01/10/2011

Bad taste... By Mégane & Marilou


This baby is sitting down. We see only the upper part of his body. He’s alone and in the foreground. He has got blue eyes. He is wearing a nazi uniform. He’s got a moustache like Hitler’s. His hair is slick, just like Adolph's. He’s smiling and seems innocent...

The image is shocking since a baby, symbol of innocence, has nothing to do, normally, with the evil we associate with Hitler. Is the photographer saying babies are not innocent? Or that babies can also become evil? Or that Hitler was also an (innocent) baby once?

Is this perhaps a parody of an Anne Geddes photo? Anne Geddes uses babies in her pictures, she wants people to say “Oh, he's so cute!” Geddes uses babies in all sorts of situations, she "plays" with them as if they were dolls... There's something creepy about her pictures.

The photographer of this picture is surely mocking Geddes' “art”. She wants to shock and provoke a reaction in people’s minds; Should we use babies in this way, by putting them in silly costumes or bizarre situations? The photographer, using black humour, highlights the "bad taste" of Geddes' work...

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