When Kristine Potter’s collection of photographs titled The Gray Line were posted to Buzzfeed last week, the military and veteran community generally greeted it with derision. The pictures were deemed weird or gay or effeminate or really just not that good. This reaction led Potter to ask Buzzfeed, successfully, to remove the photos from their site. The photos do remain on the website Women in Photography, and I suggest our readers visit it and reconsider them.
Post-modernism has only aggravated the already fraught relationship between contemporary art and contemporary publics. It replaces the beautiful – traditionally nice or powerful pictures with vibrant colors – with a new type of sublime that values disharmony between our reason and our imagination. Subjects comfortable with art that pleases them are less comfortable with art that intends to unsettle them. This is compounded when it is difficult to understand the art readily or why artists should want to discomfort us. This last phenomenon creates its own cycle of complexity as post-modern art appeals to a continuously shrinking circle, compartmentalizing knowledge of the subject only to those that comprehend and appreciate it.
In reconsidering Potter’s work, we must keep in mind these post-modern ideas of disharmony, of the loss of narrative coherence. Let us begin with how we conceive of the military generally and the Military Academy specifically. We live in an age when gay soldiers are allowed to serve openly and when the military’s leadership is considering how to allow women into any job they can do. And yet the reaction to these photos, even from people I know to be mostly socially progressive, shows that many people still hold on to the soldierly ideal of the age of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and strict gender segregation in combat arms. It is an ideal that holds that soldiers should be strong, masculine, and exceptional and one that shuns weakness, femininity, and banality.
This ideal is magnified at West Point. It is an institution that sees itself as elite, exceedingly exceptional, extremely challenging, and endlessly interesting. It tells its candidates this, and it tells its cadets and graduates the same (which I can attest to as a graduate of the school). We – graduates, soldiers, veterans, citizens – accept this ideal as true and cringe at contradicting depictions. When Kristine Potter decided to create these portraits, a contradiction was inevitable. Apparently from a military family, the work on her website indicates that she specializes in bursting ideal mythologies of masculinity and exceptionalism. Her 2012-2014 collection Manifest takes the manly and majestic American West and portrays it as nearly everything but.
She took the same masculinity-debunking approach to The Gray Line, which also explains why there are no women as objects in the collection. She took the hyper-macho, exceptional, special cadets of West Point and portrayed them as excruciatingly normal, weak, or even uninteresting. They appear silly or incongruous to their surroundings. A number of the pictures have a homoerotic flair to them. In the text accompanying the collection on Women in Photography, Potter said she wanted to capture cadets before they became full-fledged men, attempting to “humanize the tough exteriors.” I do not think she goes far enough in her comments here, and I think that her perspective of the military goes beyond a reflection of adolescence. Like Manifest, she shows people how they are, individually and deeply personally, separate from the identifying role they play in society; that if you remove the label of cadet or soldier or cowboy, there is under that label a person who is probably not different from most people.
But more importantly, and likely unintentionally, Potter provides a valuable normative perspective on military life. She forces us to consider non-conforming ideas of what it means to be a soldier or a cadet. Each individual photograph is by itself an odd reflection of life at the United States Military Academy. But collectively we see a different potential, one that accepts sexual tension between men or implicitly argues that you do not need the jaw-line of a Disney prince to lead other soldiers. It is a reflection of people and not heroes, and the fact is, there is no single model for either at West Point.
As the U.S. Army continues its long journey into the modern world – a world that values the contributions of members previously deemed un-soldierly – Potter’s work allows us to consider a military different than the one we have today. She challenges us to adjust our reason to new and potential realities, realities portrayed through her imaginative photographs. I suggest that our readers embrace this disharmony while reconsidering both Potter’s work and their own understanding of what it means to be a soldier. Our nation will always need hard people who do hard things in order to keep it safe, but maybe we should cast loose our notions of what those people look like and who they are and judge them only on what they can do.
Jason Fritz is a senior editor at War on the Rocks. An Army veteran of the war in Iraq, he is a doctoral student in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University. Jason has consulted on and researched various elements of conflict policing over the past 5 years.
Photo credit: The U.S. Army
Mihailovitch 
Lee 
Jeff Kaldahl 
Bryan McGrath 
Jason Fritz 
BellCurve 
MIDN X 
Guest 
Earl Tower 
CDR Larry A. Grant 
Pat Filbert (Army RET) 
strategicservice 
Emmett 
I don’t see what the problem is here. It’s mostly funny stuff and if someone feels threatened by these images they ought to seek help. I have a friend who was SOF in the ‘stan and they used to have naked Thursdays out in the provinces. 10 guys sitting around in front of each other naked every Thursday….did they learn that at the Point? Who knows, maybe they did.
