| Exploding the Myth:The Problem of Photographic "Evidence" by Fujioka Nobukatsu PART 1: Manipulation of Documentary Photos in China / Fanning Flames of Hate in the USA |
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It is common knowledge that words can deceive, but most people believe that photographs speak the truth. Propagandists have, time and again, taken advantage of this innocent belief by altering photographs to accomplish their political purposes ever since advancements in photographic technology have made it possible to do so. In such cases, photographs can be more deceitful than words, and we dare not rely on them for the truth.
Fanning Flames of Hate in the
USA: The use of doctored or retouched photographs for propagandist purposes is not a monopoly held by totalitarian states under communist control. Nations that claim to be democratic employ them, and extensively so, especially when war is involved. Take, for example, the photograph that fanned the flames of anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States. Though it became quite famous, few people are aware of the trickery used to create it.
The photograph in question appeared in the October
4, 1937 issue of Life magazine. It shows a solitary Chinese baby, wailing at the top of its lungs. At that time, Shanghai South Station was a distribution center for Chinese Army war material. On the afternoon of August 28, 1937, 90 days after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (triggered by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), and in the midst of the Second Shanghai Incident, Japanese naval aircraft bombed the station. According to the accompanying text in Life, Wong was "the first to witness that horrific scene." The pitiable sight of a lone baby on the tracks of a bombed station would be shocking in any era, and it had a profound impact on Americans. The impression that helpless China was being tormented by evil Japan soon became entrenched in the United States, generating anti-Japanese public opinion. According to the article in Life, soon after this photograph was taken, it was printed in 25 million copies of Hearst chain newspapers and in a further 1.75 million copies of other newspapers. The photograph was seen by 136 million Americans, in the 800 American newspapers that carried it, and in newsreels. A single photograph was enormously instrumental in psychologically preparing the Americans for a war with Japan. It was, however, unquestionably staged, as we shall demonstrate. When we attempt to imagine the circumstances under which this photograph was taken, we soon realize that they are extremely unnatural. Did the baby's parents, or whoever had been entrusted with its care, abandon the infant? Or were they killed by the bombing? What was the baby doing alone on the tracks inside the station building? Besides being the first person to discover the baby, and having taken still photographs of it, Wong also filmed the scene. It is difficult to believe that the subject would have sat still for that long. There is another version of this photograph.
In it is an adult next to the baby, who seems to
be placing the infant on the railroad track. Also shown is a child who appears to be about five years old.*2
At first one might think that the baby's silhouette was so clearly defined because it had been whitened after the fact, but this was actually the result of more trickery on Wong's part, i.e., burning a smoke shell filled with white phosphorus directly behind the baby to produce that effect. Wong must have been very pleased with this photograph,
but the consequences of its publication were dire for Japan. "When I was covering a peace conference during
the Korean War, I ran into the Chinese-American photographer who took that picture of the baby in Shanghai. I told
him, "Thanks to that photograph you took, my career took a bizarre turn. You staged it, didn't you?"
He just laughed.*3 After the fall of Nanking, American magazines ran a spate of anti-Japanese articles, but I do think the photograph of the baby was one tremendously powerful piece of anti-Japanese propaganda." Since before World War II, the United States has
been heavily involved
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