question four: provide a feminist reading for Mann’s photographs
To be quite frank, I could not help but feel unbelievably uncomfortable while looking at Mann’s photographs. The way in which the nudity is placed on such blatant display with no shame is jarring in and of itself, yet combined with the fact the nudity is ‘worn’ by the children, calls forth a sense of depravity that appeals to the baser, more deviant members of society. It goes without saying that there is something inherently perverted and dirty about viewing a nude child, and this feeling of perversion and dirt reminds me of Kipnis’ chapter, Dirt. Most notably, Kipnis states that, "beliefs about contagion and pollution [are] linked to ideas about morality" (109). This is especially relevant to my own feelings concerning Mann’s collection, for normally, a situation like the one Mann has created with her naked children would directly challenge my sense of morality. The only reason my perceptions of the photographs are kept in bounds is the fact I know the photographer is a women as well as the children’s mother. Mills makes note of the fact culture places meaning on pre-existing concepts, so perhaps it is a solely feminine ability, that typically, a women taking pictures of a nude child is coded as cute and innocent, whereas a man taking pictures of nude child is generally viewed as illegal and perverse.
This makes me dispute Kipnis’ argument on cleanliness and morality, for Mann proves that the very dirty can, in a sense, be pure. Objects that are dirty – either in a literal or figurative sense – do bring about questions of moral purity. This dichotomy implies a gendering that privileges the female but it also desexualizes the female. Mothers aren't sexual creatures and therefore a mother taking the picture is innocent because women/mothers are not sexual predators because they lack the penetrating equipment, which is still perceived as necessary to sex. The Madonna is so asexualized and revered as a mother – virgin birth and all.
Moreover, in relation to dirt, Kipnis states, "will a brutal enough scrubbing finally get it clean" (102). That goes to say, the mere blemishing of oneself should be considered unsavory and something to be ashamed of. Mann contradicts this by having her children posing nude and directly covered in mud. Kipnis stresses cleanliness, yet instead of trying to fanatically avoid the sullying substance, Mann embraces the dirt and purposely shoves her children into the substance that Kipnis describes as polluting. What is even more intriguing is that mothers are usually obsessive in keeping their children clean – often times going to the extreme of licking their thumb and wiping away a smudge. To see Mann, a mother, purposely dirtying her children, challenges the standard paradigm of a ‘good mother’ and what it is to be feminine.
As well, there is a staggering dichotomy between what is real and what is perceived. The child is dirty in both the literal sense of the word, as well as how it is colloquially used today. It is the fact the child has dirt on him that guides the interpretation of the photos, for if there were no dirt on the naked child, one would not view the picture the same way. Minus the equalizing dirt, the picture can be viewed as a bold statement in masculinity. The penis is on display in a way that emphasizes a sense of pride and superiority for there is nothing to hide when everything is out for all to see. Yet, when covered in dirt, a sense of shame is brought forth – that there is something to cover up and stain.
Now, to be specific, the first picture, Popsicle Drips is especially interesting, in that the male genitalia is smeared with dirt – smeared with a substance that is associated with filth and pollution. While I am not sure this is a strictly feminist reading of the pictures, I find it intriguing that Mann has sullied the male penis, debasing its power by covering it in filth. By having Mann lower the value of the male genitals, she irradiates Mill’s ‘rule of one’: the notion that masculinity is what all else is measured against. Mann could have had the boy completely covered in mud, yet she chooses to keep his chest clean and photograph the most intimate area of the boy – the navel, penis and thighs - with dirt. This leads me to believe she is critiquing the notion that one sex is regarded as being a superior form of currency – that if you possess a penis, you are (figuratively) richer that someone with a vagina. Mann, by covering her son in a substance that Kipnis so harshly criticizes and debases, castrates her son and renders his penis unless and poisoned. Mann’s pictures leave one with a sense of comeuppance, for the male is finally being associated with a concept that has plagued the stereotypical notion of women for generations. In Mann’s photograph, the male penis is now in need of cleaning. Now, the male now needs to be hyperaware of his state, and thusly feel the sense of ‘neurosis’ that women do (Kipnis 82).