The photographs were amazing. I am not a camera/photo buff, but appreciate how original these are. These photos are oddly reminiscent of photos from the world wars. Is having legs-crossed, tea in-hand, little specks, while letter writing not manly enough any more? It is a shame so many viewers didn’t have fun while viewing.
As a West Point grad myself, my issue was not with the content of the photos or the depiction of Cadets in a certain way…I just thought they were bad photographs.
Having seen the photographs in question, I found myself generally sympathetic to Jason Fritz’ description of reaction of the “..military and veteran community” in the first paragraph (” weird or gay or effeminate or really just not that good”). Why one might view the photos this way seems unobjectionable, given Fritz’ later characterization of the photos thusly: “She took the hyper-macho, exceptional, special cadets of West Point and portrayed them as excruciatingly normal, weak, or even uninteresting. They appear silly or incongruous to their surroundings. A number of the pictures have a homoerotic flair to them.”
I write not to criticize Fritz for his advocacy of these photographs and the lessons he suggests we should all learn from them, so much as to find fault in the suggestion of congruence between the values of post-modernism (to the extent that such exist) and the values necessary to sustain coherent military force. Two primary lines of criticism apply.
The first is the objectification of the individual that underpins much of postmodernism. Now clearly, the Army did not help itself with its regrettable “Army of One” campaign, but there seems to me to be straightforward tension between postmodernism and the dominant military ethos summed up to me very early in my Navy career as “Ship, Shipmate, Self…in that order”.
The second is the tendency within postmodernism to express the intellectual desire to take the Western, male power structure down a few pegs, and it does this by portraying traditional notions of masculinity as grotesque, antediluvian, and repressive. The photos at issue here seem consistent with Fritz’ suggestion that the photographer’s work is devoted at least in part to ” bursting ideal mythologies of masculinity and exceptionalism.” While traditional notions of masculinity do not make up an inclusive set of traits to be valued in the military, such a listing would likely greatly overlap.
I would also add that Art perhaps presumes too much, especially in the post-modern sense. There is something inherently disingenuous with the claim that someone is “debunking” or “showing” something with a series of staged angles/models and filters.
“She shows people how they are, individually and deeply personally, separate from the identifying role they play in society; that if you remove the label of cadet or soldier or cowboy, there is under that label a person who is probably not different from most people.”
Does it? Because… the assumption about society is made and photos staged thusly? This, in particular, is key: am I to assume that individuals in society are reflected by what is in these photos? I would argue that wouldn’t even be the case.
As West Point is not filled with pensive cadets leaning upon stone walls, nor is society filled with the same – while this is a good exercise in learning about the photographer’s view of the world, it is not a very good tool for learning about the subjects or the world they come from.
Brian, I think your objections to postmodernism are well founded. In the first, the Army has struggled with ‘mission first, men always’: how do you balance the needs of your organization with the needs of that organization’s individuals, particularly when those two things often are at odds? Keeping in mind that these pictures were taken before DADT and combat exclusion ended, the tension you mention is between the military and many of its members and is merely reflected in these postmodernist photos.
Your second objection is another balancing struggle the military continues to face. In many places, masculinity and military service overlap significantly (such as direct action elements of SOF), others less so, or possibly in different ways than we’ve previously thought. I think there are some observers who strive for a day when we have fewer conversation about who people are and more, empirically, on what they can do. The end of DADT was a move in the right direction.
I don’t have the answer myself, but I suggest it is something to think about; that was the point of this post. As I’m sure you’re aware, mimetic arts of this sort serve to drive a wedge between what we think we know and the limits of what might be possible. Which is not the same as saying the limits of possibility should become the real.
Anyway, thank you for your thoughtful comments. It’s an important part of the debate.
My issue with the photos is my sense that the photographer “took advantage” of her subjects, to create a lasting artistic image in her own eyes, with no consideration of the cadet’s still-developing self image.
Even on the WiP page linked above, she states that “She uses a view camera to produce images of cadets that explore ideas about masculinity, expectation, allegiance, sexuality, vulnerability and death, catching them before they are fully formed soldiers and officers.”
The idea she is “catching” these images before the cadets become “fully formed soldiers and officers” suggests she is consciously using their vulnerability for her own gain. These are not a mother’s baby pictures, nor are they pictures of flowers. These are young men, developing their own sense of self in an information age where every image and every word is judged.
Potter uses these young adults to create the image of the cadets in her mind at a specific moment in time, regardless of the lasting self image these men will develop as they mature at West Point and in the Army. The outrage that greeted these photos on BuzzFeed was as much about violating vulnerable cadets at critical moments in their personal development as it was about the ideas that the artist chose to explore.
