Monday, April 21, 2008

What Do You See?

Today I was looking at Benetton ads on the internet for a class project. Some of the highly controversial advertisements that appeared on Google Image included a priest and nun kissing each other, a newborn straight freshly out of his mother's womb (umbilical cord still attached and all), and a male model's mid section in profile with the phrase "H.I.V. Positive" tattooed on his left arm. There was one particular ad that grabbed my attention: a picture of a black woman breastfeeding a white baby with only her exposed breasts in arms in full view with the child. Beside seeing the clear racial overtones of the photo I tried to see a deeper meaning in the work.

This powerful photo reminded me of my time in art class when we had to paint a female nude model. We had sketched three other models beforehand (two being men and another being a mid-aged black woman) so we were used seeing nakedness. But this woman was different, she was a young white woman in her early twenties and had a level of attractiveness higher than all the previous models combined. Both male and female students initially were uncomfortable painting this pretty white girl, giving off signs of nervousness but trying to keep their composure for the teacher. Half way through the class we would all get into painting and we started to loosen up. Students would talk to the model and advice what would be a better and more comfortable pose for both the painters and for the model. Sometimes we would even joke with her, but kept it to a minimum for the professor's sake. Her nakedness was no longer an issue. We did not see as someone naked and out of place, but something natural and accepting.

That is what I saw in the Benetton photo pass the initially shock of seeing a woman's breasts for a magazine ad. I did not see a woman posing in a controversial manner but someone committing the beautiful god-given act of breastfeeding a child. When people think of breast we firstly think of the them as pornographic, perverted, and mundane. Social etiquette, television, and conversional wisdom tell us that they should be covered up for the sake of decency. The Benetton ad shows something different, it shows the female body as something unabashedly normal. If we tear through the social stigmas of certain subjects we can see them for what they naturally are. And once we see these subjects for what they are, as with the female model, we can appreciate them for their natural beauty.