The Coppertone Girl Analysis

“I still don’t understand how a gallerist and the director of an institution that is supposed to promote artists’ work could have, without even the slightest threat, on simple anonymous requests, and without really knowing my past and current work, decided to remove my work,” said artist Diane Ducruet, after a photo of her playfully kissing daughter was removed from the intimacy section of a gallery exhibition in Paris, after being accused of portraying child abuse or incest. The artist Richard Prince took a photo of Brooke Shields at age ten in the nude, whose purpose was to “question sexualized advertising images”. The photo was censored as child pornography. However advertising, such the well-known illustration of the Coppertone Girl, depicts
Mann says, “It's just that they were always nude in the summers when I did most of my shooting. We had a cabin on the river on our farm. And there's not another breathing soul for probably five miles in all directions, and they just never seemed to wear clothes. Why should they? They were in the river almost all day and deep into the night. So it's the fact that in many cases the children were nude were just that's how the children were.” Sally Mann never abused her children or forced them to take and photographs for her. Mann says that her children were involved in the process: setting the scene, editing images. Mann worked with her children’s consent. Before publishing Immediate Family, Mann held family meetings, and sent her children to a psychologist in order to know they understood the controversy that faced her work. The psychologist, Daniel Shybunko, said the children “recognized the consequences that were negative as well as positive.” When the children edited pictures out of the book, the children picked pictures that they thought made them look like dorks. Mann says that’s what they were really worried about, “They don't want to be geeks or dweebs. Nudity doesn't bother them." However there are those who don’t see Mann’s work in the same light, based off of personal experience and a lack of consideration for her intention. As Pauline Hadaway, director of the Belfast Exposed photography gallery says, "The child-protection regulations instruct us to put ourselves into the place of the paedophile when we look at images today. Thus we are no longer assessing the piece, or the subject, but instead how it could be interpreted.” To avoid the damage that this kind of controversy can cause, it is essential to consider the artist’s intentions in order to understand their art. Basing an interpretation of art off of nothing but one’s own opinion, not only can lead to the wrong answer, but