satire
28 May 2008
Won't Somebody Think of the Children?
Provided they've got clothes on, of course, writes Ben Pobjie
Every now and then an issue rises to public prominence that allows us to crystallise in our minds a vital question of human existence: how to distinguish the decent respectable members of our society from the snivelling perverts.
Such an opportunity to draw a line in the moral sand has arisen in recent days, in the form of "artist" Bill Henson, whose grotesqueries not only demonstrate how low the human race can go, but also allow us to demonstrate how much higher our bit of the human race is.
In a way, there's no need to write an entire article to make my point. I could merely tell you what's in the photos, and then sit back and wait for the mass faintings. But I feel it behoves me to stand up even more strongly for justice and decency and poor little children everywhere. The question is, if we allow photographs of naked children to be put on walls unfettered, what next? Shall naked children be allowed into our schools, our sporting clubs, our very homes?
The threats posed by Henson's photos are summed up well by Hetty Johnston of Bravehearts, an organisation that campaigns against child sexual abuse as well as English tyranny. Johnston says that Henson "has a tendency to depict children naked and that is porn", and that pretty much seals it, doesn't it? If a decent, respectable, well-adjusted person like Hetty can see the sexual depravity inherent in these images, imagine how they would appear to a hysterical sex-obsessed weirdo.
There are two sides to every issue, of course, and it is our duty to not only look at the correct side, but also examine the side of the child molesters. Vicious, amoral paedophiles like Saul Eslake, Peter Goldsworthy and Cate Blanchett have declared Henson's obscenities to be "art", but should we listen to them, given their track record? Eslake's analysis of the sub-prime mortgage crisis has always been lacking in moral fibre, and Blanchett is an actress, which is just another word for "reprobate".
Sure, these filth mongers might claim there is nothing indecent about Henson's photos. Such folk will try to sway you with lofty talk about freedom of expression. In their seductive, arts-grant-cultivated tones, they will tell you these photos are "beautiful". Nudity does not necessarily have to be sexual, they may say, pointing to Piers Akerman as evidence.
As with many of Blanchett's films, it is important here that we do not pay any attention. Nudity=sex is an equation as ancient and as time-tested as Drugs Are Bad, or Intelligent Design. There is no time for fancy postmodern nuances when the children are at stake.
What, exactly, constitutes pornography is a vexed question that has generated much debate in the past. However, as a wise man once said, "I may not be able to define pornography, but I know it when I refuse to go and see it," and I find this the most useful guide for anyone trying to decide what to disapprove of.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of course, stood up as usual for working families and everyone who doesn't hate children, declaring Henson's work to be "revolting".
But it's not only Henson's work - such perversions are everywhere. In a long-overdue development, the Government is going to examine the issue of naked babies on TV ads. Finally, we might be able to get these lascivious images of nappy-clad harlots off our screens. In fact, when you know where to look, sickening examples of child pornography are everywhere, both of the "straight" and "fetish" varieties. And I don't care how much you throw around words like "prude" and "wowser" and "clinically insane"; I've had enough of wicked smut vendors exploiting these innocents to sell their "nappies". Where will raunch culture end?
These photos are not simply revolting, they are downright dangerous. If we the people are not shielded from such things for our own good, there is no telling what they may arouse in us. After viewing one of Henson's images, I myself became a paedophile for over 48 hours. It was only intense bible study that saved me from the temptations of the school across the road. If I ever saw an entire Henson exhibition, God knows what kind of rampage I would embark upon.
The other big danger of work like Henson's is contained in one of complaints about the sexy-baby ads: "I am disturbed when I think of the thrill a paedophile would get from this image," a complainant said of a commercial for Huggies Pull-Ups. This gets right to the heart of the issue: if we allow pictures of naked children to be displayed, paedophiles might enjoy them. Therefore, to nip this evil in the bud, I urge the immediate banning of everything that child molesters might derive pleasure from, including, but not restricted to: Baby Target catalogues, nauseating museum exhibits about the Human Body, swimming carnivals, school dance recitals and Bindi Irwin.
