DAY 250

SOCIAL & POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Discontent

MARIE LOSES HER HEAD

Social discontent raises its head as protest, a desire for change—better wages, safer working environments, basic education, improved living conditions. Discontent is a marker of evolution, a way of showing dissatisfaction, and an aspiration toward improvement, a point of adjustment in social structure. Defining discontent as a lack of contentment leads the photographer to search for basic social standards for showing this lack—the protest, the argument, situations revealing discomfort, annoyance, grievance.

Historically, Marie Antoinette is seen as a symbol of discontent. Her ability to ignore the discomfort and discontent of the peasantry and greater social community triggered one of history’s most radical social and political upheavals, The French Revolution. Although Marie was not the root of the problem, she became the symbol and focus of the anger and fury that erupted. Photographically speaking, portraits of figureheads and notorious instigators of discontent do not show the true foundation of the discontent, they simply put someone in the position of being blamed—it is what the person stands for that triggers a society’s response. —MLR