Napalm

Also known as Cant beat that Feeling, Banksy’s Napalm print, is a disturbing and direct play on Nick Ut’s famous photograph The Terrors of War.

Upon publication, the original photograph shook global audiences to the core with its shocking portrayal of Vietnamese children fleeing from a napalm blast that had just hit their home in Trang Bang village. The focal point of the photograph is a nine-year-old girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running naked in fear down a road alongside other children and soldiers of the Vietnam Army. Despite suffering severe burns to her back, she survived the attack and now lives in Canada. She has since been the focus of a book entitled The Girl in the Picture by author Denise Chong, published in 1996. The year after its release, the photograph won both the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and the World Press Photo of the Year.

In Banksy’s reimagining of the famous image, Phan Thi Kim Phuc is similarly positioned in the centre of the composition, but is flanked on either side by the popular characters Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald, figures who represent two of the world’s most litigious corporations.

This establishes a disarming juxtaposition in one of Banksy's most cutting and provocative social criticisms. The horror of the scene is twisted and intensified by the pair of beaming characters, seemingly unconcerned by her distress, forcing the viewer to question their benevolence. Are they saving her life or guiding her to her fate?

Being prevalent symbols of American commercialism, this Banksy print uses the characters as an attack on American consumer culture and to reflect upon the dangers of capitalism, its impact on the population, especially children, and to denounce its lack of humanism. Napalm is laced with socio-political issues of power, violence and national identity, both for America and for the world.