Margret: Chronicle of an Affair – May 1969 to December 1970
March 31, 2015 3:18 PM Subscribe
The briefcase was found three decades after the affair took place. The contents of the suitcase: an extraordinary collection of found materials that chronicled the adulterous relationship between a businessman and his secretary in the late 1960s and 70s.
Interesting. Thanks for posting this.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:23 PM on March 31, 2015
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:23 PM on March 31, 2015
I read this and kept wondering if they really meant "illusive." I'm still not sure. "Illusive" is kind of an illusive word like that.
posted by koeselitz at 3:30 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 3:30 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
I love this.
posted by jayder at 3:31 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jayder at 3:31 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Margret would be 70 now, so very possibly still alive. I wonder - did the make an attempt to contact her? How would she feel about these photos being here for all to see?
posted by anastasiav at 3:36 PM on March 31, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by anastasiav at 3:36 PM on March 31, 2015 [14 favorites]
...so German. I'd totally read this in book form.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:37 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Omnomnom at 3:37 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was hoping this was going to be an in-depth account of John Bindon and his tricks with beer glasses.
Sadly not...
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:38 PM on March 31, 2015
Sadly not...
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:38 PM on March 31, 2015
That's why her hair is so big.
It's full of secrets.
posted by The Whelk at 3:39 PM on March 31, 2015 [32 favorites]
It's full of secrets.
posted by The Whelk at 3:39 PM on March 31, 2015 [32 favorites]
Isn't there a chance the people mentioned are still alive, especially Margret S., who would be around 70 now? What about their children or relatives? What is their view on this "exhibition"?
And, its kind of funny that though the pictures of the lady are freely displayed, there is minimal information about the guy apart from a small part about him being a Cologne business man and construction company owner.
I wonder if those who are hosting the show made any effort to portray the guy and show his pics or provide any background information.
Its such a lopsided view of the entire thing from the guy's perspective that it seems that this was created by the guy just to brag and the exhibitors seem to be enabling him.
\"notches in the bedpost" taken to 11
posted by TheLittlePrince at 3:42 PM on March 31, 2015 [18 favorites]
And, its kind of funny that though the pictures of the lady are freely displayed, there is minimal information about the guy apart from a small part about him being a Cologne business man and construction company owner.
I wonder if those who are hosting the show made any effort to portray the guy and show his pics or provide any background information.
Its such a lopsided view of the entire thing from the guy's perspective that it seems that this was created by the guy just to brag and the exhibitors seem to be enabling him.
\"notches in the bedpost" taken to 11
posted by TheLittlePrince at 3:42 PM on March 31, 2015 [18 favorites]
Yeah, I'm a little uncomfortable with this. How is it okay to display other people's semi-nude photographs with the idea of "It's Art!" at all?
posted by corb at 3:44 PM on March 31, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by corb at 3:44 PM on March 31, 2015 [8 favorites]
Ick. Reminds me of one of John Fowles' creepiest books, The Collector. Because that is what this guy did -- he acquired her like a butterfly, then reveled in his pretty sexy possession. His indifference to her feelings as a person is what jumps out at me.
posted by bearwife at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by bearwife at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2015 [15 favorites]
And, its kind of funny that though the pictures of the lady are freely displayed, there is minimal information about the guy apart from a small part about him being a Cologne business man and construction company owner.
There's another small part of him that's obscured with a lilac star, but I'm unclear on if that's in the actual exhibit or just for our eyes reading this on the web.
posted by ODiV at 3:47 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's another small part of him that's obscured with a lilac star, but I'm unclear on if that's in the actual exhibit or just for our eyes reading this on the web.
posted by ODiV at 3:47 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Isn't there a chance the people mentioned are still alive, especially Margret S., who would be around 70 now?
