Will 'Neda' Video Become Icon for Ages?

(June 25) -- Her death was seen around the world. An attractive young woman in blue jeans lies helpless on the pavement, blood gushing from her mouth and nose. The video made "Neda" an instant symbol of the Iranian protests.

But what if Neda had been ugly? Or overweight? Would she still have become the heroine of a movement? And will the grainy images of her death, taken from crude amateur video, earn a place in the pantheon of news iconography?

"It's always impossible to predict history," said Karen Sternheimer, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "I think that one of the things that makes this image so powerful is that it's almost an illicit image. It's the picture we weren't supposed to see."

The Iranian regime certainly did not want anyone to see what happened to Neda Agha Soltan. Foreign journalists have been prevented from reporting on the post-election turmoil in Tehran. People have managed to transmit photos, video and messages via a host of online networks, but there is no way to independently confirm the information.

The Neda video circulated first on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook instead of being vetted by mainstream media. Thanks to such networks, "we are all kind of eyewitnesses now," said Sternheimer.

"You don't have to get something aired on CNN to get attention. These kinds of images don't have to go through a gatekeeper," she said.

Nevertheless, the fact that cable networks and more traditional media ran the images gave the video more weight.

"I think as a first draft of history, because it was picked up by so many news sources, it really did add to its power or impact," Sternheimer said. "A lot of people don’t go on YouTube or the Internet."

That Neda's death was caught on video, not by a still photograph, isn't really that new a trend. The 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers triggered an uproar. Many of the clashes of the civil rights movement were filmed as well.

Neda isn't the first image to come to represent a movement. In 1970, the Kent State massacre became a pivotal moment in American opposition to the Vietnam War, thanks in large part to a photo of a 14-year-old girl screaming as she kneels beside the body of a student gunned down by the Ohio National Guard.

The image of the distraught girl helped change the mindset of many Americans who had dismissed the anti-war movement as just some hippie, counterculture disturbance.

"Her shock and upsetness is not the picture of a dedicated revolutionary trying to kill American troops. That's the picture of someone who had no idea this could happen That's the picture of innocence assaulted," said Robert J.S. Ross, a sociology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

In 1989, another protest image that became etched in America's consciousness was that of "Tank Man" -- a single protester facing down a line of tanks in Beijing during the communist government’s crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

"It appeals to something that's very American, and that's individualism" said Ross. "Here's this lone guy courageously confronting a tank -- and the tank stops. That's 'High Noon,' Gary Cooper."

To go down in history, an image has to be widely disseminated and repeated over and over again. And it has to capture the mood of the audience.

"Icons work because they tap into our worries, our anxieties. They are something we can form our fears around," said David Lubin, Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

And the image doesn’t have to be sad or scary. Lubin cites the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photo of an exuberant soldier kissing a nurse in New York's Time Square to celebrate the end of World War II.

An image is usually more effective if it features a woman or child.

"We create the martyrs that we need at any given moment," said Lubin. "[But] people want her to be beautiful. That's part of the great mythos."

He suggests some of that need for a heroine may date back to Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child, or the Virgin Mary mourning the crucified Jesus in a Pieta. "In icon heaven, women in extremis play best."

Sternheimer also thinks Neda's good looks helped make her a posthumous star. "Because she was so pretty, I think for a lot of people it draws even more sympathy. She appeared very Westernized. I think for people in the West, they can think, 'She’s just like anyone I know.'"

Lubin points to another beautiful young woman who captured the public's heart in the center of a tragedy: Jacqueline Kennedy following the November 1963 assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy.

"Jackie had amazing presence of mind to use the opportunity," said Lubin, author of the book 'Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images' (University of California Press, 2003).

"The whole funeral that she orchestrated was a really important piece of political theater," designed to evoke the image of Camelot and assure Americans "that higher values were going to prevail," he said.

But although the grieving first lady recognized an opportunity and seized it, that doesn't mean you can intentionally create an iconic image. In fact, attempts to do so could backfire –- such as the moment on May 1, 2003, when President George W. Bush landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier and, with a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" in the background, declared an end to major combat in Iraq. Although Bush didn’t know it at the time, the fighting was far from over.

Since no one knows what will happen next in Iraq, it's hard to tell whether Neda's death throes will become a lasting image, or be forgotten in the months to come.

"In part it has to do with what happens to this movement," said Ross. "If there's some really big change in the political structure, she will become a heroine, a martyr to the cause. Should this movement go away without having a real impact in the regime, then it wouldn't surprise me if she became merely a local figure."