This past week we spoke about photography and the body. More specifically, we looked at some photos of Sally Mann’s and discussed the ethics of child nudity, the line between her work and pornography, and how the idea of the ‘gaze’ affects such artwork. Whenever Sally Mann comes up, I’m immediately reminded of the following diptych:
When I was first introduced to her work in high school, I remember a huge debate surrounding this particular image. Not with respect to ethics or pornography or anything of the sort, but over how old Jessie is in this photo. She has the face of a late teenager and the body of a pubescent girl, the expression of a young adult and the chest of a developing adolescent. I remember being shocked at the realization that she is merely 12 here. In many of Sally Mann’s photos, her children appear strikingly mature, either in the roles they are playing or the ways in which they carry themselves. Her photos seem to reverse the idea of the ‘gaze,’ with her children taking on the role of the empowered onlooker. Typically children are uncomfortable looking and awkward in front of adults, but her children stare back into the camera with looks of confidence, like in the following photo of all three children:
I think this photo is one of the most powerful examples of why Sally Mann’s photography should not be considered exploitative or pornographic. Her children have said, years after the fact, that they never felt exploited. Jessie Mann described the experience of being photographed as giving her a “sense of beauty,” and interestingly enough, she is now an artist herself. I think people sometimes become overwhelmed with the social significance of an image of a nude child in an age where we are so cautious of pedophiles, online predators and child pornography that it clouds their view of the artwork itself. I also wonder if they would be received differently from another source. If Sally Mann were a foreign photographer, perhaps photographing children from an African tribe in which nudity is the norm, would people see the photos as exploitative? Maybe because the media is so dominated by images of young celebrities navigating the city and shopping in high-end stores, we forget that people throughout the country lead very different lifestyles. The culture of the city is very different from that of rural America, and nudity is more acceptable to children growing up on a farm than to children who live in more urban areas and amuse themselves differently than children who play outside in fields and lakes.
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