As a Midshipman at the Naval Academy who has seen the pictures in question I think I can perhaps provide some insight into the current environment at our nation’s service academies. In my eyes, we are experiencing an identity crisis that is but a manifestation of a different generational view of the world. Never before has there been the diversity that we are currently seeing and that brings to light some uncomfortable truths especially to the old guard whose world view comes from a different era of education. We currently have midshipmen of all sexual orientations, and creeds. Some of my best friends are gay or lesbian, and are high achievers within the brigade. For us it does not matter as much who you are but rather what skills and talents you bring to the team in order to better accomplish the mission. I am excited to be serving in a time like this when there is so much potential for positive growth within the system. I will not deny however that the photos did provide a lot of fodder for Army Navy jokes this year. Go Navy Beat Army!
**The views expressed in this comment do not represent those of the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or any other group that could take offense to them. They are the thoughts of one individual**
Masculinity and Femininity have a biological basis, something postmodernism refuses to acknowledge because it contradicts their ideology, which is “obviously” right, because, “of course”, it can’t be wrong.
Show these pics to any human foreign enemy, regardless of culture or sexuality, and you will Instantly allay their fears.
Put any postmodernist in the life or death situation of the battlefield and they will gladly toss out their ideology, until they can but us about it in the safety of the academy.
I find that postmodernism seems to be more about questioning the underpinning foundations of Western Civilization and then challenging the premise of each factor in the foundation. That is a noble calling for art, but many take it further and tear the premise down because it is an edifice for them to attack. Instead of finding their own definitions for their art they use the direction of attack toward the things they know as a comfortable and secure direction.
When such ideas are focused upon the strategic culture and martial society it can be ennobling such as recognizing the right of any citizen to fight to defend what they hold dear. But I feel it is destructive when taken to far.
Ms Potter’s works reach to far. The illusions and structures of our military culture is to give the individual the discipline to perform solitary and collectively in the frightening and insane circumstances of war. We challenge and destroy that at our peril.
“She took the hyper-macho, exceptional, special cadets of West Point and portrayed them as excruciatingly normal, weak, or even uninteresting.”
That sentence gave me a clue.
As a nearly thirty-year veteran who has taught at both ROTC and a state military college, let me offer a reset. These are pictures of awkward 18- and 19-year old youngsters trying to help the lady.
They are neither “hyper-macho, exceptional,” or “special;” they are in fact “excruciatingly normal” now, but perhaps on their way to acquiring all those remarkable characteristics.
May I suggest another interpretation? I think she captured other things like ‘soldiers are made, not born,’ like ‘Americans are not militaristic by nature,’ and similar.
Fritz’s final sentence is a bit interesting: “Our nation will always need hard people who do hard things in order to keep it safe, but maybe we should cast loose our notions of what those people look like and who they are and judge them only on what they can do.”
By that comment, why then do we require official photographs in the Army for promotion and assignment boards when “…we should cast loose our notions of what those people look like…and judge them only on what they can do.” This appears like Fritz is talking out of both sides of his mouth; no the one hand lets not show our cadets and budding military personnel in a bad light but on the other hand, ensure they have a photo that is a 1/3 aspect of capability for promotion; IOW, you may look great on OERs and ORB but, dang, you look fat or you have an apparent not so professional look in your DA photo so “red flag” for a later look.
If the discussion is about what they can do, then pictures are not required. If its about ensuring a manly portrayal of our Soldiers, leave that to the Public Affairs folks but make sure you don’t make our Soldiers “look to pretty” and “ugly is better” whether they are male or female (http://outsidethewire.armytimes.com/2013/11/20/dont-show-pretty-female-soldiers-army-colonel-says/)…right?
Can I offer another explanation? As a person with a great many grads in my social circle, the images weren’t viewed as anything more than silly. They were certainly not approved by West Point’s PAO, especially for exhibition in an exceedingly public forum. West Point, like any other organization or person in this day and age, has its own struggles with brand and image control and it is certainly permissible for them to want to control both those things.
The photographs, besides being totally inane, did nothing but contradict West Point’s preferred depiction of cadets as, well, cadets. The reality is that these cadets should have considered the fact that they were wearing uniforms while participating in this activity. For better or worse, while wearing that uniform they represented cadets, not Postmodern Man.
Regardless of the challenges of “postmodern” society, I’m sure West Point will deal with this issue the way it always has: by recognizing the photographs for what they are (totally meaningless tripe) and sending those responsible out for tours on the area.
The photographer is attempting to “humanize the tough exteriors.” Why is a tough exterior not human? Soft does not mean you are human anymore than hard means you are not. I don’t challenge the idea that there is more to humanity than a tough exterior but do find it strange that a tough exterior is somehow excluded from the great mosaic that is our collection of traits labeled humanity.
‘Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.’