The New York Times recently featured a retrospective article and slide show of Richard Avedon’s photography from 1944-2000.  Looking at twig shaped models sprinting in high heels across a voyeur's stage, I wonder. 

How would we react if a highly acclaimed photographer glamorized the foot binding that once kept Japanese women's feet petit and therefore desirable?  Would we recoil in horror?  Would we rationalize it as a cultural norm of another time, focus on the stunning quality of the photography?  Ignore how the women suffered?

How do we separate art from abuse?  Self abuse, perhaps.  A model chooses her profession.  But if I, the viewer, ignore repression in art, am I culpable of that repression, or the message it sends?

What bothers me is the obliviousness of Avedon’s time and also of this time.  Take the 60s, purportedly all about liberation and human rights. To his credit, Avedon was ahead of his time when he included women of color and women of emotion (including laughter!) in his work.  But for me, equating beauty with the impoverished bodies of his subjects doesn't bode freedom for women of his day.

I think of Scarlett O’hara getting her corset tightened up by the parlor maid in Gone With the Wind.  Miniscule waistline.  Poor little belly.  Poor diaphragm trying to breathe.  Poor Scarlett.