question three: assess in what ways Kipnis and Segal are compatible
Segal emphasizes the skin and how the skin is viewed. Kipnis, in a sense, is also talking about how dirt can blemish the skin. This can be seen in Kipnis’s quote, “appearance anxiety can attach equally to your domicile or your outfit” (100). Kipnis talks about how dirt has an anxious quality to it and how being dirty brings forth the sense of displacement as well as the internalize fear of public scrutiny. Kipnis leaves you with the feeling that dirt follows you, hunts you down and attaches itself like a parasite. This ‘dirt’ parasite bonds to the flesh and spreads its poison to all aspects of one’s life. Diana lived in the public eye, so the public and private spheres of her life were privy to anyone who cared to listen. If Diana’s behavior was scandalous, her exploits would be splashed about in tabloids whereas her good work was rewarded with newspaper bylines. Due to the fact her acts were either punished or rewarded, Diana had to live in constant ‘cleanliness’. The sheer responsibility of perpetually being perfect and proper leaves an imprint of anxiety that goes beyond neurotic – that goes beyond ‘dirty’. Like a mantra, Diana herself once stated, “I had to keep myself very tidy for whoever was coming my way” (142). Segal describes Diana as never quite living up to the royal standard, for she is scrutinized by the monarchy and looked down upon by her in-laws (137). Her touch is seen as both very common and very royal for even though she was a princess, she was never the picture perfect princess that complied with the ancient standards the old monarchy stood behind.
As well, Segal spends and inordinate amount of time describing Diana’s skin and appearance, stressing how she was nothing short of immaculately groomed. In fact, Segal’s becomes exceedingly reluctant to associate Diana with squalor or filthiness. There is an underlying theme of keeping Diana pure to be the “perfect vessel for our desires” (133). Diana was seen as the mirror of society, the blank slate in which one could model the image of perfection. By seeing the negative in Diana, one would see the negative in themselves. Yet, by emphasizing Diana’s ‘radiance’ as Segal does, she dismisses the notion that Diana was ever dirty. Segal goes as far to say Diana’s radiance is bulimic in nature, that what we saw in Diana was reflected back upon us. If we are to assume Kipnis’s theory on dirt is correct, that which went into Diana was anxieties and paranoia’s that were regurgitated onto us. In this sense, Segal and Kipnis’s theories disagree with one another. Segal chooses to portray Diana as the elegant and charismatic fairytale princess who is tragically taken from the public and spends very little time concentrating on the outrageous aspects of being a princess on the wrong side of a loveless marriage. At the very beginning of her article, Segal comments on how Diana was plagued with bulimic and how it took a divorce and a public humiliation to cure her of the illness.
Moreover, Diana was a princess. The notion of royalty carries with it a connotation of superiority, a literal hierarchy. The peasants on the bottom rung of society are those that labor and become dirty, while those at the peak of the pyramid are untouched by impurity. The title of royalty maintains a deep-rooted sense of haughty privilege, one that has never been attributed to dirt in the literal sense. In fact, admirers of Diana describe her as being perfect and immaculate, claiming that “they found in her what they wanted a woman to be: beautiful without being sexual, funny, gentle but liberal, looking at me all the time, shy, groomed, in control, lovely, sweet, kind and caring” (135). Diana was aesthetically pleasing while managing to subdue the amount of sexuality she exuded, creating a sense of virginal, non-offensive beauty. The notion of the virginal princess is once again far removed from that which is dirty.
In short, Segal argues that Diana was a surface and not a vessel. Yet, by simultaneously echoing and filtering the desires of the public, Diana began to whittle away until she was “a woman with no body” (144). Diana is never described as being in control of her own body in Segal’s piece, for she was never happy in her skin. It takes an actual bout of bulimia to ‘wake’ Diana from her self-loathing emptiness, and she finally begins to “digest the public praises she had earlier vomited out” (139). While Kipnis does not mention a self-imposed dirtiness, the concept of a “psychological relation to dirt” portrays an internalized, irrational hatred of filth. By filling herself up with radiance, Diana purges the unhappy notions of foulness from her body and exudes a light that swallows up all those who come into contact with her, thus the cycle of digesting and throwing up begins anew.
