Why must the gory images always be exhibited?

[HelenaWojtczak]

Are we truly justified in constantly making a cheap public spectacle of the bodies of murder victims?

I just read this warning on the blurb for the upcoming Baltimore three-day course on Jack the Ripper.

"Warning: not for the squeamish. Powerpoint images will be projected that will show the murder scenes and the corpses of the women killed."

I feel extremely uneasy about the way the images of the corpses are forever being published in books, online, in exhibitions etc. It seems to me to be extremely disrespectful, it cheapens the human dignity of the poor, innocent victims. It invades their privacy. They are used as cheap and gaudy exhibits to thrill and excite people, like those notorious freak-shows of the Victorian times.

Why is it always deemed necessary to show these gory images, that were never meant for wide public consumption?

How does looking at the face of a corpse help to establish who was Jack the Ripper? How does it add anything to our amateur investigation of the case? It tells us NOTHING that a textual description could not tell us just as well.

Once a detailed description of, say, Mary Kelly's injuries has been written, why do we need the photographs as well? Why isn't this woman afforded the slightest human dignity whatsoever?

How would you like it if your grandmother was murdered tomorrow and a picture that a police photographer took of her dead body was bandied all over the internet and repeatedly published in books without her permission or that of any of her family?

Do you think it is acceptable to constantly and widely exhibit these images just because the killings were so long ago, or because they were just cheap prostitutes, who are considered by some to be sub-human, rather than your sweet, white-haired granny?

I cannot help wondering if some perverted men get a thrill from looking at these images. Do authors provide the photos merely to increase book sales by gaining the custom of such perverts?

If I were given photos of Chapman's poisoning victims, depicting their pitiful, skeletal naked bodies, for example, I would rather DIE than publish them in a book just to get more sales. I would not do it even if it meant gaining tens of thousands of sales. I simpply could not bring myself to inflict more indignity on these poor women who already suffered enough by losing their lives.

Do you think that the gory photos of the Ripper's victims are so vital to our collective continuing investigations that our need to see them in every book, on every website, in every discussion or course or conference outweighs all moral considerations, all human decency, all rights to privacy, and all respect for the dead?

Helena

[kensei]

Helena,
Powerful words, and this subject has certainly been debated on Casebook before. It is an emotionally charged issue, one with many viewpoints as you point out very well. Personally, here are some of my thoughts on the matter. For one thing, if the case was more recent and the photos were in color I don't think they would or even could be so widely published. The chance of perverted individuals deriving excitement from them has been considered here before and I think the consensus was that that might be the case for a very small minority, but in general the people who seek out the Ripper case and all that comes with it are interested in true crime, detective work, psychology, and above all history. Not every serial killer case is considered an important part of history. The Ripper is, and the photos are historical documents. It is also a cold case that has been pretty much given over to amature sleuths to solve if we think we can, so perhaps there is an allowance for Ripperologists to be able to have access to everything the police had. And for people trying to solve a criminal case, the victims' privacy has to be respectfully set aside.

As for the dignity of the victims- again, I think that people who care little about that are in the minority. For Ripperologists, I think most of us afford them tremendous honor and dignity, recognizing that they led sad impoverished lives and died terrible deaths they did not deserve. Showing the photos, for many of us, is more a way of illustrating just why their killer came to be called Jack the Ripper, and of garnering nothing but contempt for him. Those pictures say- look what he did to those poor women. That man was evil, that man was a monster. That man was no folk anti-hero. He was nothing but a vicious, vile criminal and fascination with how he was able to get away with it is NOT the same as showing him any ounce of respect. That is a very important thing to get across to upcoming generations who will take up the hunt after us, and the pictures are the very best way of making it crystal clear.

Finally, on the dignity of Mary Kelly specifically. Her crime scene photo is one of the most horrific images ever published, but perhaps we should focus instead on the enormous crowds that gathered for her horse-drawn funeral procession and the fact that to this day there is never a time when her grave at Leytonstone is not adorned with flowers and gifts. If she is looking down on that, and the fact that her killer has no such memorial, I think she must surely feel that her dignity is very much intact.

Just my thoughts. Hope they are of help.

[Phil H]

First, in an age of "Freedom of Information" can we withhold images long in the "public domain"? They would not be covered by the Data Protection Act (which does inhibit the release of personal material relating to living individuals). These are historical documents, and in the modern climate I don't think one could say "academics can use them, but not ordinary Joes".

