Question 3: Do you think work like that of photographers Sally Mann, Jock Sturges and/or David Hamilton is positive, innocuous or pernicious in its effect on the viewer? Do you think the photos were intended to be sexual or is this perception something our oversexed culture brings to them? (Please feel free to incorporate your reaction to Noelle Oxenhandler's essay, "Nole Me Tangere," in your answer.) |
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In another context, it might be worth differentiating between the work of Sally Mann (an extraordinary artist), Jock Sturges (a second-tier artist), 
and David Hamilton (no artist at all, IMHO). But in this context, maybe
not. Because the very question of whether a work of art or would-be art
has a "positive, innocuous, or pernicious" effect presupposes a
relationship between art and behavior that I find simple-minded.
To my way of thinking, any work that amuses me, informs me, disturbs me, makes me laugh or weep or writhe, makes me question my values or shakes me to my foundations -- any work, in short, that genuinely affects me -- is work that has a "positive" effect. Art that is "innocuous," on the other hand, is not art at all. And the only pernicious "art" I can think of is essentially propaganda -- "Mein Kampf," for instance, or "Triumph of the Will." (But if "Mein Kampf" had been read more seriously during its epoch, Hitler might have met with more fervent and widespread opposition -- which would have been the very opposite of a "pernicious" effect.) If works are judged by their "effect on the viewer," then the most pernicious single work in history is probably the Bible. (Also, perhaps, the most "positive.") So what are we talking about here? Perhaps we're worried because we don't like the idea that the photographs of Mann, Sturges and Hamilton might, in the parlance of our moment, "give people ideas." Sally Mann's pictures of her naked children seem to have given Noelle Oxenhandler lots of ideas, as her graceful essay demonstrates, but they are mostly ideas about the eerie conjunction of death and life, not about sex. Still, Mann's photographs do evoke in her a memory of being aware of her daughter's vulnerability, and she says, "I can honestly say that this awareness carried no desire for me -- although it did sometimes carry the anxiety that I might experience such desire." That anxiety is exactly what we are talking about here: What if we feel something we're not supposed to feel? Here again is a problem that I find at the heart of our culture, and that I spoke of in my answer to Question #1. It is our fundamentalism, our literal-mindedness that makes it difficult for us to imagine a cause without an effect, or a feeling that doesn't result in an action. We are so afraid of our desires because we cannot imagine desiring something without taking steps to obtain it. In America, after all, we're taught that the sky's the limit; we can have anything we put our mind to. So we get scared whenever we find our mind drifting to the forbidden. We're like the child who can't stand looking down from the roof of his house, because he's afraid that mere looking will impel him to jump. But of course our minds will drift to the forbidden with or without Mann, Sturges and Hamilton. The civilized person will restrain himself from action; the criminal may not. The child molester doesn't need artistic photographs of naked children to spur him forward (though if they can help him satisfy his desires without victimizing someone else, then maybe they can be said to have a "positive" effect). In fact, the child molester may well find The Wizard of Oz equally enflaming, or Sesame Street, or Lassie, or a thousand other things that no one in his right mind could call "pernicious." Does anyone really believe that those book stores that recently banned Jock Sturges' work from their shelves prevented a single crime? I happen to think that David Hamilton's photographs are indeed intended to be mildly pornographic, and that Sally Mann's are not pornographic at all, but, unless we are making aesthetic judgments (i.e., Hamilton is kitschy and banal, Mann is edgy and profound), then the distinction doesn't matter a bit. As you might imagine, I've encountered a good deal of simplistic thinking about the "effects" of art while working on the movie version that Adrian Lyne and I made of Lolita. And I've concluded that what the film's enemies must fear goes something like this: A man might walk into a movie theater, watch a rich, funny, sad, complicated movie that hammers home no message but does end in the complete undoing of a pedophile, and might then say, "Hey! Pedophilia! Never thought of it before! Think I'll try it!" It seems almost too obvious to point out that human sexual psychology doesn't work that way. |
Question 1 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 2 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 3 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Sally Mann Question 4 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose |
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