I’m really glad everyone is showing the appropriate concern for these women. I mean, it’s just not possible that two young women thought it would be fun to have a pretend photo session with a cute little monkey. That would never happen unless they had been exploited.
I mean, this was 1963. It’s not as if chimps where a common staple of TV and entertainment. That kimono where a popular item at them time has nothing to do with it either.
We need to read as much as possible in to this photo. Since none of us where there or know the truth of the event, it’s our responsibility to create a narrative using 2013 sensibilities.
rattypilgrim: Your observation is likely not far off the mark. Yes, the photo’s framing is also the framing eye of the photographer. It includes and excludes, parallels and deflects. It is an expression of the prejudices (or “choices,” as some may have it…) of the photographer. You see, in an odd way, the chimpanzee with the camera appears to operate as a mirror-proxy of and for the actual photographer–and the viewer of the photo–by creating a kind of simultaneous paralleling identification with (the camera chimp = photographer = you sharing the photo’s “eye”) and the deflecting away of attention from authorship and ownership of desire (you and the photographer are not chimps = not perverts) residing in the end photo. Kind of like the Wizard of Oz veiling identity and authorship behind the curtain while maintaining power.
I think that’s the reason you intuited a male photographer. I really don’t blame you, given the social context paralleling the era of black and white photography.
Deconstruction does not constitute “reading into.” As Derrida would have it, it is a form of Justice.
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Beautiful post. I hope it enlightened others to the concept of deconstruction and its social and political implications. It’s a way of looking for “truth” rather than accepting the narrative at face value. Thank you.
You are kind.
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