Stranger With a Camera

The film “Stranger With a Camera” by Elizabeth Barret was both intriguing and discouraging. The documentary was about the shooting of Hugh O’Conner by a man named Hobard Ison. The shooting took place in Appalachia, eastern Kentucky in 1967. Apparently Ison felt that O’Conner was going to smear Kentucky’s name as well as his own through the process of filmmaking. Not to mention O’Conner was also on his property. This feeling of threat must have lead Ison to believe that it was okay to shoot and kill O’Conner, and so he did. Elizabeth, a resident of Appalachia, narrated the documentary as a middleman of sorts. She described the story as nobody being particularly right or wrong.

I found the film intriguing because it displayed the struggle between those that exploit media to make personal gain, and those that want to be left alone at almost any cost. I found it greatly discouraging because it was an up close look at one of the uglier sides of America and the lengths certain people will go to keep themselves anonymous and unseen from the rest of the world.

There were strong connections between this film and Deshpande’s article because they both talk about how outsiders want us to view them, and the oppressed reality in which they live. Deshpande talks about National Geographic and how they only photograph what they want you to see in the so called “exotic” places they photograph. In this film the outsiders were the residents of eastern Kentucky, Appalachia. They wanted us to view them as decent people, and the oppressed reality was that ever since machines took many of their jobs in the coal mine they really didn’t have much work or money. As a result, not all of them but many became poor. Ison did not want people to think of the residents of eastern Kentucky as indecent so he shot a filmmaker for being on his property, an act which I find almost hysterically ironic.

This film made me think about the injustice that went on in our world, and the possibility that it may still go on today. Hobart Ison only served one year in prison for the murder and in my opinion that was not long enough. Ison’s feeling threatened that his name or state would have its name smeared in no way justifies murder, and I would like to believe that if something similar were to happen today he would probably be facing life in prison.