to think Brooke Shields has irresponsible parents?

[StrictlyBoogying]

Why was she allowed to be photographed and filmed in a provocative manner when she was a child? Her Mother managed her career and obviously put money before her child's welfare.

Article here about it- you're right, teech.

It is part of a show called Pop America, which also includes explicit imagery from artists like Jeff Koons, who is famous for using works which include graphic sex to comment on pop culture, and other contemporary art. It obviously is intended to make us very uncomfortable, and Scotland Yard warned the Tate Modern that the Brooke Shields image may violate obscenity laws in this country, so it has been withdrawn, although it was shown in America. The story of Shields and how she was famously chewed up and spat out by a lascivious industry with the complicity of her own family forms part of why it challenges our perceptions of American Pop Culture, which exists on a continuum of apple pie and grotesque sexualised exploitation.

Of course this is a debate informed by imagery as much as words, Dittany- it's ridiculous to think otherwise, although I'm sure you will disagree.

This is odd because I've seen that photo before and it just looks like the standard crap-photo in that stylised 70s style

I didn't think it was pornographic actually, I was expecting something much worse

It doesn't seem worse than lots of Calvin Klein adverts - at least she is obviously a CHILD and no one is pretending she is 25 in order to sell you perfume!

I think we've all gone mad

I'd still balk at looking at it too closely or for too long

Why is that? I know it's all stylised but I just see a cute little girl who you'd want to pull out of the bath and snuggle in a towel

(Although you'd probably say: HAVE YOU WASHED YOUR FACE? WHERE IS THE FLANNEL? first)

this is going back a bit isn't it, why are you all surprised?

What would make that picture criminal?

She is nude and there is certainly the intention by the artist for the viewer her sexually (by the make-up used and the way she is posed).

I wonder what extra would take that picture into the realms of criminality and would warrant a visit from the police - anyone know?

Actually it's a terribly clever picture isn't it. The chain around the nude bronze in the forefront of the picture encourages the viewer to view the child in chains (of her being forced to be viewed sexually in life/in the photo). I guess it had quite a comment to make on women's place in society when it was taken.

Clever and disturbing.

I think it's weird that we are up in arms about it, when we have 14 year old models in fashion week and ad campaigns centred around what looks like a child's body

I'd rather ban Calvin Klein ads any day

wtf ita a picture of a naked child, its child porn there is nothing at all clever about it all, her mother and i use the term loosely should have protected her, and as for the films she was in when she was young, was nothing but child porn, clever? no never ever

not child porn though is it morningpaper?

Having read the Guardian article I can see why the pic has been chosen for the exhibition. I agree with BitofFun.

Are all pictures of naked children child porn?

Or just all pictures of naked children with make-up on?

As far as I'm concerned, it's porn if it's created to tittilate, not if it's created to make a point in an art exhibition that no one apart from a few critics would notice

This is no more child porn that the Chapman Brothers imo

There is a difference between a 14yo model and the pic of Brooke Shields at 10yo.

I feel uncomfortable looking at that picture, there is something creepy and unsavoury about the pose, the look on her face, the full make up.

Her mother should be ashamed of herself.

ones that are published yes they are child porn, yes its sad that we have come to that in this world but imho thats how it is, er naked children with make up on? how can it not be exhibition or not, it is still wrong

of COURSE it's creepy and unsavoury

that's the point innit

(spotted this again, which always makes me laugh)

The original photograph was designed to titilate, so falls under your definition of porn, MP.

"Spiritual America is a photograph of a photograph. The original ? authorised by Shields's mother for $450 ? had been taken by a commercial photographer, Gary Gross, for the Playboy publication Sugar 'n' Spice in 1976. Shields later attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress the picture."

So basically, he has reheated an old scandal and brought this all back to the public eye to be salivated over again.

I feel very sorry for Brooke Shields.

er thats yuk!! thanks i had my roots out under general on weds and now just as i fancied eating something u have put me off! ta morning!

I think the original photos are disturbing. So yes, I think BS's mother has been extremely irresponsible. But then I don't approve of choosing a full time acting career for a tiny child, like she did.

But the pic has been used in an exhibition commenting American Pop Culture, therefore not unreasonable for it to be there at all.

Her Mother is appalling to ever have allowed that to happen.

I also think that the gallery should never have even wanted to show that. It is not art!

I think it's being dressed up as being art and is what it is; a child posing nude. Whether it's been taken to shock, titilate or make some point this ten year old's Mother approved it. It's disgusting and frightening because this kind of thing shouldn't be legitimate. I think it's child endangerment, exploitative and a form of abuse

"The scumbags need to bear responsibility too though. Her mother didn't take this photograph"

She may as well have done, she allowed it to be taken, just as bad imo!

I agree with BoF.

[And btw, Ms. BoF - I'm v. impressed at how cogent that was before 10 in the morning ... .]

I think you're supposed to think about whether it's "worse" than various adverts and images that area around at the moment, and on the line between "pornographic" and "acceptable" and the relations between them both. And all the strange contradictions we have about child sexuality that defineme mentioned.

And about mothers, and families and power, actually.

The timing of it with other events in teh news is pretty disturbing, too.

And I guess now we have to think about whether you can display something if it's supposed to provoke thought even if it is disturbing/against the consent of an affected individual.

Let's just say that I would not allow my own daughter to be photographed like this.

Sometimes I just don't understand art.

That photo of Brooke in the bath made me feel very uncomfortable.

Horrible. Poor Brooke being exploited. imo

Brook Shields' book - and down came the rain - her battle through Post Natal Depression is amazing.

She goes into detail about her early life, working as an actor, her Parents and her mother's betrayal of her - pushing her to work, and how she feels about being sexualised at an early age.

It's a really fascinating read.

If it wasn't porn why was it paid for by playboy press?

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In July 1978, at the age of thirteen, Brooke Shields made front page news in Photo Magazine. The young American film prodigy was promoting the film Pretty Baby directed by Louis Malle. In the magazine, a ten-year old Brooke is shown wearing makeup, her glistening body posed naked in a bathtub. The picture comes from a series taken by Garry Gross, an advertising photographer from New York who was regularly employed by Brooke?s mother to photograph her daughter, then a model with the Ford agency. At the time, Gross was working on a project for publication entitled The Woman in the Child, in which he wanted to reveal the femininity of prepubescent girls by comparing them to adult women.

Brooke Shields posed for him both as a normal young girl and in the nude, her body heavily made up and oiled, receiving a fee of $450 from Playboy Press, Gross?s partner in the project. Her mother signed a contract giving Gross full rights to exploit the images of her daughter. The series was first published in Little Women, and then in Sugar and Spice, a Playboy Press publication. Large prints were also exhibited by Charles Jourdan on 5th Avenue in New York

link does contain photos so don't click if it would upset you
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