After reading the article written by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson titled, “Staring- How We Look”, I was deeply moved, and also felt as though I received a serious reality check. As a human being, it is easy to relate to staring at people/things we find unusual, different, or even disturbing, and we can all relate to being stared at, at some point in our lives. I also connected this article with the video interview we watched in class about Kevin Conneley, which after analyzing, seemed to be a messed up interview, and I will tie these two together more later. The passage I specifically chose from the reading was, “Consequently, our eager stares often quickly shift to uncomfortable looking away. Our ocular id, in other words, jerks our eyes toward a stimulating sight and our ocular super-ego guiltily retracts them. We may withdraw a stare in simple deference to propriety or parental prohibition. Charges of rudeness further encourage us to cut and run. Sometimes, however, truncated stares come from our distress at witnessing fellow humans so unusual that we cannot accord them a look of acknowledgement” (79). This section of the article is within the first paragraph of chapter seven: “Looking Away, Staring Back”. In this particular chapter, author Johnson discusses Doug Auld and his portraits of burn victims, which is so eye opening.
This man, Doug Auld, painted ten portraits of burn victims, so that whoever views the images would be able to stare without feeling uncomfortable, and so that the viewer may also see how deep the beauty goes beneath the surface of these people who have been severely burned. The look on the burn victims faces “invite us to stare” (80), as we continue looking we get a better insight into what these burn victims really look like without feeling rude, as one would feel if staring at somebody who has been severely burned in person. These pictures also give the viewer time and encouragement to “see more than scars” (81). These portraits also gave the burn victims a chance to display how they look, and in some cases the pain and anguish behind the looks they show, without them having to feel bad about how they look; the burn victims do not feel bad because they do not see the reactions of peoples faces having stared at them for a long period of time. The other portion of the chapter discusses similar instances of portraits of disfigured people, however from a different artist, Chris Rush, and the images are of disabled adults as well as children. Johnson in this later part of the chapter addresses how “looking away is an active denial of acknowledgement rather than a tacit tipping of one’s hat to ordinary fellow citizens expressed is simply not noticing one another” (83). Similarly this is as if one observes someone in a wheelchair, and can’t help but look and think to oneself “what happened to this person? Why can’t they walk? “ etc, but in this case the viewer questions, “why is this person disabled” etc. All of this background information behind the chapter really helps to tie together the introductory paragraph with the rest of the chapter, and how society agrees staring is rude and shouldn’t be done when people look “different” for lack of a better term, for the sake of hurting one’s feelings.
I found the particular section of the reading meaningful because it is so very pertinent to every single person living and affects everybody all the time. There is no way to avoid seeing and perhaps accidentally staring at somebody, unless of course one is blind. I personally am guilty of having stared at someone who looked “different” in a way where I was unsure as to why they looked that way, or I caught myself thinking about what could have happened to them to make them look the way they are, and starting scenarios in my head. On the other hand, I also am well aware that I have had my fair share of instances where I have caught people staring at me, if I was in costume and had drastic make up on my face, or if I was just goofing around in a public area where people think it is unacceptable. Although the stares I have received could be interpreted differently than those stares that people who are disabled, or burn victims receive, being stared at all the same still feels uncomfortable and the person being stared at feels insulted in a way. In both cases, everyone can relate in some way, and that is the main reason why I chose this section of the article. It is so relative. There are countless memes of “don't stare it’s rude”, or quotes that say something along the same lines as that.
To dive deeper into the chapter that precedes the paragraph I chose to analyze, I want to say that if people were taught more about disabilities and also facial obscurities that make others look different, I believe people would not seem as shocked, or would not even care to stare (as much at least). We as a society would need to understand that these “different” people are the same as us, they just don’t look identical to us, and we would not want to shun them with our stares as heavily. A very interesting article I found online, was about people standing at intersections staring at people driving by, or being stopped at the intersection. The people driving would take off much faster when the experimenters stared at the drivers of the cars, rather than when the experimenters did NOT stare at the cars. This proves how uncomfortable staring makes people. It ties right into the article, chapter and video about Kevin Conneley. Conneley, who was born with no legs, and in the interview was treated as a different race of human being because he was stared at and still is stared at so frequently. Even the interviewer treated him differently in the interview process.
Here is a cartoon comic I found where a new employee is being told not to stare at a boss because it is simply understood to be rude. 
This image of a woman, who is a burn victim, appears in the 10 portraits of burn victims made by Doug Auld.
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