The latest moral outrage.

[Pae]

Because there is no such thing as 'negative' press.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Elvion
Because there is no such thing as 'negative' press.

And as a society, we have become too craven to shame anyone.

We only have two modes of operation:

1) Total acceptance and tacit (or outright) approval.

2) Foaming at the mouth declarations of evil and criminal prosecution.

We have totally given up on a third and often far more successful method of action:

3) Shame, scorn, and public disdain.

[Miromina]

I guess profesional art today is very seldom just someone who make beautiful paintings or such. Art today is very often the attempt to get the viewer to think. Some don't have any skills of the craft but just provoke the masses and call that art.

Here in Denmark we have had an artist that did a work where he got a bunch of puppies stuffed and that got the blood boiling in the public.
We have had one who had blenders with live goldfish and if someone in the audience turned the power on the fish got splattered. That got the public interest as well even though it was clearly stated by experts that the fish were killed fast enough for it to be legal.
We have had a paper with the Muhamed drawings that got world attention several months after they were in the paper. Not by an artist but again someone who wanted to poke at the limit of someone.
Right now we have the Bodies Exhibition in Denmark where it show real bodies without the skin. I believe that one have had some critique on the way as well.

I am sure there are tons of other examples of 'artists' trying to question our bounderies. I am no fan of this type of art but can understand why they were made.

I know why we have this boundary with naked chieldren for a reason, but I personally can't see anything pornografic about that picture and even if a group of messed up men somewhere on the Internet find this kind of thing pornografic then I can hardly see the harm in this.
Can't remember the case but wasn't there some media storm a few months ago about a young Disney star having a picture taken where she had a bare back?
Seriously if people go crazy over pictures like this but is ok with 18 year old girls doing the wierdest types of sex on the Internet then I am lost in this.

If this picture makes it harder for the law system to nail the people who make pictures like this or worse that are minded for the pervs, then I can see a problem but if these groups are not the ones yelling for this to stop, then I see this as just one more media storm.

I see fear from Terrorists, Perverts, Muggers and the like getting us to make limitations in our normal life that way outweights the risk that they are to save us from. Let us try to live our lives as untroubled as we can and if something bad happen we can hope it doesn't happen to us or the ones we love but in the end we can't stop everything and the hurt from trying to stop these things are in my opinion most of the time worse than what we gain from it.

[Gromgor]

As much as I think art is meant to invoke thought and make the viewer question question his perceptions of the world, I DO think too many artists confuse shocking or controversial with art. Having seen the image, I don't think it's pornographic. I also don't think it's art. I can see how it could be argued one way or the other. Like Ari I think there should be a third, more grey area for this.

Not pornography. Not Art. It's crap.

The image is far less thought provoking than I originally was lead to believe. Thanks to, I believe Haigen for posting it.

Yeah...crap.

[Gromgor]

The worst part of all of this is that the young girl involved in the photograph would likely have never been bothered, later in life, by having been the model used had it just gone silently into the night. Instead, the people trying to cause a fuss about it are going to be the ones that make her feel ashamed for it, which will then lead to them pointing and saying "See! See what it did! You're a bad man Mr. Photographer! You should be in jail!"

The problem with the photograph and any sense of shame the girl will feel about it won't come from the photograph, but rather from people making a huge deal about it. I wonder how many newspapers have splattered the face of the image across it's pages. Will they ever be held responsible for making her feel ashamed? Of course not. That would require journalistic integrity.