As an historian (albeit on an amateur basis) I want access to ALL documentation and material that has survived. I cannot assess the facts otherwise.

Secondly, I don't think that the MJK murder scene and the horror of it can be properly appreciated through the written word ONLY. The release (or at least the publication) of the photograph years ago was a shock to many of us. It made clear exactly what this murdering monsterwas capable of.

On the mortuary shots, I think seeing the faces actually serves to humaise the unfortunate victims. Some of the images of Eddowes go beyond that, but they have been widely published and I see no reason to withdraw them now, even if that was possible.

I did rather disapprove of the use of the MJK image ON THE COVER of a recent book on JtR. That was to me too stark, smelled to much of sensationalist merchandising, and was inappropriate. I have no reservations about its use INSIDE a book.

Phil

[mariab]

pictures worth a thousand words

That man was no folk anti-hero. He was nothing but a vicious, vile criminal and fascination with how he was able to get away with it is NOT the same as showing him any ounce of respect. That is a very important thing to get across to upcoming generations who will take up the hunt after us

I have to confess I initially had reservations about joining Ripperology pertaining to just this, and that's precisely why I've been a lurker of casebook for about a year. What encouraged me in joining is not having witnessed an ounce of disrespect to the victims, or a so-called “fascination“ with the perp, not once EVER. On the contrary, Ripperology is also predominantly about social history of Victorian England, which is a field very close to my own field (musicology with specialisation in 18h/19th century opera, which includes social history of France, Italy, and so on).

These are historical documents, and in the modern climate I don't think one could say "academics can use them, but not ordinary Joes". As an historian (albeit on an amateur basis) I want access to ALL documentation and material that has survived. I cannot assess the facts otherwise.

Absolutely. Like it or not, these photographs constitute documentation pertaining to British history and belong in the lore of the Victorian era. The same as similar drawings and paintings depicting the violence occurred during the French Revolution. If we started censoring historical documents, that would lead us to a dangerous state of repression.

Secondly, I don't think that the MJK murder scene and the horror of it can be properly appreciated through the written word ONLY.

Not only this, but how can we answer basic questions such as the “validity“ of the C5 if we're not able to examine, analyse, and compare the wounds inflicted upon these ladies?

On the mortuary shots, I think seeing the faces actually serves to humanise the unfortunate victims.

Agree, and I find it important and relevant to be able to see Annie Chapman in life (as in the photo with her husband) AND death. The 2 photographs also document her social and health deterioration, and constitute important documentation pertaining to social history of Victorian London.

I did rather disapprove of the use of the MJK image ON THE COVER of a recent book on JtR. That {...} smelled to much of sensationalist merchandising, and was inappropriate. I have no reservations about its use INSIDE a book.

Agree, again. And I don't think that even the MAIN book (by Robert McLaughlin) discussing the history and circulation of the MJK pictures required to spotting any of these pictures on the cover.

[Tecs]

Are we truly justified in constantly making a cheap public spectacle of the bodies of murder victims?



It is a very interesting area and I don't know the answer.

A.P. Wolf of course for years argued this point and probably still does. At some point every "Ripperologist" has probably been on a train or bus and been reading a book with the pictures in, unaware that the person next to them is making plans to get off a stop early because the weirdo next to them is staring at black and white pictures of mutilated women. With our familiarity to them we probably do lose sight of just what they are.

As said above, if they were in colour, there's no way they would be as widespread and we would view them in a totally different light.

I suppose the only point to make on what the photos are worth is that it is possible to maybe see something in them that adds a clue. Years ago it was observed that an injury to Mary Kelly's leg must have been done with a weapon other than the knife that mutilated her. That may have led to a Holmseian deduction that led to the killer!

But, I would agree that we've probably overdone it now. We all know the photos and where they are if we need to see them. There is no need for every new book to include them.

On a decency and respect issue, I was surprised when I first saw the "pinned up" photos of Catherine Eddowes showing her naked. I'm sure that in life she never wanted to be a nude model? I suppose she could have done and it would have been an alternative to walking the streets, but to publish naked photos of her over and over again is a bit much I agree, and doesn't help the opinion of some that at the end of the day, JTR is just one big misogyfest....

