Liar Liar Pants on Fire

Errol Morris’s “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” article brilliantly compares the link between images and beliefs. According to Morris, images by themselves describe an abstract event, scenery, story, and/or particular time. The description of the image remains subject to the viewer’s individual bias. To put it another way, images are simply the reflection of a viewer’s beliefs. A particular picture represents anything the viewer wants it to represent when the picture lacks a caption. When my mother sees an old picture of great Aunt Sally her childhood memories shape the way she perceives the picture. My beliefs regarding the picture of my great Aunt Sally probably differ from those of my mother because my memories (or lack thereof) of great Aunt Sally differ. Therefore no one can say that my observance of the picture is correct and my mother’s is inherently wrong. The cliché phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words, may be one hundred percent correct, “but there are two words that you can never apply to [a picture]: ‘true’ and ‘false’” (Morris).

An example highlighting the ideas of Morris is found on Susie Larson’s blog (http://www.susielarson.com/blog/). Each blog post begins with a caption-less picture. The picture used for her January 9^th blog shows a rocky river with a forest-y backdrop.

Caption-less picture 

                                                               I think the picture was taken in Montana at Glacier National Park because I recall passing by a similar river scene when I visited the park several years ago. To me the picture represents tranquility, nature, peace, and quite: the same emotions I recall feeling on my visit. Am I correct? Was the picture truly taken at Glacier National Park and taken for the purpose of invoking calmness? What if a caption appeared under the picture that said “Site of Deadly Grizzly Attack”?  Suddenly the scene in the picture saddens me, and the good memories of my vacation disappear. I imagine the unknown victim desperately fighting for survival.

Absent of captions, pictures, especially those circulating the web, run the risk of being widely and falsely interpreted. I think that is the point Morris’s tries to emphasize in his article, and I concur with him.