These are just preliminary measures of course; ultimately, the aim would be to progress to eliminating children from public view entirely, or at least encasing them in mandatory burqa-style body coverings. Extreme? Perhaps. But better, surely, than the thought of a happy kiddy-fiddler. It's possible that you don't want your children to be hidden away from the world until adulthood, but frankly, it's not my problem if you're a terrible parent.
Perhaps, in the end, we should all reflect on the words of the late Pope John Paul II, a holy man who once said, "There are circumstances in which nudity is not impure ... impurity of body only occurs when nudity plays a negative role with respect to the value of the person."
But then, we all know what Catholic priests are like.
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I think Anne Geddes and Bill should join forces and destroy Western civilization.
Gee, that’s so funny, Ben. Perhaps we need to have a legal differentiation between small children, way pre-pubescent, and ‘children’ who are almost adult, physically very nearly adult but in terms of maturity, still children, i.e. in a somewhat ambiguous position visually, intellectually and legally. As the law declares, a person under a certain age is a child, period, they cannot know the full extent or implications of their actions or make fully mature judgments. What they may ‘agree’ to is not necessarily legal if they are under a certain age (those who quibble about 16 or 17 or 15 should surely have some age in mind, some cut-off below which children need protection, yes, Ben, from pervs). They may ‘agree’ to activities of which they do not know the full consequences or implications, and which therefore are illegal for adults to be involved - including, one hopes, parents.
I don’t have any quarrel with that - as the PM says, children are entitled to their innocence, to the free and unbothered exercise of their naivety. And to me, that means they should be free from the depredations of adults who should - and do - know better, whether they are photographers or pedophiles or half-wit parents who sign away their child’s freedom. Art inherently contains an element of inequality, it so often involves the powerful viewer-subject and the disempowered viewed-object and surely this is magnified in the case of adult viewers and child objects ? Or are morality and the rights of children just bourgeois hang-ups that postmodernism has triumphantly deconstructed ? Sorry, I keep forgetting, morality has no place in art.
Joe
It may be possible for a talented satirist to provide thought provoking material on this difficult topic. Unfortunately, there was never any chance of Ben being up to the task.
I don’t get this "children are entitled to their innocence" line. Do those who make such a claim, including the PM, really not remember the shadowline they gradually crossed as they developed during puberty. They surely weren’t kids one day and then suddenly awoke to find they were "adult" or sexually developed. That’s simply not how it happens. For many it is a time of confusion, trial, conflict, self doubt, fear and anxiety. Those who defend the "innocence" of "children" are deluding themselves or denying the truth of what happens to many children as they enter their teenage years. That’s not to say they should suddenly become sexually active, but things are happening that are shifting them into a sexual world. Their "innocence" may well remain intact if by "innocence" we mean virginity! But something quite major has happened to them that has lifted them out of an earlier non sexual phase of their life, although even a baby can have an erection while having a nappy change! Has Rudd forgotten his "wet dreams"? Or was he too busy at the local ALP sub branch?
It as surely as legitimate for an artist to explore this phase of human development as it is to explore Christ’s crucifixion, aging, a glorious sunset, or any other part of human existence. To pretend it doesn’t happen is to put one’s head in the sand to avoid the truth of the issue. Mr Henson refuses to do that, nor to allow others who view his works to do so. For that I believe he should be applauded for his courage.
Thank goodness Miranda Devine made the world aware of Mr Henson.
I’ve felt there was something subversive about the Muppets for years.
It’s interesting that those who believe the rest of the human population sees the world in the same broad shades of black and white as they do suddenly revert to an adage of the complexity of the issue when faced with an opinion that dares to negate their own.
Either it’s porn, or it’s art, yes?
No. Good Lord, NO.
To those who want to see art, that’s all there is to it. How insulting, really, to impose one’s own perception of sexual depravity onto an artist. I sense, in no small part, an essence of that ancient, moving proverb ‘he who smelt it, dealt it’ here. For someone to believe, acknowledge, celebrate and, I suppose, spread the message that it is perfectly alright to be an adolescent going through, well, adolescence … that’s what it is. It’s only when others begin to dig around in a psyche they have no right to invade, planting seeds of paedophilia, slaughtering chaste virgins and using that blood to prove a point that it becomes what they suggest.