Regards,

[Phil H]

Tecs

Is there not a danger of elitism creeping in through the approach you suggest?

I have a large bookcase overflowing with Ripper material, it goes back to the 60s. If I want to refer to a picture reference i have it to hand. Other posters on these boards have, I know, even larger collections of books on this subject.

It is alright for us to say "I have a superfluity of MJK images, so stop publishing them", but others do not have those resources. I am thinking of those just discovering an interest in Ripperology. Further, many Ripper-related books have short print runs and soon go out of print and are thus not available, so we cannot easily say "there are a few standard works already readily available, use them".

How would one of our authors feel if, in future, they were banned from publishing certain images and thus had to refer to previous works by other authors who did not suffer from the same restriction? I think they would ask the question: WHY? (In any case what mechanism would be used for banning such images - what would the precise issues be that made one picture OK and another not so?

These images are evidence and we need to be able to study them, enhance them, blow them up, compare and contrast, discuss them and analyse every aspect of them.

And where would the line be drawn in regard to criminological publications more widely - would, for instance, the photos of the "Black Dahlia" corpse in situ or the morgue be banned?

To be satirical for a moment: How would any of us feel if we were told that new images had been found in files held by the National Archives, of Polly Nichols' body and Chapman's (say) in situ, but that these would be withheld
by the Government on grounds of good taste.

Given the feelings expressed about the recent FOI case relating to the Special Branch Registers, I predict there would be uproar. Would we be satisfied that SPE and Martin Fido or Don Rumbelow were allowed access but others not? Would that not create two (arbitrary) classes of Ripper student - even more than exists now - and how would any debate be handled when some have seen the pictures and others have not?

It would take us back to a previous era where pornography was kept in a cabinet secrete, from which ordinary people were excluded but certain priveleged persons were allowed access. But who would chose?

I think we have to be adult about this, recognise that we now live in a world of greater freedoms and open access and also recognise that serious study requires those things.

Phil

[mariab]

On a decency and respect issue, I was surprised when I first saw the "pinned up" photos of Catherine Eddowes showing her naked. I'm sure that in life she never wanted to be a nude model?

I recently learned (from Rob Clack) that photographers in the late 19th/early 20th century couldn’t shoot straight down because of the flash powder. The best they could do was angle the camera slightly downward, like with the Eddowes photograph in her coffin, which looks very weirdly angled by today's standards. Sometimes people in coffins were even set upright so that they could be photographed. Stride's, Chapman's, and Coles' shots also look like taken upright. Nichols and MJK are obviously lying down. Tabram is hard to say.

and doesn't help the opinion of some that at the end of the day, JTR is just one big misogyfest....

Oh, come on. I'm astounded by how frequently and trivially the accusation of “misogynism“ is thrown around, particularly in the UK nowadays. The French have kept all pictures of Vacher's victims and prepared an exposition AND a printed catalogue on criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne in Lyon in 2004 which includes photos and sketches of the victims in situ. Vacher notoriously killed not just women, but men and children as well. At some point I'm expecting someone to come forward and characterize him as a “less discriminating“ killer! There have been exhibitions about the holocaust victims, the victims of WWI, the Vietnam war, who were predominantly men.

[Tecs]

Tecs

Is there not a danger of elitism creeping in through the approach you suggest?

I have a large bookcase overflowing with Ripper material, it goes back to the 60s. If I want to refer to a picture reference i have it to hand. Other posters on these boards have, I know, even larger collections of books on this subject.

It is alright for us to say "I have a superfluity of MJK images, so stop publishing them", but others do not have those resources. I am thinking of those just discovering an interest in Ripperology. Further, many Ripper-related books have short print runs and soon go out of print and are thus not available, so we cannot easily say "there are a few standard works already readily available, use them".

How would one of our authors feel if, in future, they were banned from publishing certain images and thus had to refer to previous works by other authors who did not suffer from the same restriction? I think they would ask the question: WHY? (In any case what mechanism would be used for banning such images - what would the precise issues be that made one picture OK and another not so?

These images are evidence and we need to be able to study them, enhance them, blow them up, compare and contrast, discuss them and analyse every aspect of them.

And where would the line be drawn in regard to criminological publications more widely - would, for instance, the photos of the "Black Dahlia" corpse in situ or the morgue be banned?