Nope: "Zander, asked to research, found that Günther and Margret had died." No word on what their kids would say, but someone did the research to ensure the primary subjects wouldn't be harmed directly.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 3:54 PM on March 31, 2015 [9 favorites]
Nope: "Zander, asked to research, found that Günther and Margret had died." No word on what their kids would say, but someone did the research to ensure the primary subjects wouldn't be harmed directly.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 3:54 PM on March 31, 2015 [9 favorites]
The fact that this is a German story is evocative for me. It reminds me of the excellent film The Lives of Others, a film about the intimate spying of a Stasi agent in East Germany. It has much the same uncomfortable voyeuristic quality. Although then all the people are also miserable; at least Margret looks happy in the photos, radiant in some.
posted by Nelson at 3:58 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 3:58 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
I love this. Sometimes you can know someone, and then it is gone. These pictures put me in mind of what intimacy is, and how youthful love used to feel. The images opened some time portal and immediately took me back to how intensely I "felt" in those years. Then he made a time capsule...I imagine this gallery show is powerful.
posted by Oyéah at 4:07 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 4:07 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm all for freedom and letting people do what they want, but I find this entire thing completely depressing.
posted by freakazoid at 4:13 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by freakazoid at 4:13 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
This seems wrong to me. The artist has no right to take the intimate details of the lives of these subjects and out them on display. There was no consent to the intrusion. The participants were not public officials or celebrities. The artist is also appropriating the private art work (writings and photographs) produced by the husband and issued them as his own work. The so called artist behind the exhibit is nothing more than a curator turned plagarist.
posted by humanfont at 4:28 PM on March 31, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 4:28 PM on March 31, 2015 [10 favorites]
Günther was not Anne Frank, nor was he Samuel Pepys: one can't claim historical value for this exhibit. Titillating stuff, though.
I imagine that the search for Günther or Margret was conducted while contemplating copyright law. And with no survivors, this haul of documentation is perfect as "found art" -- strangely, the artist isn't mentioned in the linked article.
posted by fredludd at 4:32 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
I imagine that the search for Günther or Margret was conducted while contemplating copyright law. And with no survivors, this haul of documentation is perfect as "found art" -- strangely, the artist isn't mentioned in the linked article.
posted by fredludd at 4:32 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
As fascinating as this is, I'm not sure we should be seeing it. I was just reading about how German privacy laws were so strict they couldn't show a suspect's house on TV, and yet here's this. If I could be sure there were no living children (or living ex-husband) to be hurt by this, I would feel better.
I'm all for freedom and letting people do what they want, but I find this entire thing completely depressing.
Honestly. This was during a grim interval between the discovery of effective contraception and the full social emancipation of women -- if indeed we are there yet. This man was clearly a manipulative misogynist who took pleasure in controlling women, with gifts and kindness as much as with pain. As I began to look at the pictures, I hoped that these were the chronicles of a man in love, who wanted to photograph her because he was never tired of looking at her. The truth is uglier.
If you squint and look at her face, not that ridiculous beehive that we now associate with old women in Far Side cartoons, Margret looks quite young. She seems to have had a rough life, with the young marriage and the three illegal abortions. I hope she stopped playing with fire and found some happiness.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:34 PM on March 31, 2015 [10 favorites]
I'm all for freedom and letting people do what they want, but I find this entire thing completely depressing.
Honestly. This was during a grim interval between the discovery of effective contraception and the full social emancipation of women -- if indeed we are there yet. This man was clearly a manipulative misogynist who took pleasure in controlling women, with gifts and kindness as much as with pain. As I began to look at the pictures, I hoped that these were the chronicles of a man in love, who wanted to photograph her because he was never tired of looking at her. The truth is uglier.
If you squint and look at her face, not that ridiculous beehive that we now associate with old women in Far Side cartoons, Margret looks quite young. She seems to have had a rough life, with the young marriage and the three illegal abortions. I hope she stopped playing with fire and found some happiness.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:34 PM on March 31, 2015 [10 favorites]
This seems wrong to me. The artist has no right to take the intimate details of the lives of these subjects and out them on display.
