Babies’ Butts and Sally Field
Can we stop suing each other now?
I really want people to like me. That includes whoever may be reading this. When it is clear that people like me, I may as well be Sally Field winning the Oscar for Places in the Heart in 1985,
“You like me. You really, really like me!”
Sally Field did not actually say that. You can Google it and see the speech. But, this is how she is mis-quoted over and over again.
Sometimes when I’m writing I worry that I will say something that someone doesn’t like. It is a ridiculous notion because OF COURSE I will write things that some people don’t like. This will likely be one of those times.
Recently, I WENT OFF to Hubby about a commercial that came on TV. (Hey, do you remember when we had that very brief time in history when we could watch movies and TV shows without the commercials? Wasn’t that nice?) The commercial was for baby shampoo or some such baby product. All the babies in the commercial were in some form of bath. And, either they had a washcloth over their genitals or the shot was such that no genitals were shown. Okay, I can understand, but when it showed a baby’s butt covered by a washcloth, I got on my soap box.
This was a couple of weeks ago. On a recent trip with Dear Friends, I tried to articulate why it makes me angry that we can’t show a baby’s butt on TV anymore. They looked at me with confusion, not knowing how to respond. I still don’t think I’ve figured out how to articulate it. The closest I can come so far is that I do not want to live in a society that behaves like Puritans. To me, having to cover a baby’s butt on a commercial is puritanical.
Guess what happened this week? The 30 year who was photographed naked swimming in a pool when he was four months old is suing everyone and anyone who had anything remotely to do with that photograph. The photograph was taken by a professional and his parents were paid for it. That picture (with a little altering and adding of the dollar) became the cover art for Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind.’
I can imagine the conversation at our dinner table should it occur. My teens would never understand why it makes me so angry. And, shouting “A Handmaid’s Tale!” doesn’t usually help.
Because I am almost always of two minds, I can see it from the other point of view. I really can. I can understand how hard it may be to be 30 and not have much and want more. I can understand the frustration of seeing others profit from your image. I can understand that we all get embarrassed when Mom pulls out the naked baby photos. I also understand that for those who have been abused, this can be a trigger and is seen as pornography. But, it isn’t pornography. Naked people is not pornography. Are there some weirdos who like to look at pictures of naked babies for the sake of something sexual? Of course there are. That doesn’t make the photograph pornographic. It makes the viewer a weirdo.
When Nirvana’s album came out in 1991, it was controversial. But it wasn’t because a baby’s penis was visible. It was controversial because he was grabbing for money on a fish hook. I was there. I was in college. Not even my parents had comments about the image of a naked baby. Of course they didn’t. We could see babies naked in the tub on primetime television and no one batted an eye.
Now, I can hear some folks saying, “Now, listen. That was a problem that no one batted an eye. That is the point. We need to be better.”
And, I agree. There are many things that were acceptable in 1991 that should not be acceptable now. But, a nude baby on an album cover isn’t one of them.
I’m still working to articulate this. I realize this won’t be clear at all. It will likely cause the same amount of confusion that it did for Dear Friends when I tried to explain it to them. For me, it is the equivalent of painting over classical nudes or draping a piece of cloth across an artwork. THAT IS HAPPENING IN SOME PLACES! And, the part I’m having a hard time articulating is the way in which all this leads us to A Handmaid’s Tale.
It is a big jump. I’m aware. But, trying to maintain this kind of control over what people see historically has been bad for women. One Dear Friend aptly pointed out, “Yes, see Afghanistan right now.”
I know very little about the man who is suing every possible human being and company for the emotional damage done to him because his parents agreed to have his little naked body mass produced on an album cover. I know that he has posed with the cover many times in those 30 years. I know that he has a team of lawyers. And, I know that they are telling us that he can’t live a normal life because of that picture.
There has to be some balance somewhere. Everything feels out of balance right now. It is either too far one way or too far another way. The reality is that we are on a circle and those two directions end up meeting and causing the same kinds of havoc over and over again. Can we all just calm down a bit?
I wonder what would happen if there was a world-wide protest and we all posted pictures of ourselves as babies in the bathtub. I know you have one. We all have one! Would that be the end of Facebook? Would the algorithm attempting to censor those kinds of things explode?
Please do not think I am saying “anything goes.” But, I sure would like to see folks get as upset about the violence they see as the nude bodies. A pastor said that very thing in front of me when I was a teenager. Well, actually, he said while referring to his own child, “I’d rather him see naked women than all this violence.”
I remember being shocked. And, then thinking long and hard about it. Why are we okay with one and not the other? Why are we afraid of nudity? See? I’m baffled. I’m so baffled all I can do is ask a lot of questions. I have no answers.
Ted Lasso is one sign that the world is getting better, that people want the world to be a better place. When I see a baby’s butt on TV again, I will know it is happening.