To be satirical for a moment: How would any of us feel if we were told that new images had been found in files held by the National Archives, of Polly Nichols' body and Chapman's (say) in situ, but that these would be withheld
by the Government on grounds of good taste.

Given the feelings expressed about the recent FOI case relating to the Special Branch Registers, I predict there would be uproar. Would we be satisfied that SPE and Martin Fido or Don Rumbelow were allowed access but others not? Would that not create two (arbitrary) classes of Ripper student - even more than exists now - and how would any debate be handled when some have seen the pictures and others have not?

It would take us back to a previous era where pornography was kept in a cabinet secrete, from which ordinary people were excluded but certain priveleged persons were allowed access. But who would chose?

I think we have to be adult about this, recognise that we now live in a world of greater freedoms and open access and also recognise that serious study requires those things.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I didn't think my suggestion suggested any elitism and certainly never intended any but I do see your point.

I won't respond to the individual bits but to respond to your post as a whole, I agree with you. I believe in freedom of information, expression etc and never suggested anything should be banned or restricted. I was just interested in the discussion because we all know quite well that there would never be a book containing recent pictures of murder victims or ones of children ie Soham or Ipswich cases for example. But I have seen photos of the remains of the Lindbergh baby, the Black Dahlia etc and they seem OK because they happened a long time ago. It's just interesting to think where the arbitary line of good taste does lie?

I don't know the answer but there clearly must be one, I just don't know who decides.

As for new people studying the photos, absolutely. I wouldn't have aquired my magnificent "handle" (oo er vicar) if somebody hadn't pointed out "That doesn't say Lees, it says Tecs."

Regards,

[Tecs]

Hi Mariab

I recently learned (from Rob Clack) that photographers in the late 19th/early 20th century couldn’t shoot straight down because of the flash powder. The best they could do was angle the camera slightly downward, like with the Eddowes photograph in her coffin, which looks very weirdly angled by today's standards. Sometimes people in coffins were even set upright so that they could be photographed. Stride's, Chapman's, and Coles' shots also look like taken upright. Nichols and MJK are obviously lying down. Tabram is hard to say.

Correct. Supposedly they pinned her to the wall by her hair?

Oh, come on. I'm astounded by how frequently and trivially the accusation of “misogynism“ is thrown around, particularly in the UK nowadays. The French have kept all pictures of Vacher's victims and prepared an exposition AND a printed catalogue on criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne in Lyon in 2004 which includes photos and sketches of the victims in situ. Vacher notoriously killed not just women, but men and children as well. At some point I'm expecting someone to come forward and characterize him as a “less discriminating“ killer! There have been exhibitions about the holocaust victims, the victims of WWI, the Vietnam war, who were predominantly men.

Couldn't agree more. I've never said JTR is a misogynist issue, just quoting that other people have.


Regards,

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Helena

Considering that I am the person offering the upcoming Short Course on the Whitechapel Murders on three evenings in late October into November at Roland Park Country School in Baltimore, I thought it was my duty to warn anyone who is thinking about taking the course, that there would be some images of the victims included in my Powerpoint presentation, and that the victim mutilations would also be discussed. It would probably be remiss of me not to add that warning, don't you think?

The point is not to make a display of the victims but to give some sort of heads up to people who probably are not that fully aware of the details of the case. As a student of the Whitechapel murders for nearly twenty years, I am personally interested in many of the different aspects of the case, including the socio-cultural ramifications of the murders and the lives of the various people touched by the murders, so the images showing the victims would only be a very small part of the presentations I will be making on those three nights.

Best regards

Chris

[bolo]

Hi Helena, all,

apart from the occasional glitch in taste on the part of some publishers who put the crime scene or mortuary photographs of the victims on the dust jacket of a book, I can see no real problem here. The photos form an integral part of the little authentic information we have on the case so it is only natural that they get reprinted in almost every Ripper book or shown on relevant occasions (tours, conferences, etc.). A book that strives to give its readers an in-depth overview of the case would be rightfully considered incomplete without them.

The justification of publishing these images comes from the vast majority of earnest researchers and armchair detectives who, as kensei put it, respectfully set aside the victims' privacy in order to solve a cold case. However, the photographs have more than just a criminological dimension, they also are part of a cultural/historical background and thus of public interest. I think this outweighs most taste or piety arguments.