They're dead. We take the letters and private writings of people from past centuries and put them on public display all the time. Why is it OK to publish the private thoughts of people from the 19th century, and not the 20th?
posted by happyroach at 4:39 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
They're dead. We take the letters and private writings of people from past centuries and put them on public display all the time. Why is it OK to publish the private thoughts of people from the 19th century, and not the 20th?
posted by happyroach at 4:39 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Something about this is twigging me:
I think the whole thing is art—that is to say, a work of fiction.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:46 PM on March 31, 2015 [12 favorites]
The exhibition – and a subsequent publication - consists of the photographs, documents and objects that were found three decades later in a briefcase abandoned in a German apartment.It's too vague and too perfect. If you saw the phrase "an American apartment," you'd think, "Well, what part of the country? What city?" This reminds me too much of the "buried city" on Governor's Island that Jason Kottke fell for, or the claim by the creators of "Sleep No More" that it's housed in an abandoned hotel called the McKittrick Hotel (actually a set of former warehouses that used to be home to a series of nightclubs).
I think the whole thing is art—that is to say, a work of fiction.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:46 PM on March 31, 2015 [12 favorites]
The typewritten notes are efficient, thorough and matter-of-fact. Very German.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:49 PM on March 31, 2015
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:49 PM on March 31, 2015
This is being put in front of me to...judge? To leer? To take a vacation in someone else's misery/elicit thrills/lack of shame or contrition? Sorry. I don't mean to judge the actions of these people from 45 years ago, but the bit I quote below can never be right unless all parties consent to it as some kind of agreed-upon "play":
posted by mosk at 4:51 PM on March 31, 2015 [7 favorites]
Monday 7.9.1970: At lunch Leni (Günthers wife) says to Margret: Madame, you are a lesser character, you are disrupting a good marriage.Uh...yeah, no. Sorry, that's just all kinds of gross to me and seems to cross a line from "cheating, DGAF" to "cheating, then rubbing the wife's nose in it".
Tuesday 8.9.1970: Around 10 a clock Margret says to me: You let this insult from your wife against me pass? No more sex, you can jump on your own wife. Whatever you do, you are not allowed to jump on me anymore.
Later, my wife has to apologize to her at lunch on 8.9.1970. (emphasis mine)
That afternoon they go upstairs again to make love and the note ends with:
Devil salad is eaten. Everything is okay again.
posted by mosk at 4:51 PM on March 31, 2015 [7 favorites]
I'm all for freedom and letting people do what they want, but I find this entire thing completely depressing.
Yep, I've no interest in hearing more about people being assholes. There's enough of that going around as it is.
Affairs aren't fucking glamorous, they're mostly sad and pathetic.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:55 PM on March 31, 2015 [9 favorites]
Yep, I've no interest in hearing more about people being assholes. There's enough of that going around as it is.
Affairs aren't fucking glamorous, they're mostly sad and pathetic.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:55 PM on March 31, 2015 [9 favorites]
I wonder if "devil salad" was a dish, or an expression, as in "eating one's words" or "eating crow."
Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell, that's definitely an idea. But there is a dull, faded authenticity, acid-containing paper decaying and so forth, that I find convincing. It did say Gunter was from Cologne, which is one place this might have been, anyway.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:59 PM on March 31, 2015
Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell, that's definitely an idea. But there is a dull, faded authenticity, acid-containing paper decaying and so forth, that I find convincing. It did say Gunter was from Cologne, which is one place this might have been, anyway.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:59 PM on March 31, 2015
The more I read about this, the more I think we're getting put on. For instance:
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 5:01 PM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
'The quality of the photographs is amazing, even if it’s clear that were made by an amateur, albeit evidently gifted, photographer.Again, just too perfect.
Both Margret and Gunter are believed to be dead.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 5:01 PM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
Why is it OK to publish the private thoughts of people from the 19th century, and not the 20th?
In one of my university classes, we were discussing a piece that Alex Kozinski wrote based on Asimov's The Dead Past and we spent a bit of time talking about when, precisely, the present becomes the past. The story and the article are most concerned with a more immediate form of the past, but any kind of looking back over present life spans presents problems.