I’m sure there are many fundamentalists out there right now hastily tearing their way through Genesis for proof that, like fossils, Henson’s works were placed by the hand of God to test their faith. It’s a little worrying that more relevant, realistic scenarios will more likely be gleaned from a Harry Potter novel.
Impressed as always, Ben :)
Amy
What is is like to be a child actor or model in many films which involve horror, psychological disorders, brutality, and other things we would wish them shielded from in real life? How does the director groom them to do and say many of the things they are asked? ‘Put your hands here, put your legs apart like this, shout this, look at this . .’
What do the children think of the adult world they are being asked to participate int?
What do they remember about it afterwards? How do they cope with it intellectually?
Is it the same for them as when they do their own playacting among themselves?
Is there any information about this?
Many people believe children are tough. My clinical experience warns me otherwise.
vy
I’m sure that most people could stand back and view young naked female objects without any major perverse effects. But there will be others who will get off on it. Sure, I suppose there are people who will get off on seeing a telegraph pole, but if so, let them have a go at telegraph poles.
And I’m sure that there is a very serious message in such ‘art’, clear as a bell to those in the know, but I fear that others (that 10 %) will read a different message when they see defenceless kids, even if it’s only in black and white and 2-D.
Artists, as fellow humans, surely have a responsibility to their subjects/objects, particularly if they are minors, particularly when it is technically illegal to do what they do in the name of art. They have responsiblities actually to the entire class of people/objects of which their targets are representative, and bear responsibilities for the consequences of their actions just like anybody else. They don’t have a licence to do anything they damn-well like, to whoever they like, and call it art. Art necessarily objectifies, but it has no right to disempower or to degrade people, or to put people potentially at risk, especially children. Or negligently incite others to do so, that 10% or so of newly-born art critics.
First do no harm.
Joe
If Henson’s works were meant to test the morality of artists using under-age girls as naked models he failed because if he was a good person rather than a bad artist, he would have protected the innocence of the young female involved and done a decent drawing or painting from his imagination.
When dealing with such a sensitive subject as the sexual objectification of young girls as artist’s models, any artist with a sense of decency would have done what Maxfield Parrish did (the supreme artist at getting away with using young pubescent girl’s as models) and done a representational painting.
Parrish, a painter (and a good artist) was reacting against the puritanical virtues of the Victorian era as the more naturalistic Art Nouveau period began early last century and his young girls are no doubt drawn from real models, but that’s slightly different from the direct and exacting exposure of the camera.
Apart from that Henson’s photos are creepy whereas Parrish’s paintings are a celebration of bright light and airyness, full of the joys of nature and life, not dark and gloomy like Henson’s soft porn photos parading as art.
I know a boy. His name is Billy.
He likes to lick on a great big lolly.
Yes, Billy loves a lolly. Loves a lolly, does Billy,
And he’s got a box of really big lollies.
Billy lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lick a lolly.
Billy lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lollipop.
Billy lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lick a lolly.
Billy lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lollipop.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Billy has a friend. Her name is Molly.
And Billy gave a lollipop to make a Molly jolly.
Yes, Billy gave a lollipop to his friend Molly,
And now Molly has a lolly, and she’s jolly, thanks to Billy.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Molly lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lick a lolly.
Molly lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lollipop.
Molly lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lick a lolly.
Molly lick a lolly, lick a lolly, lollipop.
AND we should ban the Electric Company for this disgusting sexual exploitation of children’s young innocent minds. Hey how about we arrest Ronald McDonald the ultimate child exploiter (oh sorry he’s a fictional character!).
I do not know whether or not Henson is a uniquely great artist, and it may well be that he has not intended to titillate or pander to a tiny minority of perverts (amongst the vast hordes of honest ,decent art-lovers), but my point is that artists have social responsibilities like the rest of us, they’re not above the rest of humanity, and most certainly they have obligations to maintain the dignity of their ‘subjects’ (or should that be ‘objects’?) and most, most certainly if their subjects are children.
