I was astonished to hear from a staff member that they found my video confronting. They are so used to semi-clad female forms dancing in time to techno music that they found the images in my video discomforting, singing mouths which panned back to show that the mouths belonged to small children.
Today I read in Sydney Morning Herald that the Bill Henson photos had lead to a push to disallow artist’s privilege for imagery with children which is pornographic. The problem, as writer David Marr points out, is with the “widespread notion that has been growing over the past decade that just about any image of a child naked or scantily or precociously dressed is pornographic.” If, like my lecturer, you associate techno music with scantily clad females, you could argue that my film of children in pyjamas is pornographic.
I dont go to American movies as I find them trite but also because they sexualise everything. Ironic really.
