Should "Lolita" be used to caption a documentary photograph?

[derek_stanton2]

Jeff Spirer: "Morality police" don't "police" anyone. They are noisy, useless people who

oppose art that they somehow don't approve of. They come from the part of the universe

that has no respect for art at all, only an interest in stirring up anger at artists."

 

That's silly. Do you have a list of these specific people? How do you discern between these

"useless people" and those who have actually acted to protect the rights of innocent

others? The term "Morality Police" is an inane cliche. It has no real meaning. It's just a

defensive attack on whomsoever has the stones to speak up about a perceived injustice.

I'm shocked that any sophisticated person would find it objectionable that someone

should be concerned about protecting, in this situation, a child.

 

What we do agree on, as i stated above is that the title IS the instigating issue. As you

aptly put it, "It is documentary without it." With a title, it's an unfair, probably inaccurate,

and potentially damaging bit of commentary. And, in that scheme, the commentator bears

a certain responsibility. He needn't apologize for taking the photograph. He needn't even

change the title. Unless directed by some law, that's not an obligation. I'm only suggesting

that someone with a sense of responsibility, and a commitment to society rather than self,

would want to make a change. Since when is "morality" a bad word? I believe he 'owes it' to

this child to retract the title.

 

The analogy to Serrano and Mapplethorpe was just that. An analogy. Obviously, it's not

precisely an apples-apples comparison. And, i'm no mindreader. The question was merely

this: Is this a genuine effort to make a stand on principle, or is it, in some small way, a

manner of self-promotion? Capitalizing on something initially innocent. We're only

discussing this in such huge numbers because the photographer decided it was worth our

time and he wanted to continue the 'discussion' publicly.

[sprouty]

<I>"...particularly the more recent logging activity that brought prostitution to the area."</I>

<P>

Jeff please clarify, are you suggesting that the young girl is a prostitute based on this one image and your knowledge of the culture/people? If not I apologize.

<P>

I've looked at the image several times and I keep coming back to my initial interpretation: that she may very well have been innocently moving her arms (stretch/scratch). Of course I speak from the disadvantageous position of having no experience with pre-teen prostitutes.

[Spearhead]

It's not that she is a prostitute, or even might be one, but a whole different appearance for women becomes prevalent. The ones making money are doing it in a way that requires them to look and behave in a certain way, and for people whose traditional homes are being destroyed, money looks like a very good thing. The appearances aren't traditional.

 

It is easy to see teenage prostitution in impoverished areas, it's one of the only ways to make money. Even in poor areas in Europe it happens. It's a sad fact of life now.

[Uhooru]

"With a title, it's an unfair, probably inaccurate, and potentially damaging bit of commentary"

 

I think this misses the issue really. Any title can arguably be considered the above. I'm inteerested in how the use of the word effects the meaning of the image. I look at him using her to convey an idea. Does not the same thing happen several thousand times a day? Its called adverstising.

[boris c umanso]

"I look at him using her to convey an idea."

 

I look at him abusing her to convey an idea.

[Nowhereman]

I'm not sure that this picture is worth further discussion but it certainly has more life to it

than anything else that I've stumbled across by Reichmann on the LL site, where I

occasionally go for "heavy gear" rather than for photography.

 

It seems to me that whether the girl is pregnant or not is irrelevant. Also, Jeff Spirer's

statement that the pose struck is highly unnatural for the Amazon jungle is off the mark

as the girl, standing in a relatively well-built house and wearing underclothes, is clearly

not in a Amazonian village but in a town and is acculturated to the often highly sexually

charged Brazilian culture.

 

I agree with Mike Dixon's statements that Reichmann is being disingenuous and cowardly

in wanting to provoke by using the Lolita title but not willing to recognize what he's doing

as well as that Reichmann is so certaint that the girl has a seductive intent rather than that

being his interpretation of it. Seeing the picture reminded me of being in Recife, a

northeastern Brazilian city, some twenty years ago: as I walked around a corner I saw a girl

of similar age standing on the lawn in front of a house and, as I looked at her a little too

long because of her sexuality -- I was thinking, "is she really only twelve years old -- she

struck a provocative pose, which said, "eat your heart out, dirty old man". But had I had a

camera and captured that pose, I would not have given the picture a title, certainly not

"Lolita".

 

--Mitch/Bangkok

[Uhooru]

"I look at him abusing her to convey an idea."