The fact that they did ascertain that these people are dead does a lot to make this seem better, but the fact that it's recent enough that their death had to be ascertained makes it still kind of iffy. They may be dead, but they may also still have children who didn't need to discover by way of this exhibit that their parents were cheaters.
Also, Germany's copyright term is life plus 70 years. So, displaying the physical objects in a gallery might be okay, but the book about them seems problematic. I suppose if they cleared copyright with the heirs, that might also make it slightly less squicky because at least then there'd be some sense that the children cooperated.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:07 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
In one of my university classes, we were discussing a piece that Alex Kozinski wrote based on Asimov's The Dead Past and we spent a bit of time talking about when, precisely, the present becomes the past. The story and the article are most concerned with a more immediate form of the past, but any kind of looking back over present life spans presents problems.
The fact that they did ascertain that these people are dead does a lot to make this seem better, but the fact that it's recent enough that their death had to be ascertained makes it still kind of iffy. They may be dead, but they may also still have children who didn't need to discover by way of this exhibit that their parents were cheaters.
Also, Germany's copyright term is life plus 70 years. So, displaying the physical objects in a gallery might be okay, but the book about them seems problematic. I suppose if they cleared copyright with the heirs, that might also make it slightly less squicky because at least then there'd be some sense that the children cooperated.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:07 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
> It's too vague and too perfect
I think that there's some likelihood that this is, indeed, fiction. However, I always prefer to have an opportunity to pontificate about voyeurism or other minor evils.
posted by fredludd at 5:08 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think that there's some likelihood that this is, indeed, fiction. However, I always prefer to have an opportunity to pontificate about voyeurism or other minor evils.
posted by fredludd at 5:08 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm in NYC, so I may go down to this gallery to check out this exhibition. I'll report back if I do, though I suspect that if this is a put-on, they're not exactly gonna give that away.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 5:12 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 5:12 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
The German book is very real and held by several libraries in the USA. I find it more likely that the curators have left out details that wouldn't mean much to an American audience (e.g. the name of a small German town where these photos were found) than that they invented it whole-cloth.
Still raises questions about copyright etc. but perhaps they're just banking on the heirs not noticing/realizing their rights.
posted by crazy with stars at 5:20 PM on March 31, 2015
Still raises questions about copyright etc. but perhaps they're just banking on the heirs not noticing/realizing their rights.
posted by crazy with stars at 5:20 PM on March 31, 2015
I kind of took it for granted these were fictive/ made up. No maybe I thought this could only be interesting if it was made up because as a real thing - maybe I've gotten old but I don't wanna gawk at the car accident. The allusion up thread to The Collector is right on the money. As a fictional creation it's somehow more bearable.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:23 PM on March 31, 2015
posted by From Bklyn at 5:23 PM on March 31, 2015
Mefi, I love you but you're bringing me down
Ignoring the obvious joke on this clown
You know who else kept meticulous records?
posted by kokaku at 5:35 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ignoring the obvious joke on this clown
You know who else kept meticulous records?
posted by kokaku at 5:35 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think that there's some likelihood that this is, indeed, fiction. However, I always prefer to have an opportunity to pontificate about voyeurism or other minor evils.
I think it is fiction, and that this debate is exactly why the artist created it.
posted by lollusc at 5:40 PM on March 31, 2015
I think it is fiction, and that this debate is exactly why the artist created it.
posted by lollusc at 5:40 PM on March 31, 2015
In 1970 you had to be a fairly well to do businessman to obsessively chronicle your misdeeds in this detail.
Nowadays anybody with a phone can do it.
posted by localroger at 5:42 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Nowadays anybody with a phone can do it.
posted by localroger at 5:42 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
This man was clearly a manipulative misogynist who took pleasure in controlling women, with gifts and kindness as much as with pain.
Without additional context, there's nothing clear about that - it's just speculation.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:44 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
Without additional context, there's nothing clear about that - it's just speculation.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:44 PM on March 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
No word on what their kids would say,
Like the book 'The Bridges of Madison County'?
