North of Normal

#112

Took the shorties to the DIA yesterday. Good time was had by most, and now several people in the greater Detroit area think that Falstaff and I are doing a fine job raising our four children.

(shudder)

Anyway, our only real moment of panic, at least for me, came when Little Red Riding Hood looked up at me with those big wide eyes and said: "Why are those ladies naked?"

Good . . . . question . . . .

You know, I've a got feminist rant or two on this topic, as well as an exasperated response to Male Companions who complain about the -- what, three? -- nekkid guys in the collection. So maybe I ought to have prepared for that one a little better.

Instead, I blinked. I stammered. I quickly discarded "because naked is fun," "because Gauguin was a perv," and "because the artist was attempting to play on stereotypes of the exotic and the savage to illustrate the beauty of nature and the innocence of the unlettered natives and thereby criticize the falseness of the allegedly civilized world."

Curly Headed Freak told me about "teachable moments" back when she was an education major. Times when a student raises a question or makes a connection that maybe takes you away from your main point about algebra or jellyfish or whatever but gives you a chance to talk about bigger things. Ideas-with-a-capital-I. So, no pressure here, but: Teachable Moment. Clock's ticking.

In the end, I babbled something about the artist wanting to show that bodies are beautiful and women are beautiful. I made a stab in the direction of the idea that you don't need anything fake to be beautiful (it was a woodland, kinda jungly scene with frolicking naked women), what's natural is beautiful on it's own. It wasn't my best effort, and I think I just confused the poor kid.

How do you answer a question like that? That could be a pretty complicated set of issues to grapple with. You've got feminist ideas about women portrayed as objects, historical ideas about non-Europeans as "noble savages," body image issues, repression and hedonism and societal morals as they change through time . . .

Then again, that's what I put there, or more appropriately, what I bring with me. My intellectual and political and social baggage. Little Red doesn't have all that yet, and I suppose it's far, far to early to be loading her up with it. To her, it was just paint in a frame, a little different than real life.



confused descending a staircase: