Talk:The Falling Man

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An entry from The Falling Man appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 17 March 2006.

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Contents 1 Image Controversy 2 Insurance Policies 3 Use in Literature 4 NPOV

[edit] Image Controversy

As the image discussed in this article is quite controversial (particularly in the U.S.), I'm not too sure about uploading it to Wikipedia, regardless of copyright status. However, there is a copy of the picture if you want to see it at [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/979766/posts] (which is also linked under the heading "External links" in the main article). Andrew 00:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to upload it, we have more controversial images at Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy and more graphic images like Image:Nguyen.jpg. It would add significantly to the article. - Hahnchen 07:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a significant image that should be displayed in the public interest. It falls under fair use, therefore I have added a fair use rationale on the image description page. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It adds significantly to the article. I am not from the US, so I don't know too much about the controversy this topic generates there, but I would look at that image and see something far more poignant and moving than almost any of the 'standard' images that are used for 9/11. The focus is the right way round here; most of the images of that day concentrate on the buildings, this concentrates on the person. SFC9394 19:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Our Fair Use claim or not I still think the AP is going to have issues, will see what I can do on that though. Our best chance of avoiding their ire is not changing the image with one of higher resolution and maintaining the credit caption wherever the photo is used. --Wgfinley 23:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I had no idea there was as much of a controversy over the people who decided to jump as what I read in the article and the links. Very interesting reads. I think the photo is certainly important, the whole thing allows a perspective on elements of the collective psyche. Amazing how the media outlets were forced to quitely brush the whole thing under the carpet. ---- Bobak 19:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It's very strange how the [media in the] U.S., the most influential advocate of democracy in the modern world, could censor such a striking image. It goes against the grain of its political ideals, in my opinion. For me, the photo represents the impossible decisions the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the upper floors of the World Trade Center had to make: either burning to death inside the building, or falling hundreds of feet to their demise. The picture reminds us of how fragile life can be. Andrew 00:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Andrew, it should be noted that the U.S. government didn't censor the image, just individual, privately-held media outlets, which engage in self-censorship all the time when deciding what stories to run and what stories to print. It had little to do with political ideals and a lot to do with media outlets wishing to avoid a negative backlash from consumers. -- Seth Ilys 05:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I meant to refer to the media, but after rereading what I've written on this page, I can understand why it may have been a bit ambiguous, as the wording is actually quite misleading. I'm not generally anti-U.S., so I apologise to any Americans who may be uncomfortable with the above comment. I've added what I should've said in square brackets. Andrew 18:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad that this image is on here. I saw the documentary on it just a couple of days ago, and I can't understand why people were against it being shown. I think the 'jumpers' were brave rather than cowardly... I don't think I could jump to certain death, even if I knew there was a probable death on its way to me. It's an important picture and memory of the day, and this man (and others like him) deserve to have their stories told. Mochachocca 22:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we know of any other documented incidents in modern times where people have willingly thrown themselves from doomed buildings? 88.111.104.48 02:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This wasn't the only person known to have 'jumped' from the towers. There were several others according to eyewitness accounts and photographs. This was one was the most clear photos. I just get irritated when 9-11 victims are treated with such reverence by the American media that pictures like this are considered offensive. Fact is that 3000 people lost their lives. They weren't all saints, some were probably crooks, some had probably saved a life, some couldve been perverts. --FK65 18:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The same could be said of your local graveyard. Out of the couple thousand people buried there - some were probably crooks, some had probably saved a life, some could’ve been perverts - most people are still respectful when in and around such locations. It isn't so much to do with 911 as it is to do with respect for the dead - that is magnified many times (in any situation) where the people that died were innocent civilians. On the many jumpers issue I agree. This article only exists because there has been a TV documentary on the person and his death - otherwise it wouldn’t meet notability criteria. SFC9394 19:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It happens all the time. The last one I remember was in a 2005 Paris apartment block fire, where at least one person died after jumping from a window. [1] - LeonWhite 00:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

++++++++++++++++++++

Agent Orange says while 9/11 was tragic, this photo is horrible. Zooming in on the figure in the photo shows a nice little pixelated outline, which suggests this photo is an artifact of photoshop rather than of the events of 9/11. If it was a real photo, then there would be no residual outline whether it was taken with a film OR a digital camera. Seems like a bona fide fake/hoax to me and would be more properly displayed in the category of "Hoax Photos." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.247.224.74 (talk • contribs)

