On Salvation, Bare Life, and Affective Politics in Raffy Lerma’s Pietà

Abstract

Recent scholarship on Raffy Lerma’s Pietà is generally optimistic about the potential of the photograph to unravel state power and challenge normative perceptions of liberal democracy vis-à-vis populism. Contrary to these readings, I follow Vicente Rafael in speculating on “the limits of photographic intervention in the drug war” by suggesting that the Pietà, an image that is supposedly emblematic of liberal resistance, unwittingly reiterates Rodrigo Duterte’s necropolitical order. This gesture is an attempt to fulfill Jacques Rancière’s desire for a radical politics where we can freely question the very critiques that aim to expose and unravel Duterte’s aesthetic regime. My essay critically examines the aesthetic and affective dimensions of Lerma’s photograph, arguing that aesthetic representations of what Giorgio Agamben calls “bare life” became a point of “dissensus” that does not necessarily challenge the state. Rather, I suggest that the photograph might have furthered Duterte’s “affective politics of fear” as it legitimized the Drug War in the eyes of the political majority. I look at how this image was able to induce various affective intensities and responses such as fear and optimism from both the political minority and the political majority. These affects contributed to the aestheticization of Michael Siaron and Jennelyn Olaires (the subjects of the photograph). The aestheticization of bare life arguably reduced these aforementioned subjects into a mere point of contention between the majority and the minority. I also argue that Duterte’s administration was able to subvert the religious dimension of Raffy Lerma’s Pietà by portraying the Drug War as a messianic act that is necessary to save the majority. Finally, I explore how populism was able to subvert the idea of the Messiah and the notion of salvation into a fathomable concept for the majority where it is justified to sacrifice thousands of lives for true political change.

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Keywords

affective politics, bare life, dissensus, Pietà, Raffy Lerma