(Now I'm reminded of the Doonesbury version. "They laughed when I planted rice in the back 40...")
posted by ovvl at 6:16 PM on March 31, 2015
Like the book 'The Bridges of Madison County'?
(Now I'm reminded of the Doonesbury version. "They laughed when I planted rice in the back 40...")
posted by ovvl at 6:16 PM on March 31, 2015
I don't know why anyone would think this is fictional - it's just like any affair. I was about her age in 1969/70 and wore the same clothes, a similar hairdo, and slept with men sometimes, though I don't recall anyone taking so many photos.
The article mentions her "mousy brown hair" converting to a "fiery red beehive." I don't see any "mousy brown hair" at all - her hair is red and she obviously tints it to make it a shade of red she likes better, but she has freckles and the pink skin that goes with red hair; I tinted my hair, too - and mine was mousy brown - I used an auburn tint, trying to get some color in it, but my hair never got as red as hers - it wasn't meant to be. Her hairstyle isn't a true beehive - when it's shorter in length it's what was called a "bubble" and as it grew out it got bigger because she used larger rollers in it - that's all. She actually slept on these huge round rollers, sometimew with bristle brushes inside them; then she'd comb it all out, "tease" it by backcombing it, put the curls where she wanted them and then hairspray the heck out of the whole thing. The main difference in the bubble and the beehive was the curl - most beehives were more cone-shaped and had less prominent large curls.
Notice how in all the nasty/nude pics of her she's still wearing clothing to cover her nakedness. She wears a bra and panty hose! Yes, panty hose were considered sexy - to some degree - then. And she wears underwear under her panty hose - we all did, contrary to what the term "panty" hose sounds like.
I was a secretary for many years and had plenty of chances for this same arrangement, but I avoided it because I didn't want to lose my job when it was over, not because I wasn't attracted to my boss - I had a couple of capital-G gorgeous bosses, let me tell you. And others who weren't - plenty of those, too. As for my marriage, my husband was sleeping with so many women he couldn't keep them straight - I knew it and it hurt, badly, but that issue had to resolve itself and I wasn't about to live the same lie he was.
She's a young woman looking for love - for whatever reason, her marriage wasn't doing it - and this man made her think he loved her; in fact, I think in some ways he did love her, which is why he kept all those photos - he couldn't get enough of her. And the truth is that people can and do love more than one person over their lifetimes, sometimes at the same time. It just seems to me that lust alone is rarely satisfied by someone wearing clothing, and I notice that she is often fully dressed in these photos.
I'm sorry the pictures ever surfaced because this affair should have remained private - it should never be subjected to the slavering of the internet hounds.
In my estimation, there is no reason to consider this man a "manipulative misognyist" - none. More likely he was a man in an unhappy marriage who couldn't afford to change that situation, from the standpoint of finances OR position, and she was a young woman in an unhappy marriage who felt cared for and cherished by an older man. That's an affair - not a malicious, one-way manipulation.
posted by aryma at 6:19 PM on March 31, 2015 [35 favorites]
The article mentions her "mousy brown hair" converting to a "fiery red beehive." I don't see any "mousy brown hair" at all - her hair is red and she obviously tints it to make it a shade of red she likes better, but she has freckles and the pink skin that goes with red hair; I tinted my hair, too - and mine was mousy brown - I used an auburn tint, trying to get some color in it, but my hair never got as red as hers - it wasn't meant to be. Her hairstyle isn't a true beehive - when it's shorter in length it's what was called a "bubble" and as it grew out it got bigger because she used larger rollers in it - that's all. She actually slept on these huge round rollers, sometimew with bristle brushes inside them; then she'd comb it all out, "tease" it by backcombing it, put the curls where she wanted them and then hairspray the heck out of the whole thing. The main difference in the bubble and the beehive was the curl - most beehives were more cone-shaped and had less prominent large curls.
