Naked States Film Reaction Paper
Law and Ethics
Robin Palma Balatbat
Naked States
The idiosyncrasies of photography are nothing new in my book, I happen to have a cameraphile (for lack of a better word) sister, who prides herself of having taken pictures of every little monument, statue or building she stumbles upon. Every time our family goes on a holiday on a new location, she takes it upon herself to take anything “worth” storing in her camera (in almost every angle), which means everything and we stopped every time she has to take a shot, which means every mile. I thought I knew all the quirks of photography until I gaze upon several dozen naked people lying in the streets of New York City and a cynical guy casually taking pictures of them. Wow, it hit me, now this is a different story.
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.
In a liberal society like ours (sort of), I have found that this principle provides reasons for limiting free speech when doing so prevents direct harm to rights. This means that very few acts should be prohibited. It recommends very limited intervention in the realm of free speech. All forms of speech or expression that are found to be offensive but easily avoidable should go unpunished. Public nudity, for example, causes offense to some people, but most of us find it at most a bit embarrassing, and it is avoided by a simple turn of the head. The same goes with sex and coarse language on television this principle doesn’t support criminalizing bigamy or drug use, or the enforcement of seat belts, crash helmets and the like.
As we all know, nude photography is a subject to the freedom of expression and unless that form of expression is obscene or offensive in nature, it is completely legal.
Nude photography is no more different from nudity. And like I said, nudity is a prime example of a possibly offensive but victimless state of being. It is not even
Robin Palma Balatbat
Naked States
The idiosyncrasies of photography are nothing new in my book, I happen to have a cameraphile (for lack of a better word) sister, who prides herself of having taken pictures of every little monument, statue or building she stumbles upon. Every time our family goes on a holiday on a new location, she takes it upon herself to take anything “worth” storing in her camera (in almost every angle), which means everything and we stopped every time she has to take a shot, which means every mile. I thought I knew all the quirks of photography until I gaze upon several dozen naked people lying in the streets of New York City and a cynical guy casually taking pictures of them. Wow, it hit me, now this is a different story.
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.
In a liberal society like ours (sort of), I have found that this principle provides reasons for limiting free speech when doing so prevents direct harm to rights. This means that very few acts should be prohibited. It recommends very limited intervention in the realm of free speech. All forms of speech or expression that are found to be offensive but easily avoidable should go unpunished. Public nudity, for example, causes offense to some people, but most of us find it at most a bit embarrassing, and it is avoided by a simple turn of the head. The same goes with sex and coarse language on television this principle doesn’t support criminalizing bigamy or drug use, or the enforcement of seat belts, crash helmets and the like.
As we all know, nude photography is a subject to the freedom of expression and unless that form of expression is obscene or offensive in nature, it is completely legal.
Nude photography is no more different from nudity. And like I said, nudity is a prime example of a possibly offensive but victimless state of being. It is not even