fancy-pansy, Euro-liberal, artsy-fartsy, indy film joints.)