You must not have seen the hour long documentary that aired on UK TV on the photo a month or so back - this photo is one of about a dozen that was taken in sequence. If you want you can contact the photographer (Richard Drew of AP) and propose your theory to him and see what he says. The squares you see around the man are jpeg artifacting - caused not by it being a fake, but by the fact that he is an irregular shape in the middle of a regular pattern - thus if the jpeg "quality" is set low enough then you get that blocking effect. It has nothing to do with the photo being fake, and everything to do with it being of poor quality and resolution (which is by design since we cant use a HQ version or it might get pulled for copyright violation). SFC9394 09:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the channel 4 trailer reference as it was a broken link. Olzone 12:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Tonight, I watched 9/11: The Falling Man here on CBC Newsworld in Canada. This was the North American premiere of the documentary. It is my guess that a portion of us in the western world would not have even known the story behind it, yet we were exposed to it for the first time tonight, at least here in Canada (I would not know if CBC NEwsworld is broadcast south of the border, or if the documentary was or will be aired on another US Network and so forth). I felt that this should be mentioned, as a good portion of Wikipedia traffic is from the western world. I also mentioned how the documentary described the man as a symbol rather than just...a man and his life. -- Reaper X 03:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Insurance Policies

There is a statement in the entry that says that officials denied that anyone had jumped, because the officials did not want to invalidate life insurance policies. Can anyone cite anything to support that? I have a hard time believing that anyone who jumped from a burning and collapsing skyscraper would be considered to have committed suicide and thereby invalidate their life insurance. They took the final physical action that brought about their actual deaths, sure, but only after those deaths had been made certain by an outside actor. In other words, their decision to jump from the buildings was not the proximate cause of their deaths - it was the attacks. Think about the but-for causation test. But-for the attacks, the people would not have died. On the other hand, it's not true that but-for jumping they would have lived - they were going to die in either event.

Therefore they were murder victims, and eligible for full life insurance, I'd think - does anyone have anything to cite to the contrary? (Including, for example, something saying that an official made denials out of a mistaken *belief* that the insurance was at stake.)--TheOtherBob 07:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the relevant sentence - if there is something supporting it and it should go back in, please let me know. --TheOtherBob 17:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I have a strange feeling about the 'falling man' and other 'jumpers', since ever I heard about this. I can't believe that many of them 'jumped' intentionally, even if this seems to be an active way out of the death threat by smoke and burning. I imagine the chaos in the upper floors and people crushing windows to get air to breath and for hope to be saved from the outside. Doesn't it seem obvious that many of the fallen are pushed outside the window rather than decided to jump ? I had to write this down, because in all those many comments about this fact i never read about this possibility and which would change things quite a lot.

Not just pushed (and I'm guessing that's unlikely, simply because the offices weren't that crowded). When the temperature gets too high and the smoke gets too thick, your instincts automatically take over and force you to run somewhere, anywhere that's less smoky and cooler. You have no choice in the matter. It amazes me when people assume (and the main article here assumes it too) that every one of these fallers (and I use the word extremely deliberately) chose to jump after careful deliberation of the possibilities. I doubt any of them chose deliberately and calmly, and I'm guessing that a large majority were just following basic human instinct. --Charlene 09:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use in Literature

I have removed much of the section regarding a similar image appearing in Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud. Much of it was speculative, opinionated interpretation about the book and I feel it has no place in Wikipedia. --BrokenStoic 14:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Likewise I've removed the broken link to a nonexistent disambiguation page and mention of Safran-Foer's novel and reverted to "For the Don DeLillo novel see Falling Man (novel). While there might be mention of FM in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I hardly think people are coming to the page for FM when they intend to read about the novel -- besides that, it's already mentioned in the article so it's redundant. The DeLillo book, however, has the same title to a "see also" link at the top of the article is appropriate. Inoculatedcities 21:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

According to an interview I just heard on NPR, the author of the novel "Falling Man" did not know about this photo or at least did not know it had come to be known as this until after he had written the book. So the claim that the novel is "based on the photo" is probably not accurate.

[edit] NPOV

The final two sentences of the third paragraph in the first section have some problems at the moment:

"The ending of 9/11: The Falling Man suggests that this picture was not a matter of the identity behind the man, but how he symbolized the unthinkable atrocity of 9/11. Never had there been such a bloody, deadly,horrific and shocking attack in the 21st century."

The second sentence should be stricken entirely, and "unthinkable atrocity" doesn't belong at the end of the first sentence either. I'll leave it for a few days and then delete it unless someone disagrees. Matthew McVickar (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)