Representational art, it seems to me, unavoidably treats its ‘subject’ as ‘object’, to be gazed at, dissected, examined, criticised, all out of the control of the ‘subject’ (but not of the viewer: as viewers, we are in complete control of what we gaze at, for how long, and how we interpret what we are ‘seeing’) and for eternity. Artists have a duty not to intrude on the autonomy and integrity of their ‘subjects’ on these grounds, and certainly not if they are children, and the idea that someone can build a career on the exploitation of children in this way is repugnant, I’m sure, to most people, even perhaps to that champion acrobat, Philip Adams.
As a Marxist, I am aware that capitalism will exploit any and everything: it will make a buck out of anything it can, which in the case of ‘artists’ can include piss, dead cows, blank canvasses, or buckets of vomit and dirty sheets, and some fools will call it initiative or innovation or whatever and marvel at its uniqueness as a statement against the faux morality of the bourgeois classes (i.e. themselves, or at least their mummies and daddies) and as a post-modern blow for the flouting of the bankrupt conventions of the Enlightenment.
Have an art exhibition of your arseholes for all I care, and call it art if you like. As long as they are adult arseholes, I don’t care if all sorts of pervs get off on it. But let’s keep children out of it, certainly in the exposed and potentially damaging situation that Henson so blithely puts them in, forever. Children are entitled to be secure from capitalist exploitation for as long as possible in a capitalist society - it will come soon enough. I think this used to be Philip Adams’ point, in the days when he railed against corporate pornography, in the time Before Henson. Mile wide and inch deep.
Joe
"Gee, that’s so funny, Ben"
Thanks Joe, that means a lot to me. Haven’t had time to read the rest of your comment, looking forward to it.
Henson. Great photographer, great artist. His works are nuanced and thought provoking. Lee Jeans. Crap jeans, bad advertising. Their advertising is cheap and about as subtle as Republican foreign policy. If the law recognises the rights of one, to my understanding, it must recognise the rights of the other.
While it’s fairly common for these types of advertisers to find 18 year old models who look 16, as Henson’s works show, you can’t go past the fragility of the real thing. My concern is not that the adult public will somehow turn into ‘deviants.’ The real debate here should be about the effect on young girls. Christ knows they’ve got enough pressure as it is.
Surely, first and foremost are the rights of children, and surely this is the point - that these young girls ‘look’ almost adult but are legally children. And we are not talking about girls of almost seventeen or whatever the legal age is where they can sign documents, marry, etc., but barely thirteen, just out of biological childhood, and we all know it. We know they are not adult and that they may not be aware of our adult gaze. We suspect that they are unaware of this ambiguity themselves, and this is part of their innocence, their naivety, and ultimately of their fragile integrity, which they are surely entieled to protect - even if, as someone above rather callously noted, in a few short years, they would probably be f*cked, so who cares, welcome to a bastard of a world.
Perhaps Mr Henson could prepare an exhibition of himself, naked, from every angle - but perhaps this would a bit less saleable ? But it would be legal, he would be able to give his informed consent, he would know all the implications, and we would all be aware of what we were looking at and so would he. I’m not sure however if we would interpret what we see in the same way, or in the way that Mr Henson would like us to. But as the subject of our gaze, he may experience what is like to have absolutely no control over what someone else is making of his image and it may be a very valuable experience to feel the disempowerment of the object.
Joe
Joe, you will be pleased to know that there was a photographic exhibition entirely of arseholes in Sydney and yes, they were adult ones.
I didn’t go but I read about it.
You didn’t go ? My point exactly ! (Well, one of them.) You’ve seen one arsehole, you’ve seen them all.
Joe, you are truly the king of the cutting comeback.
Joe—simple question. Is a nude photo of a pre-pubescent adolescent, male or female, pornographic?
Why is it NOW said to be pornographic after Henson has exhibited for 20 years.
