The YouTube video description reads:
“While photographing Murray and Emma’s wedding Ceremony at Netherwood Estate, Jacki Bruniquel’s hair caught alight after getting too close to a candle. One of Murray’s groomsmen attempted to help Jacki put the flames out.“
Now watch the video (you’ll want to skip the movie trailer at the beginning).
Does anyone seem to be the least concerned about the woman whose head is on fire? Would you react that way if a friend of yours caught fire? Hypervocal headlined this “WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? MY HEAD IS ON F*&KING FIRE!”
Your Ethics Quiz question:
Is it fair to conclude from the video that this is a wedding party of heartless jerks ?
I suppose not, but I have to say, I find the lack of any hint of concern on the faces of the bride and groom disturbing. Especially the bride. Then again, maybe it was her new husband’s old flame.
(Sorry.)
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Pointer: Hypervocal
In the jerks defense, we don’t see what happened off camera prior to the jerks laughing.
Who’s to say the photographer and one chivalrous man who rushed to her aid didn’t get the fire put out, and the camera lady didn’t just graciously laugh it off to keep the jerks’ ceremony flowing?
Based on all the reasonable assumptions made, I agree, the people laughing are probably jerks, but, the conclusion is arrived after several assumptions because the action off camera could be very different that our assumptions say.
Perhaps it was staged for the purpose of eliciting a desired response? Mission accomplished.
There is not enough in the video for me to conclude it shows a bunch of jerks.
I am not sure that all who are looking in the direction of the action and laughing are fully aware of all that is going on. I think there is so much joy going on in the moment, that any shock at the sight of something as unusual and unexpected as someone’s hair on fire at the same time and place (or, what perhaps looks to some witnesses like one of the groomsmen presumably manhandling/smothering, or dousing, the photographer) is not perceived as a personal humiliation and danger for the sufferer, so much as merely another unforgettably unique detail about the moment and the day.
Even the bride actually might not be seeing or appreciating the tragedy of the full scene; she did not (as we are, or were, able to) see it begin. Maybe I am being too cautiously nonjudgmental. But I’ve seen weird things said and done at funerals too, and some sudden, unexpected uproarious moment doesn’t mean everyone laughing has cast off all respect for the departed and the bereaved – or, for the person who triggered the moment, even if it might have been an embarrassing, uplanned faux pas.
…UNplanned faux pas.
My general rule is that a few people in any randomly chosen group will be heartless jerks, but it’s rare that the entire group is composed of jerks –there’s usually some other explanation for their behavior. With everybody laughing, my guess is that the result was more shocking and amusing than horrifying. The photographer herself says “It was funny.” (http://goo.gl/lYZex) I’ll take her word for it.
Im sorry but that clip is fake. The laughter is too clean and sounds canned. Also once hair catches on fire it burns quickly, not like hers was burning