I subscribe to a magazine called Practical
Parenting which I originally thought to put in my waiting room for mums to
read. But it turns out that business is so quiet I am so efficient that
my patients rarely have to wait to see me. So I read the magazine myself,
usually in the bathroom.
Well, it is not bad. It does impart information in
a breezy, informal sort of way, with plenty of cute baby photos and in-house
doctor, nurse, sleep specialist, dietitian etc giving lots of good advice, and
mums Q&A, etc. And of course a lot- A LOT- of advertising for baby-related
commodities. I mean nearly half the magazine is dedicated to ads, which is a
bit much considering it is not a free publication. But never mind.
So this is all very nice, except for the one thing
that just annoys me more and more: those dreamy romantic shots of mother
caressing her belly and smiling down at it. Said belly is usually exposed for
added effect. OK, also those cute shots of older child kissing belly, usually
self-consciously looking at the camera, are also a bit- how can I put it-
nauseating. The hairy strong man arms caressing from behind also give me the
bleeaagghhs.
This fetishising of the pregnant belly can only
occur where women don’t have many children. Sure, every child is precious and
every pregnancy is a miracle yada yada, but if it’s your 3rd or 4th,
who has time to sit dreamily and be photographed? And what’s with these pix?
People actually have photographers make these photos, and then- where do you
display them?
And then there is the plaster-cast of the boobs
and bump. Who on Earth thought of this? Who wants to immortalize this, and
again, where do you display this? Do YOU want to look at some woman’s belly and
boobs up on a wall?
And now, there is the belly cake! For baby
showers, of course. I already am creeped out by baby showers, which are the
biggest invitation for the Ayin HaRah (Evil Eye) that I can think of. My
mother, z”l, who tied red threads on everything and spat 3 times at least 10
times a day in order to avoid the ‘Gitte Oig’ (means ‘good eye’ in Yiddish; she
was so superstitious, she wouldn’t even mention the Evil Eye for fear of attracting
it. Kind of like Voldemort) would be horrified by the idea of a baby shower. But
there are some people who will order a cake in the shape of a pregnant belly
for the shower! Check this out:
Now, apart from the actual grossness of such a
cake, tell me, would you eat it? And where would you cut it? Classical Caesarian?
Or lower uterine segment incision? I wonder what sort of cake is under that
icing, strawberries and cream? Mmmm! Maybe when you cut into it, you pierce a
bag full of raspberry syrup and it goes everywhere, like the real thing! Yum!
Is there an edible doll inside? I’ll have the leg! I’m being silly.
OK, so the baby is born, and, in most cases, I
would imagine the heart-shaped rose-tinted glasses are stripped away, and you
have a baby. EEEK! What now?? Well, let’s get an Anne Geddes wannabe to
photograph our precious baby.
Let’s put her in a flowerpot, even better if there
are twins or more, and let’s have her naked with fairy wings and lay her on a
pumpkin. Let’s suspend her off a bough, loosely wrapped in muslin, like the
Rock-a-bye Baby song! Or make a bundle and hang her from a stork’s beak! Witty!
I’m guessing the babies weren’t really dangling, it was some sort of montage,
or they were laid flat on a surface and photographed from above. But still.
Anne Geddes started this trend about 15 years ago,
and her many imitators have gone from bad to worse. I quote Ms Geddes:
"I had seen the way children and babies
were generally being photographed. It just didn't seem realistic to me that
people took their children along to photographic studios all dressed in their
Sunday best, photographs that didn't really show the personality of the
child."
So it’s much more realistic to, say, dress baby as
a leopard and lay her on a log, sleeping. Or, my personal favorite, take a
chubby black baby, place him in a basin of custard, put a sprig of holly on his
head, and call the picture ‘Pudding’. I saw this picture in an AG calendar
years ago. The child has this totally bewildered expression on his face. And it
was that photo which opened my eyes to the fact that Ms Geddes was exploiting
and objectifying babies in a way that was quite offensive, even while being
sort of cute. It is interesting to note that this photo does not come up when
you Google her pictures, and I wonder if even she thought it was pushing the
limits of taste.
Or how about placing the sleeping baby, lying
prone and in fetal position, on her naked mother’s belly! With her head on her
mother’s pubis! Just like she was lying before birth! You have to see this
picture to appreciate the grossness of it. (Just Google Anne Geddes images,
sorry I lack the techspertise to bring it to you in all its glory.)
She started off ok, with sleeping babies and
things
but
it got out of hand.
The Onion spoofed her with a 2001 article called
‘Anne Geddes is starting to lose it’ with a picture of a baby dressed as Hitler.
Now, that’s Onion-funny. That would for sure keep away the Evil Eye!
http://o.onionstatic.com/images/articles/article/8875/Anne-Geddes_jpg_630x1200_upscale_q85.jpg
OK, I had to find the picture.
ReplyDeletehttp://members.fortunecity.com/nabicht/badart/geddesxmaspudding.jpg
That is NOT in good taste, though I'll admit I used to really like Anne Geddes at one point.
I used to come across all that baby stuff when I was pregnant. It always made me feel like I was of another culture (guess I am, but it just exacerbated the differences).
Wow, you found it! Can you be my research assistant? I'll pay you 10% of what I get paid (ie 0).
ReplyDeleteBut isn't that picture a corker? Who does these things? Someone who really really loves babies, like Anne Geddes!
That picture is awful. Research assistant sounds like fun. I used to do that in the olden days (i.e. before computers).
ReplyDelete