Smells Like Teen Spirit
OK – that’s probably not the best choice for a title to a post on a forum for people required to register as sex offenders, but hopefully most who saw it recognized it as the title of a 1991 song from the ‘Nevermind’ album, put out by the alternative grunge band Nirvana.
The Nevermind album was famous for two things, first, the success of it’s opening track, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that catapulted the band to success, and second, for it’s iconic album cover featuring a naked baby swimming towards a dollar on a fish hook. I really liked the song when it first came out (though the lyrics were quite difficult to comprehend) and similarly curious was the symbolism of the cover art, which was often interpreted to imply that from birth we have an inborn impulse to chase money. Cool.
Never did I consider the album cover to be child porn. Apparently neither did the 300,000 people PER WEEK who bought the album, driving it to number one in sales on the Billboard list in January of 1992. Nor did any law enforcement agent in the thirty years since the album has been out there, otherwise we’d have millions of CP possession convictions for it. I imagine that most people saw the artwork in the same context as Anne Geddes pictures of naked babies in flower pots, or that famous black and white poster “L’Enfant” by Spencer Rowell of the muscular guy holding a baby that hung in many a co-ed’s dorm when I was in college.
Never would I recognize the baby from the Nevermind cover if I bumped into him on the street, nor would I have reason to even know what his name was… except that NOW, Spencer Elden (that’s his name) is suing Nirvana band members, the record company and others, calling the images child pornography, claiming his ““true identity and legal name are forever tied to commercial sexual exploitation” and his complaint goes as far as to argue the dollar bill makes it seem as though Elden is “like a sex worker”.
I’m going to sidestep discussion on the lawsuit or Elden’s motivation behind it. In fairness, if he feels he was wronged I’m not about to victim blame. The purpose of this post is to comment on the subjective interpretation of the Nevermind album cover and how the same image can be perceived as totally innocent to one person, and child pornography to another.
in 1964, Justice Potter Stewart in the US Supreme Court decision in Jacobellis v. Ohio, famously described his threshold test for obscenity as “I know it when I see it”, . But clearly that can’t be the test if some people considered the album cover obscene, while most others didn’t think twice about it. In fact, according to Variety Magazine, lead singer Kurt Cobain, at the time, considered putting a sticker on the cover saying, “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.” In other words, using the test Justice Stewart applied, is the operative word “I” or “it” in the phrase “I know it when I see it”. Is it the image that’s obscene or is it the viewers perception of the image?
(Clearly there’s a line to cross in this analysis. If the album cover would have depicted Elden doing something sexual, that would have been obscene)
By now all of us have heard about parents who got arrested after bringing film to be developed, when the clerks come across pictures of their kids in a bath. My first reaction to hearing that has always been “what’s wrong with that guy?” Do some people really think that’s child pornography? If so, when did it become so? I imagine most of us who were born decades ago, have a picture of us getting our first bath in some album somewhere in our parent’s house. I’m sure none of our parents thought twice about it at the time, but nowadays I wonder how many are second-guessing themselves.
Can you imagine if Elden’s lawsuit makes it to the Supreme Court and Jacobellis v. Ohio gets revisited in this modern climate where everyone is so hyper-sensitive?
To be absolutely clear, nobody in this forum defends actual child sexual exploitation and we are all strongly against it. But if modern society has become so puritanical that people have to worry about being sued or prosecuted over an image that’s been floating around the public domain for 30 years without a second thought, Do you think it’s time we took down all those Renaissance paintings that have been hanging across most of the Museums in Europe for the last 600 years?
My problem is people today don’t see things as products of it’s time. Just because something maybe offensive today doesn’t mean it was at the time of production. Today people are so quick to get offended; which is fine but not everyone sees things the same way.
Will we ban childbirth because infants come into the world naked? How many infants are born wearing clothes? None we all came into the world naked and it shouldn’t be offensive. If it offensive to you than that’s on you, but don’t demand others to feel the same. Here comes the I’m offended comments.
I’m waiting for a doctor who delivered a baby to get charged with child molestation. Betting that won’t be too far off.
There was a lot of backlash a few years ago because Dakota Fanning filmed a rape scene for the movie Hound Dog, where all it showed was her face and no nudity.
So it got me thinking that the way our society is going, you would not even be able to deliver a baby Austin Powers style because simply implying nakedness would be CP
Smells like bovine excrement to me.
