Marjory Stoneman Douglass Shooting Memorials: Acting out or Working Through

By Anonymous


On Valentine's Day in 2018, a student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida. He killed 17 students and teachers, and it was one of the most deadly school shootings in American history. The Parkland shooting inspired a new wave of the anti-gun movement in America. Rallies across the country were orchestrated to honor the dead, and demand action from the government. High schools across the country also participated in walk-outs and moments of silence to protest how, until guns are illegal, we are unsafe in our schools. In the article, “Exactly Three Years Later, Events and Memorials Held to Honor Victims of Parkland Shooting,” Trent Kelly and Terrell Forney report about the different memorials that were held all over the state of Florida, aiming to work through, instead of acting out the trauma.

In Christina Simko’s article “Marking Time in Memorials and Museums of Terror: Temporality and Cultural Trauma,” she explains the difference between acting out and working through trauma. In addition, she points out the benefits and problems with both. I want to study how Parland is memorialized, and see if the memorials are acting out or working through. In short, acting out a trauma “stops time” (55). Whereas, working through trauma “facilitates an open acknowledgment of past suffering without striving to continuously replicate and sustain the emotional force of the original event” (55). In memorials that facilitate the use of acting out, it includes reliving the trauma through different technological mediums. For example, audio recordings will play of the incident, or replications of the location will be used so the visitors can relive the experience. Acting out trauma prevents one from moving forward and healing. However, it is an effective strategy for memorials because it evokes intense feelings. 

Another benefit of acting out is that it “provides a vivid window onto victims’ and survivors' suffering” and “guides collective representations of the past” (61). In other words, it can help shape collective memory and bring a group closer together. Yet, this also means that it “may foster particularism and closure (61) within the group of survivors, victims, and their families. In the case of a school shooting, there needs to be open conversation and attention brought to it so as not to desensitize the public to these tragedies. When a tragedy is kept to fester within a community, it creates bitterness and anger, further hindering the ability to heal. Every time there is a school shooting, there needs to be an uproar as large as Parkland. Without public outrage and support, no real change will ever occur. 

Simko defines a good working through memorial as a place that is an “affectively charged space” (67), and a place where “information and emotion come together in the process of working through” (68). In the case of Parkland, the memorials included releasing doves in the sky, a moment of silence, and “In Coral Springs, healing was also the message at a wellness activity event [...] Activities included meditation, rock painting, drum circles and more” (Kelly and Forney). In these memorials, visitors are actively participating in the event, and are not bystanders subjected to relive the day. There is also no emphasis on the shooting itself. Instead, it is more focused on providing a calm and healing environment. The article emphasizes how the goal of the wellness activity center was “about moving forward with purpose and passion, while not forgetting the painful past” (Kelly and Forney). These memorials are certainly an emotionally charged space that “cultivates the capacity to begin imagining new futures, dissimilar from the past” (73). On the other hand, if the memorials had visitors walk through the school while videos taken of the shooting played, it would be considered acting out. It would also be unnecessarily painful and stunt the healing process. Activities including meditation and rock painting do not put the visitor back in the event and instead help them focus on something unrelated, while still keeping in mind why they are there. 


Works Cited

Center For Disease Control and Prevention. 2021. “The Tuskegee Timeline.” Center For Disease Control and Prevention, April 22. Retrieved May 5, 2022 (https://www.cdc.gov/tuskeg ee/timeline.htm).

Kelly, Trent. and Forney, Terrell. 2021. “Exactly Three Years Later, Events and Memorials Held to Honor Victims of Parkland Shooting.” Local 10 News, February 14. Retrieved May 2, 2022 (https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/02/14/exactly-three-years-later-

memorial-ceremony-eld-to-honor-victims-of-parkland-shooting/).

Simko, Christina. 2020. “Marking Time in Memorials and Museums of Terror: Temporality and 

Cultural Trauma.” American Sociological Association 38(1): 51-77.


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