 

but you do agree that photographers use people all the time to convey an idea? Did Diane Arbus abuse some of her subjects with her tactics and her presentation? Where she implied people were about one thing in her photos and turns out it was often her manipulation that made it seem so?

Some people really do. If Riechmann would have called her "Little Venus" would you be all in a snit?

 

I'm just asking questions.

[boris c umanso]

"but you do agree that photographers use people all the time to convey an idea?"

 

Yes. In my first post I said: "A lot of photography (like many other things in life) is

inherently exploitative".

 

"If Riechmann would have called her "Little Venus" would you be all in a snit?"

 

Do you really not grasp the potential offense in titling an image, of a child you know

nothing about (and is unlikely to have the economic power to challenge you), Lolita? Would

you have an identical response to a photograph posted online of you with the title "Sweety

Pie" as you would to the very same photograph titled "Kiddie Fiddler"? Maybe you would,

but I doubt it.

[vivek iyer]

Depicting a 12-13 year old just because she was sighted in Amazon as a sexual thing (or proclaiming it as "art")with any such title (Venus, Aphrodite, etc) to advertise for such photo excursions?

[Uhooru]

Of course I do Boris...that's not the point...he used a purposely provocative title, it just doesn't bother me like it does you. "Potential offense"? Anything you do that that reveals deep taboos like that will be rife with "potential offense". And some people get upset. It just goes with the territory.

 

I, unlike most here, think the title though perhaps blunt, works.. if people don't like that they can just bi..lets just say they can have they're own opinion:)

 

I've just received a copy of "Revelations", and it appears to be full of some really interesting things to read and look at, including freaks, young teenage couples, and photos of nudists and psyche patients. Some people were and are highly offended by that work too.

What to do?

[vivek iyer]

The market will determine that. If more people sign up for another photo excursion because of this "advertisement" or not will be up to the customers and their taste.

[leslie_cheung]

I can't believe the photo is being compared to Diane's work. Complete disrespect for Arbus's

work. Barry, tell me you are drunk...

[boris c umanso]

"he used a purposely provocative title"

 

No he didn't. It's a case of nothing more than a dumb and insensitive old

guy not understanding the complexities of the world he lives in. Case closed.

[cenelsonfoto]

I think the photo is rather bland, and the titling wasn't the brightest trick in the book. His titling it Lolita exposes him, psychologically, and he would have been better off leaving it untitled, perhaps objectively title: Native Girl (Location, Date).

[Uhooru]

"No he didn't. It's a case of nothing more than a dumb and insensitive old guy not understanding the complexities of the world he lives in. Case closed."

 

Reichmann - "In this case I titled a photograph of a clearly sexually provocative young woman with a word in the popular vernacular that, I believe, adds to its overall effect. It is not an editorial statement. it is the title of an art work."

 

Ahh Boris, it seems he did. So yes, case closed.

 

Leslie, of course he and it are not Arbus, but i'll bet she would probably have liked the photo, why don't we ask her. It cracks me up, because I use some one as an illustration and its like, now he's comparing him to Arbus...and i do like his photo, as I said way up top, its more thought provoking than anything I"ve seen by anyone here,including and especially me.

[boris c umanso]

Justification after the fact is never compelling. A dull old guy who made a crass error tries

to justify it as "art". Without the contempt for the child it would be amusing. With the

contempt it becomes sad for all parties.

[Allen Herbert]

Should "Lolita

 

i'll have a think about it.....<div></div>

[leslie_cheung]

Barry,

 

I know you used Arbus as an illustration only but it was an utterly bad choice of

comparison. They are different on so many levels that it's not even funny.

 

Ignorant, cowardly guy made a boneheaded mistake yet too arrogant to admit bad

judgement....then made a few half-assed excuses...ultimately attempted to exonerate

himself by dodging behind "Art".

[leslie_cheung]

...bad choice for comparison or even illustration I meant.

[________1]

An odd, but seemingly true, fact is the name Lolita actually gained considerable popularity after the Kubrick's movie adaptation of the book. The name languished around the bottom of the most popular 1000 girl names in America until 1962 when it jumped from 977 to 570th in popularity. In the following decade the name slowly sank out of sight and by 1973 was once again near the bottom of the heap. By 1974 the name Lolita ceased to appear on the U.S. Gov't Dept of Social Security's list of 1000 most popular names altogether.

