tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post1361620030652134124..comments2024-02-19T23:01:34.366+11:00Comments on eglantine's cake:: TruthtellingPenni Russonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956453252195293843noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-78344424523825006362008-05-29T11:41:00.000+10:002008-05-29T11:41:00.000+10:00I literally spent thousands of hours during my chi...I literally spent thousands of hours during my childhood, adolesence and young adulthood modelling for artists. I am incredibly grateful for the experience as it taught me that the human body doesn't have to be just a sexual object. It engendered a physical ease and sense of self-worth that I would never have felt otherwise. It was empowering and a much needed counterpoint to the torment that fashion and consumeristic culture imposes on young women. Being forced to wear bloomers during my high school P.E. class or stand around in my bathers for hours at the school swimming sports felt far more like exploitation than anything that ever happened to me in an artist's studio. <BR/>I often find Henson's work gloomy, dark and sometimes depressing. Anyone who has anything to do with teenagers knows that 'gloomy' 'dark' and 'depressing' are principal tones in the adolescent palette. I don't believe for one minute that the work exploits teenagers anymore than that teenage fiction is a corrupting influence on the young.Kirsty Murrayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08380555542006807223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-4445311013221298732008-05-27T22:12:00.000+10:002008-05-27T22:12:00.000+10:00Ariane, I don't feel that way ANY time I get my ge...Ariane, I don't feel that way ANY time I get my gear off these days. He wants to photograph bodies in transition, he should look at my descending belly.<BR/><BR/>But seriously, I recall a naked photo of me standing next to my mother - I'd pulled a towel away from her because she was reluctant to have her photo taken (as a result there aren't that many photos of us and mum as we were growing up). I was very young, about eight, still young enough to swim in the nude on holidays. But you could already see my developing body (I was an early starter). A few years after that photo was taken I tore the photo out of the album and destroyed it, it had been my first realisation that I was developing (I don't really recall ever looking at my body naked as a child or teenager, though of course I must have done it), and I couldn't stand that photo existing. Of course now, as an adult, I wish I had it. I don't know what that story says, but it says something...something about the grief of adolescence, that adolescents are told that they are something hideously in-between, something vaguely Kristevan about changes of state and abjection and horror. And also brings me back to the thing I said a few weeks ago (that lots of people related to) about how much being a mother is like being a teenager...Penni Russonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17956453252195293843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-34064369575347685972008-05-27T20:19:00.000+10:002008-05-27T20:19:00.000+10:00The more I think about this, the more I think you ...The more I think about this, the more I think you are right about our discomfort about adolescence. It is no surprise we can't decide what we think about these images (I haven't seen them, so I have no opinion on them specifically), we can't decide about teenagers in general. <BR/><BR/>I keep oscillating between the fact that she might well be made to regret it later in life, and the fact that I dearly want to live in a society which won't make her regret it later in life. <BR/><BR/>It is enormously empowering to see ordinary bodies of people like yourself. I find Gok's "How to Look Good Naked" with its 100 ordinary women in underwear (or less) incredibly reassuring. Turns out I am not a freak after all....<BR/><BR/>I really don't think there should be an age when a naked body becomes sexual. Lord knows I don't feel that way every time I get my gear off. :)Arianehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17977679825245376111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-12051577910624364772008-05-27T14:11:00.000+10:002008-05-27T14:11:00.000+10:00The nappy thing is completely ridiculous. Again, I...The nappy thing is completely ridiculous. <BR/><BR/>Again, I don't have a problem with bodies being on show but I do find his depictions of them quite insulting. <BR/><BR/>Ah Penni, I don't even know anymore! <BR/><BR/>Great post anyway :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-25563392347809440822008-05-27T12:27:00.000+10:002008-05-27T12:27:00.000+10:00Beauty, yes."The implication of the Henson debate ...Beauty, yes.<BR/><BR/>"The implication of the Henson debate is that some people believe children, especially girls under 16, should be made to wear burquas so that they don't ignite a frenzy of dysfunctional sexuality in adults."<BR/><BR/>So true.<BR/><BR/>The nappy thing is so ridiculous.Penni Russonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17956453252195293843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-68424332423493209332008-05-27T12:06:00.000+10:002008-05-27T12:06:00.000+10:001. I'm not usre how i feel about the bill henson t...1. I'm not usre how i feel about the bill henson thing. it makes me uncomfortable, and I don't know whether I condone it. But I certainly don't think that that means the photo shouldn't exist. I agree with kirsty - it is sad, and I'm far more outraged by commercials sexualising pre-teens in bikinis. Oh, and I'm more than a bit outraged by The Age, for printing the photo itself. It's one thing to have a photo of a naked teenager hanging in a gallery. It's another altogether to have it on page 3 of the Sunday Paper, with the words PORNOGRAPHY and EXPLOITATION slapped across it. If any damage has been done to this girl, it's from the ridiculous quivering and finger-pointing from the media.<BR/><BR/>2. I also made the mistake of reading the Herald Sun on Sunday (in a cafe). There was an article about a GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION into TV commercials for nappies featuring naked babies. Because they encourage paedophiles. I MEAN REALLY.lilihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03362725678748958671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23502762.post-74690428095916501352008-05-27T10:40:00.000+10:002008-05-27T10:40:00.000+10:00For me, this isn't so much a debate about truth bu...For me, this isn't so much a debate about truth but about beauty. The human body is beautiful. I feel incredibly sad that children and teenagers are being made to feel even more afraid about the way the world views them. That the only way the adult world interprets them is as sexual objects or possibly as clothes-horses. Next, they'll be banning photos of naked babies.<BR/>The implication of the Henson debate is that some people believe children, especially girls under 16, should be made to wear burquas so that they don't ignite a frenzy of dysfunctional sexuality in adults. How incredibly tragic.Kirsty Murrayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08380555542006807223noreply@blogger.com