“Do you think it’s time we took down all those Renaissance paintings that have been hanging across most of the Museums in Europe for the last 600 years?” As a federal inmate convicted of possessing child pornography (even though there is no proof of actual minors, only speculation as to age), FBOP staff made clear to me that I could not even read or possess art books depicting Renaissance Era paintings of Baby Jesus because it would (not could) be interpreted as an ongoing sexual interest in children! This is how the feds think and this is why so many parents have been locked up for taking pictures of their babies in a bathtub and posting the “child porn” on Facebook.
Spencer Elden is not a victim. If anything, his family (back in 1991) had plenty of time to sue for COMPENSATION for use of their child’s photo. I’m not gonna buy for 1 hot second that they were not aware of an album cover of a band that was topping the charts.
Also, Elden himself had plenty of time to sue when he became an adult. So why now? And who the hell does he think even knows who he is based on a picture of a baby? All babies look alike until they start developing. This is a cash grab. Perhaps he fell on hard times and thought this would be a way to get an easy few million. This is absurd. This sh*t has to stop.
Please allow me to me skip this insane money-grab lawsuit issue completely and just address something the writer of this article said. I have a problem with the very first sentence of the article.
People Forced to Register (PFR) must stop caring or worrying about if their actions might appear to be sexually inappropriate. They certainly should never care what any Registry Ahole/Supporter/Terrorist (RAST) thinks. There is nothing wrong with PFRs yelling “Smells Like Teen Spirit” all the time.
If a PFR avoids certain activities or whatever, they are supporting the idea that it is appropriate for society to impose that upon them. They are giving legitimacy to insane ideas like “all PFRs should always avoid all children” or whatever nonsense (e.g. “areas where minors congregate”). That should never be allowed or accepted.
I expect there is a very tiny percentage of PFRs that SHOULD avoid certain activities, perhaps even ever being alone around children. Those people should do whatever they need to do to keep themselves and others safe. But certainly don’t let RASTs impose that on you. Do what you need to do but exclude them from any discussions or decision making. RASTs have unstable, dysfunctional brains and are not capable of the best, fact-based decisions.
Personally, I live a completely normal life and that means that I’m around children all the time. Heck, I’m often the adult that is responsible for them. I’m not going to worry what anyone thinks of that. In fact, I’ll go out of my way to do just about anything they fantasize I shouldn’t. That is what the Registries deserve.
The NY Times stated,
“He said that his feelings about the cover began to change “just a few months ago, when I was reaching out to Nirvana to see if they wanted to be part of my art show.”
Mr. Elden said he was referred to managers and lawyers.
“Why am I still on their cover if I’m not that big of a deal?” he said.”
Seema to me he’s trying to hurt the band because they snubbed him. It seems he wanted to use the band to promote his art and they turned him down.
Also I like Curt Cobain’s response to the pushback on the 1990s cover:
She noted that Mr. Cobain once suggested putting a sticker over the baby’s genitals after there was pushback to the idea for the cover.
The performer, who died in 1994, said the sticker should read: “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.”
One thing is for sure the price of that album just went up
It was released on 28 March 1973 by Atlantic Records/Led Zeppelin – Houses Of The Holy
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=H5Q77TLU&id=59B1EF00F27403D5E514C7E9EDEA8EC512A20156&thid=OIP.H5Q77TLU3MKwUkq7_Jul1AHaEO&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.geeksofdoom.com%2fGoD%2fimg%2f2013%2f04%2f2013-04-18-led_zeppelin_houses_of_the_holy.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.1f943bed32d4dcc2b0524abbfc9ba5d4%3frik%3dVgGiEsWO6u3pxw%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=1181&expw=2067&q=houses+of+the+holy+cover&simid=608040590397751280&FORM=IRPRST&ck=201B9B5D1FDAE41C4ADA548231365785&selectedIndex=0&idpp=overlayview&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
If the image was truly considered child porn, then why were the major news outlets re posting it? Did they just, in fact, create millions of felonies through transmitting CP? If the man wins the suit, wouldn’t the feds be obligated to open prosecutions on the news outlets and all of the recipients of that image? This is another example of why prosecuting CP possession is such an idiotic way of combating child sexual abuse – like dragnets scooping up dolphins. Real smart.