Regards,

Boris

[Sister Hyde]

Oh, come on. I'm astounded by how frequently and trivially the accusation of “misogynism“ is thrown around, particularly in the UK nowadays. The French have kept all pictures of Vacher's victims and prepared an exposition AND a printed catalogue on criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne in Lyon in 2004 which includes photos and sketches of the victims in situ. Vacher notoriously killed not just women, but men and children as well. At some point I'm expecting someone to come forward and characterize him as a “less discriminating“ killer! There have been exhibitions about the holocaust victims, the victims of WWI, the Vietnam war, who were predominantly men.

That you couldn't be more right about. The word has even been used with so much excess about everything and nothing up to the point to make the fiercest feminists completely blasées of their own cause. Back into school we were shown "Nacht und Nebel", and no one raised hell about it, but strangely showing and talking about "she-corpses" always has to bring fuss and complains. Now maybe that kind of speech is wise having to a bunch of kids with morbid fascinations when they can't make the difference between unhealthy "voyeurism", but not to the mature and "sainly" curious people who usually attend ripperology "courses" or "meetings" or consult facts and reports to learn. unfortunately that kind of behaviours don't only apply to "sexism" but to almost all kinds of "hatecrimes" even when there is none. And some people are definitely more sensitive than others and that should be respected, but so far on casebook or on whatever Ripper related site, or books, the pictures are never thrown without warning first.

[Rubyretro]

I agree with many of the points raised here.

I think that it is absolutely necessary to show pictures of Mary Kelly in particular (but as Phil said, never on the cover of a book), in order to grasp the full horror of the Ripper killings, and to put yourself in the shoes of
Bowyer, Police officers at the crime scene, and witnesses identifying the body.

As someone else said (Maria ?), a picture is worth a thousand words.

It's only then that we can see why Police were looking for a 'monster', or someone who was visibly mentally ill, and might have overlooked the real killer
for being someone who appeared to function normally and rationally on the surface.

The pictures are the only ones that we have of the victims, and they give us a sense of time and place, but they also become familiar to us. I can see the photos of the other victims ( not Kelly) and look beyond their deaths to how they must of appeared alive. It was terribly interesting to compare the photos of the murdered Eddowes with photos of her descendants (was it a grand-daughter, in the '20s, who looked her spitting image ?) , in Neal Sheldon's book ; It brought Catherine alive, as a person, and no longer just a
description of a murder victim.

[Robert]

I agree it's wrong to have these pictures on the covers. As for having them inside, there's no Yes or No answer really. The pictures are in the public domain and will for ever remain so. Anyone coming to the case for the first time, browsing the JTR books in Waterstones or W.H. Smith, will inevitably see the pictures in at least one of the books on the shelf. If they are determined to have the pictures, they will buy one of the books containing them, but apart from this, there is no reason why a book that doesn't have the pictures shouldn't sell.

[Errata]

I come at this from an odd point of view, because my dad was an OB/GYN. My friends used to tease me about the pens and bags from the conferences, all the books around the house, the models, the periodicals... they would tease me about being surrounded by porn. And it's not porn. Despite the fact that it was images of naked women and genitals and sometimes sexually themed for certain aspects. Put a picture from one of my dad's journals on sex and pregnancy into a penthouse, it would be porn. So it's all about intent.

Oprah Winfrey once said that any subject is okay as long as it is approached with dignity and authenticity. I think that is true. Are the images of these women's bodies exploitative? Not inherently. If I hand you a picture of Mary Kelly's corpse and say "Hey you wanna see something gross?" that is exploitative. If I hand you the picture and ask "Do you think the flesh has been removed from the entire pubic area, or do you think that is her nightgown?" that is not exploitative. Did these women ask to be a hobby? Of course they didn't. But no one is left to be injured by these images.

If it were me, I would not mind as long as the people who could be hurt by the pictures never saw them. I would be extraordinarily pissed off if a picture of my mutilated corpse was published where my dad could see it. And I imagine that happened with some of these victim's families. I would hate for the image of my dead body to be a joke, or passed around to gross people out. I treat them the way I would want to be treated. Is it what they would have wanted? Probably not. Perhaps if it could be explained to them that these images may give us better insight into people like their killer, they would be all for it. But we will never know. We remember these women, which is something that cannot be said for most other women of their time. We remember them, we treat them with respect, we acknowledge the tragedy of their deaths, and we learn from them. And I think that's enough.