Notice how in all the nasty/nude pics of her she's still wearing clothing to cover her nakedness. She wears a bra and panty hose! Yes, panty hose were considered sexy - to some degree - then. And she wears underwear under her panty hose - we all did, contrary to what the term "panty" hose sounds like.
I was a secretary for many years and had plenty of chances for this same arrangement, but I avoided it because I didn't want to lose my job when it was over, not because I wasn't attracted to my boss - I had a couple of capital-G gorgeous bosses, let me tell you. And others who weren't - plenty of those, too. As for my marriage, my husband was sleeping with so many women he couldn't keep them straight - I knew it and it hurt, badly, but that issue had to resolve itself and I wasn't about to live the same lie he was.
She's a young woman looking for love - for whatever reason, her marriage wasn't doing it - and this man made her think he loved her; in fact, I think in some ways he did love her, which is why he kept all those photos - he couldn't get enough of her. And the truth is that people can and do love more than one person over their lifetimes, sometimes at the same time. It just seems to me that lust alone is rarely satisfied by someone wearing clothing, and I notice that she is often fully dressed in these photos.
I'm sorry the pictures ever surfaced because this affair should have remained private - it should never be subjected to the slavering of the internet hounds.
In my estimation, there is no reason to consider this man a "manipulative misognyist" - none. More likely he was a man in an unhappy marriage who couldn't afford to change that situation, from the standpoint of finances OR position, and she was a young woman in an unhappy marriage who felt cared for and cherished by an older man. That's an affair - not a malicious, one-way manipulation.
posted by aryma at 6:19 PM on March 31, 2015 [35 favorites]
Chronicle of an Affair – May 1969 to December 1970
Hmmm.
Starting to haves some doubts about the veracity of the thing.
posted by lord_wolf at 6:36 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
Hmmm.
Starting to haves some doubts about the veracity of the thing.
posted by lord_wolf at 6:36 PM on March 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
That's an affair - not a malicious, one-way manipulation.
When one party's on the uphill side of a 15-year age gap, a reproductive-consequences gap and a clearly significant wealth gap, it gets a lot harder to assert that. I know it was common enough, but it wasn't less predatory for that.
Still, your comment illustrates a lot about the way people constructed these kinds of relationships at the time.
posted by Miko at 6:47 PM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
When one party's on the uphill side of a 15-year age gap, a reproductive-consequences gap and a clearly significant wealth gap, it gets a lot harder to assert that. I know it was common enough, but it wasn't less predatory for that.
Still, your comment illustrates a lot about the way people constructed these kinds of relationships at the time.
posted by Miko at 6:47 PM on March 31, 2015 [6 favorites]
...and then there was a women's movement.
posted by Miko at 7:03 PM on March 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Miko at 7:03 PM on March 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
aryma: "I don't know why anyone would think this is fictional - it's just like any affair.
The verisimilitude is not what's twigging me. In fact, I agree, a lot of it feels quite real. But the whole thing just seems too perfect, and so many of the key details are vague. It just feels like art to me, not a found documentary.
Notice how in all the nasty/nude pics of her she's still wearing clothing to cover her nakedness. She wears a bra and panty hose!
There are other pics that are more revealing, like this topless one.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:07 PM on March 31, 2015
The verisimilitude is not what's twigging me. In fact, I agree, a lot of it feels quite real. But the whole thing just seems too perfect, and so many of the key details are vague. It just feels like art to me, not a found documentary.
Notice how in all the nasty/nude pics of her she's still wearing clothing to cover her nakedness. She wears a bra and panty hose!
There are other pics that are more revealing, like this topless one.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 7:07 PM on March 31, 2015
I wonder if the pics were Polaroids. Getting naked pics developed was a substantial risk at the time.
posted by localroger at 8:06 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by localroger at 8:06 PM on March 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
The quality of the pictures? The Germans have been making great cameras for a long time. I was given a Brownie camera in Germany in1956, at six I took good pictures, a roll a week. Developed at the OSI crime lab. By the late sixties, great amateur pictures out of German cameras, no problem. I still have my black and whites. I remember having some of those knit tights. I have been meaning to rewatch Last Tango in Paris, I think it is much darker than this exhibit.
posted by Oyéah at 8:30 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 8:30 PM on March 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
And, its kind of funny that though the pictures of the lady are freely displayed, there is minimal information about the guy apart from a small part about him being a Cologne business man and construction company owner.