[Allen Herbert]

Jeez,banality,truly represented by a messenger of the word,banality. Yes, the absolute nobody boring bloke, who is a living manifestation of a dead mind. Yes, the final destination of humanity; a black sucking arsehole of the universe.... it sucks all original thought, and humanity, into an abosolute void of banality.

[Allen Herbert]

. A description of such attacks would differ little from the description of a male chimpanzee raid (Low R427 223).

 

Hmm, so the peoples of the Amazon are like monkeys?...monkey folk.

 

I wonder if they have murdered as many folk as the white man...of course only in the name God and the Dollar. Or, is it the Dollar and then God?

 

Just a thought.

[Nowhereman]

<i>To most people outside the US, the word lolita means nothing, at least nothing

problematic. This discussion is typical of the perverted society the US is quickly becoming,

where a perfectly proper word is turned into a symbol of perversion, where a perfectly

normal photographer is being crucified over the use of that word, and where people must

tread very carefully not to fall victim of the same mistake when using other perfectly

normal and proper words.</i>

<p>

RM L: have you ever heard of globalization? You really ought to get around some more:

Lolita is known worldwide, certainly in all of Europe

and in Japan. Here are some quotes from a cursory google search:

<p>

<i>Rorikon, the Japanese word for pedophilia, is a contraction of the borrowed English

words "Lolita," after the girl in Vladimir Nabokov's book of the same name, and

"complex."</i>

<p>

And in India: <i> Filmmaker

Shashilal Nair is making a Hindi film on Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita". While Ram Gopal

Varma's Nishabd turned out to be far from Lolita, Nair is making a proper adaptation of

Nabokov's book about romance between an old man and a young girl.</i>

<p>

In China, Nabakov's book is well known enough to have been banned and "Lolita" to

become a teenage fashion movement, as it is in Japan. And here from Korea:

<p>

<i>The Supreme Court on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment a serial child rapist

who had earlier won a lesser sentence on claims that he suffers from so-called "Lolita

Syndrome." Supreme Court Justice Ahn Dae-hee overturned a Seoul High Court sentence

of 15 years for the 39-year-old defendant identified as Lee for raping 12 schoolgirls from

nine to 13 years old...Lee pleaded for a sentence reduction in the appellate court claiming

that he had developed

Lolita Syndrome after being raped by his father at a young age. The appellate court had

reduced his sentence to 15 years in consideration of the mental illness behind the

pedophilia.</i>

<p>

RM L -- I must say I hate people not using their real names -- seems to be, like

Reichmann, in Boris' words, "a dumb and insensitive old guy not understanding the

complexities of the world he lives in."

<p>

While I'm at it, CE Nelson suggests that Reichmann "would have better off leaving it

untitled" and "perhaps objectively [using the title]: Native Girl (Location, Date)". <i>Native

girl?</i> -- would you call a girl photographed in Ohio a "<i>native</i> girl"?

<p>

--Mitch/Bangkok

[Uhooru]

"Ignorant, cowardly guy. . . ".

 

Dude, like lighten up on Reismann, all this demonization, is he now an "evil doer"? geeeeeeyoddd take some meds. Anyways, how bout this, you guys carry on, like Mssr. Herbert says, this is getting boring.

[john_macpherson]

Look at this image a little closer, rather than just the title.......I have just revisited the Lolita image and am puzzled by what she seems to be holding.

 

The young woman 'appears' to me at least, to be holding in her right hand some object which 'seems' to be close to her back, and separate from what looks like a table behind, it looks metallic but could be a bottle of some kind, or a plastic lunchbox or school book carrier. I have seen my own nieces and nephews carrying their stuff this way.

 

This 'seductive pose' is easily replicated if you adopt the pose yourself - hold a bag or bottle behind your shoulder, and then scratch your head with the other hand as you think to yourself "now why is that old guy taking my picture with that big lens".

 

If this is indeed what is happening, then mistaking an innocent pose, taken in a 1/125th sec, for (quote from Reichmann) "a very young woman (girl) posing provocatively" is a real leap of the imagination. One could argue that it says more about the inner workings of Reichmann's mind, than that of the young woman to whom Reichmann attributes the 'provocative' behaviour. I wont even start to mention how often 'that' (provocation) argument gets aired in such circumstances.

 

If it is a bottle/bag/case the girl is holding, it concerns me that Reichmann has not noticed this.

 

I consider it a good enough image (not 'art'), but the choice of title displays very very poor taste at best.