If it is, then surely all the works by the great masters featuring nude pre-pubescents, must be teated as porn and removed from walls or even the many books in which they are reproduced.
If you’re concern is for the kids, what about all the kids who’ve been photographed over the years, and who until Hetty Johnson pronounced, would never have had cause to wonder if they had done something off, or if they had been abused.
Something beautiful , admired by tens of thousands, is now said to be something else altogether. I find it frightening, McCarthyist even.
Children were once seen and not heard, now we listen to them and watch over them more carefully. Is that such a bad thing?
Do we really want to return to a ‘freer’ time of ‘morality and ethics’ when children were used and exploited as artist’s models and worse?
Who wants these images in their homes anyway? Is Henson supplying a ‘blackmarket’ of wealthy perverts who parade as art collectors?
It’s time to stamp out this trade in child exploitation.
Not a simple question at all: no, not per se, the pornography is precisely in the privileged eye of the beholder. And in thecase o children, surely we have a duty not to do them any harm, harm that they may not realise until much later: that’s why there are laws in every society to protect minors.
It’s a question of power over the ‘object’, especially if they are children and even more so if they are naked - that’s a situation which is about as totally powerless as one could imagine. Wait until these kids are adult, leave them alone until they are able to make up their own minds. There are limits to our rights to view others in all their vulnerability.
Perhaps nude photographic exhibitions should be just that - photos of adults with all visitors being required to view while naked. That might cut down the power imbalance of object and subject a bit.
Joe
My problem is it is a middle aged man highlighting, promoting, exhibiting etc the innocence of pre-pubescent girls. Why does it need to be a male and middle-aged? As an artist there is far more different ways that could have encapsulated the "innocence" of the subjects instead of stripping them down bare… To me his is the problem he is trying to highlight - the innocence of the beauty that is sneered upon and victimized by a predator. Or the term ‘girl’ is applied to females aged between 8 - 38 as the sexualising of such youth as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and singers such as Fergie. That to be virginal is to be straight from the womb after that you are sexualised through the media and institutions (education).
As a lover of art I understand - what is nude (aesthetically pleasing) and what is naked (porn). I feel with the outcry more people see it as naked subjects as they look at the picture as a whole and also knowing about the subjects it has deemed to be simply porn.
I believe Bill Henson has made several attempts to not be male and middle-aged, Ngunawal, but as yet his effort have been in vain.
I actually find tv ads that use naked babies to sell products far more disturbing than Henson’s work- not because they sexualise the infants (though there certainly are sexual predators that attack children that young) but because they treat the babies like pet food commercials do puppies and kittens, not as human beings but as one dimensional objects valued solely for their "cuteness". I also find Anne Geddes photographs tasteless for the same reason, but I’m not subjected to them on 4 out of 5 free to air channels on an almost daily basis.
As for photographs of assholes, a couple of years ago a digital artist who’s name escapes me took hundreds of photographs of them and arranged them by colour using a computer to form a portrait of George Bush Jr when you stood back from it.
As for Hettie Johnston, it’s well established that many worthy causes attract obsessive individuals who’s entirely well meaning and genuine concern ends up being counterproductive because of the level of their obsession. I’ve come across such individuals in causes I’ve been involved in, and I don’t think either side of politics is immune from the phenomena.
The biggest crime is the concept that thought itself could be a crime.
Fortunately, though, and as is clearly demonstrated by the hysteria surrounding Henson’s work, most of our modern society is incapable of any thought, much less original thought, which means we are all free of original sin and just as innocent as the "kids" we so gallantly want to protect.
Should ANYBODY be depicted nude? Should EVERYBODY be depicted nude? Just the aged perhaps? Only the men? No? Women? How very confusing it must be to be a part of "civilised society"!
Rogerio,
So who’s being hysterical ? I’m not sure than any cause is served well by over-statement.
If we can establish some parameters around this issue, we might get somewhere:
* there is an offence on the books called child pornography - we can argue definitions, but most of us would agree that there should be some such laws to protect children;
* artists are entitled to a degree of latitude in what they depict, and play a valuable role in society by confronting and challenging our ideas and assumptions;
* while some depictions, even of children, are allowed, artists need to be aware that there are lines they cannot cross, any more than anybody else.