So assuming that this entire thing isn't just an artistic construct... he... took the pictures? This was the only stuff found, and it didn't include any pictures of him? A few days ago i was looking through all the photos from my various old cameras, scanned in film and digital, and realized i'm in almost none of them. You know, because i was taking the pictures.
It's not like they could just go check his instagram and find pictures of him sitting on the bumper of his opel showing off his new jordans either, it's pretty damn hard to find pictures of people who weren't online nowadays. They might exist in a box in someones house somewhere, but that may very well be it. I guess they could have put up a copy of his ID/passport if its even possible to get that?
This just kinda strikes me as an indictment of this being some slimy misogynistic thing when it's just... the photos and info they had available. It's a snapshot out of time, and that's interesting in and of itself.
I think it's interesting because it's not something you usually get to see like this, and i love the style displayed in the pictures. It isn't devoid of artistic or intrinsic value just because it's a bit titillating.
I'm also partially on team "this is fake and all this stuff was made like a month ago or something". My friend, a woman who primarily takes pictures of women, has a style very similar to this. I don't necessarily agree with the "technical quality of the photos was impossible" point(have you seen photos from a leica M3? it utterly annihilates my state of the art a year or so ago higher end sony), but the actual composition/skill/etc displayed is definitely very very good.
Dammit though mefi, making me feel like shit for defending something like this when i seriously think this kind of thing can be fine and that believing that doesn't make me a shit person.
posted by emptythought at 5:16 AM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
So assuming that this entire thing isn't just an artistic construct... he... took the pictures? This was the only stuff found, and it didn't include any pictures of him? A few days ago i was looking through all the photos from my various old cameras, scanned in film and digital, and realized i'm in almost none of them. You know, because i was taking the pictures.
It's not like they could just go check his instagram and find pictures of him sitting on the bumper of his opel showing off his new jordans either, it's pretty damn hard to find pictures of people who weren't online nowadays. They might exist in a box in someones house somewhere, but that may very well be it. I guess they could have put up a copy of his ID/passport if its even possible to get that?
This just kinda strikes me as an indictment of this being some slimy misogynistic thing when it's just... the photos and info they had available. It's a snapshot out of time, and that's interesting in and of itself.
I think it's interesting because it's not something you usually get to see like this, and i love the style displayed in the pictures. It isn't devoid of artistic or intrinsic value just because it's a bit titillating.
I'm also partially on team "this is fake and all this stuff was made like a month ago or something". My friend, a woman who primarily takes pictures of women, has a style very similar to this. I don't necessarily agree with the "technical quality of the photos was impossible" point(have you seen photos from a leica M3? it utterly annihilates my state of the art a year or so ago higher end sony), but the actual composition/skill/etc displayed is definitely very very good.
Dammit though mefi, making me feel like shit for defending something like this when i seriously think this kind of thing can be fine and that believing that doesn't make me a shit person.
posted by emptythought at 5:16 AM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
The problem from my perspective is that this exhibit is just a limited voyeuristic view into a woman's life, a woman who was in an affair. And this view is also pretty distorted by the fact that it has been created by just one person who was more interested in treating the woman as trophy and has a bit creepy way of keeping records.
The exhibition would have been so much better if there were glimpses in to the lives of the two people outside of the affair. How did Margret live her normal life? What were her likes and dislikes? How did this affair affect her world view? Did others in her life know about this affair? What were their reactions? etc etc ..
Similarly, the exhibition would have been much improved by a complete portrait of the guy. What kind of person was he? What kind of leader was he? What was the perception of his co-workers? What was his perception in the society? What was his wife's reaction to this?
