Questions and Assignments for Errol Morris’S “Will The Real Hooded Man Please Stand Up?”

QUESTIONS FOR A SECOND READING

1.

This essay is made up of parts: photographic images, interview transcripts, newspaper articles, magazine articles, and the text written by Errol Morris. You could think of this as a kind of documentary (rather than essayistic) prose. The writer assembles the materials and places them in context.

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2.

“Believing,” Morris says, “is seeing, not the other way around.” (para. 62) How does this statement emerge in the essay? And to what (or where) does it lead? As you reread the selection, pay particular attention to Morris’s prose. How does he produce and/or stage the presentation? How does he produce and/or stage an argument?

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3.

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4.

What difference does it make whether The Claw is or isn’t The Hooded Man? What difference does it make to Morris? What difference might it make to you? What difference might it make to Sergeant Joyner or to Abdou Hukssain Saad Faleh?

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ASSIGNMENTS FOR WRITING

1.

Here is Morris:

Photographs attract false beliefs the way flypaper attracts flies. Why my skepticism? Because vision is privileged in our society and in our sensorium. We trust it; we place our confidence in it. Photography allows us to uncritically think. We imagine that photographs provide a magic path to truth.

What’s more, photographs allow us to think we know more than we really do. We can imagine a context that isn’t really there. (paras. 58–59)

These are strong and categorical statements. And there are more in the essay; there is more to Morris’s argument about the power of photographs.

Take time to locate a photograph that circulates in your world, one that seems powerful, one that has garnered substantial attention. Use that photograph to consider Morris’s argument, to extend it, and to put it to the test. If you work from within Morris’s argument, if you work with some of his key phrases and key terms, what might you see in this photograph and what might you say about its status in relation to “reality”? What might you say about its effects on viewers?

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2.

What difference does it make whether The Claw is or isn’t The Hooded Man? (See the final “Question for a Second Reading.”) Write an essay that addresses this question. You’ll need to begin by providing the necessary background information to a reader. Imagine a smart and interested reader, but one who has not read this essay by Morris.

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MAKING CONNECTIONS

1.

Here is Morris:

Photographs attract false beliefs the way flypaper attracts flies. Why my skepticism? Because vision is privileged in our society and in our sensorium. We trust it; we place our confidence in it. Photography allows us to uncritically think. We imagine that photographs provide a magic path to truth.

What’s more, photographs allow us to think we know more than we really do. We can imagine a context that isn’t really there. (paras. 58–59)

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2.

“Believing,” Morris says, “is seeing, not the other way around.” (para. 62) Edward Said’s essay, “States,” works closely with a set of photographs. It began, in fact, with photographs and the need to find words to put alongside them.

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3.

“Believing,” Morris says, “is seeing, not the other way around.” (para. 62) Earlier, he also notes that “Photographs attract false beliefs the way flypaper attracts flies. With the advent of photography, images were torn free from the world, snatched from the fabric of reality, and enshrined as separate entities. They become more like dreams. It is no wonder that we really don’t know how to deal with them.” (para. 59)

The iconic photo is central to contemporary advertising. These images are powerful (and expensive). They travel widely. They not only sell merchandise; they shape how we think, how we live, and what we value.

Advertising is the subject of Susan Bordo’s essay, "Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body.” Write an essay of your own that presents and considers Bordo’s arguments about the images found in contemporary advertising. Would she agree that “we really don’t know how to deal” with photographs? How might she respond to Morris’s argument?

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