Perhaps we can discuss and argue within that framework ?
Joe
If you want strict frameworks and limitations within which to hold your discussions Joe, go find a Marxist dictatorship to do it in. This is a free country, which is why our right to debate this matter has not been destroyed (yet).
For a list of prospective Marxist dictatorships to emigrate to you could consult the CIA world fact book here:—-> https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
As you will notice from that website there are plenty of Marxist dictatorships to choose from Joe. Happy hunting, and enjoy the move!
GV
I wonder whether Ben stopped long enough to think about how irresponsible it was to publicise the fact that the police became involved in this matter?
Can you imagine what a mind filled with images of handcuffs and pistols could do if it were not strictly restrained by the moral fortitude of those sensible citizens who reported these matters to the correct authorities and the equally sensible attitude of the authorities to shroud in much secrecy the extent or progress of their investigations?
That this should happen to us all, a shining beacon of morality and decency for the whole to follow.
Oh Horror!
Yes, George, frameworks within which we can debate, instead of slagging each other and getting off the topic.
Joe
Look Mags, I am down with pretty much anything but to put Bill Henson in the same league as Anne Geddes is going too far. The Henson photos may sexualise young people but Anne’s work seems to suggest that we eat children. There is plenty of time for cannibalism when these kids get old enough to make a decision about how they might like to be cooked and whether they are served in a giant pumpkin or just al fresco on a bed of lettuce.
On another note I once attended a painting exhibition of just arseholes. I think its called the Archibald Prize and it is held at the NSW Gallery every year.
Apparantly the ‘authorities that be’ have decided that Henson’s work is not pornographic. So that’s the end of the matter as far as I’m concerned. The law has to respected and upheld in the end.
And logically, Just because some more prudish types are offended by his work, doesn’t mean the more open-minded should be censored.
However, what it does mean is that those more easily offended should make sure they are aware of the content of an Art Exhibition before they decide to take along the kids and grandma.
And we are each entitled to our opinion in a civil society, Denise. You are welcome to yours, but if I were you, I wouldn’t call myself a feminist or defender of children’s rights.
Joe
rmg1859 I don’t label myself anything in particular, have never considered myself a feminist, practice no faith and I have no political agenda or pretence to defend anyone other than myself, as an individual with a point of view.
So that false information about me must have been from your own false assumptions.
Hi Denise,
You have never considered yourself a feminist ? Why does that not surprise me ? On the other hand, it gives me hope that there may still be some feminists out there who are, in some small way, concerned about the exploitation of naked young girls by middle-aged men. Or perhaps it is too ‘radical’ for them these days.
Sorry about my false assumptions, Denise: I didn’t mean to embarrass you by inferring that you had any political stance or agenda.
Joe
It would not be embarassing to have a political agenda Joe, however, I find that every ideology or political stance has its limitations in the real world.
And if the young girl involved is too young to make a legal contract then it’s her parents who are responsible for her involvement and she would have to wait until she is of legal age to first acknowledge the damage to herself (if that is what she feels) and then she could pursue some sort of compensation for her underage exposure by her parents and the artist. Time will tell…
Yes, Denise, that’s what the law is there for: if the parents are so negligent that they can expose their daughter to potential harm, (I stress ‘potential’, because that’s what the law is about) then they should be charged. They cannot sign for her, they do not have that right. Yes, you got it right, at last: ‘underage’.
Meanwhile, Henson’s collection is now worth a half a million dollars, just for taking a few snaps. Do you think there won’t be a few negligent parents, and their mate with a digital camera, ready to make a few bucks out of their kids ? Watch this space.
Joe
I agree a certain amount of art has always exploited the naked human body (since the Greeks) and where there’s money involved no doubt it will be business as usual as the required authorities are bribed to turn a blind eye to the nudity of underage children.
The excuse has always been because it’s ‘art’ produced from a reputable artist anything goes.