If we are going to put some very private sections of people's lives in public view, its our duty to provide some context and background to frame the discussion. Otherwise, its just another way of a teenager telling his friend "hey, I found these pics of Mrs. S. Look at this pic. She was something wild when young, wasn't she?"
With a "best intentions" interpretations, the exhibition is very lazy. It gives us a limited, biased and context free view into contents of a briefcase.
With a "worst intentions" interpretations, by not providing the context, the exhibition is continuing a dead man's penchant to creepily record and display his sexual conquests.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 7:03 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
The exhibition would have been so much better if there were glimpses in to the lives of the two people outside of the affair. How did Margret live her normal life? What were her likes and dislikes? How did this affair affect her world view? Did others in her life know about this affair? What were their reactions? etc etc ..
Similarly, the exhibition would have been much improved by a complete portrait of the guy. What kind of person was he? What kind of leader was he? What was the perception of his co-workers? What was his perception in the society? What was his wife's reaction to this?
If we are going to put some very private sections of people's lives in public view, its our duty to provide some context and background to frame the discussion. Otherwise, its just another way of a teenager telling his friend "hey, I found these pics of Mrs. S. Look at this pic. She was something wild when young, wasn't she?"
With a "best intentions" interpretations, the exhibition is very lazy. It gives us a limited, biased and context free view into contents of a briefcase.
With a "worst intentions" interpretations, by not providing the context, the exhibition is continuing a dead man's penchant to creepily record and display his sexual conquests.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 7:03 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Countess Elena: "I wonder if "devil salad" was a dish, or an expression, as in "eating one's words" or "eating crow.""Devil's Salad previously.
posted by brokkr at 7:58 AM on April 1, 2015
As someone who spends a lot of time in archives and owns a bunch of a person's personal effects left behind in a move, I think this is fascinating.
IMO, it's what you don't have, the unanswered questions, the lack of the man in the photos that makes it this intimate and interesting collection. It's myopic and intimate and springs directly from the man's imagination and manipulation. Having outside information and a photo of him diminishes that. It is perfect in its imperfection. The incompleteness, the dissatisfaction in the viewer, the unanswerable is what makes it interesting and therefore art.
Yes, he probably was a misogynist (many men were/are). He absolutely is objectifying her in the extreme. Yes, it's gross that he made his wife apologize for stating a fact. It's gross that he kept this collection. But grotesquerie doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen.
As far as rights to privacy? You don't get privacy when you leave stuff behind after you die. And since the man didn't burn his collection, I doubt he had any lack of knowledge that someone even close to him might find it.
posted by RedEmma at 9:22 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
IMO, it's what you don't have, the unanswered questions, the lack of the man in the photos that makes it this intimate and interesting collection. It's myopic and intimate and springs directly from the man's imagination and manipulation. Having outside information and a photo of him diminishes that. It is perfect in its imperfection. The incompleteness, the dissatisfaction in the viewer, the unanswerable is what makes it interesting and therefore art.
Yes, he probably was a misogynist (many men were/are). He absolutely is objectifying her in the extreme. Yes, it's gross that he made his wife apologize for stating a fact. It's gross that he kept this collection. But grotesquerie doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen.
As far as rights to privacy? You don't get privacy when you leave stuff behind after you die. And since the man didn't burn his collection, I doubt he had any lack of knowledge that someone even close to him might find it.
posted by RedEmma at 9:22 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is also perhaps more outragey for me because I've lost stuff in moves, at times incredibly intimate things, like photos of exes and journals of relationships. And the idea that that stuff could be put on display for the funsies is just really upsetting.
posted by corb at 9:44 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 9:44 AM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
...and then there was a women's movement
And even then some women chose to have affairs with older men, reproductive consequences notwithstanding. Because pre- and post-women's movement, women are not always victims with no desires or agency and men are not always predatory. I don't feel as bad about the fact that her private pictures are public as much as the fact that people are assuming he used her. It feels more cruel to strip their feelings from the affair than to see her undressed.
posted by billiebee at 11:03 AM on April 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
And even then some women chose to have affairs with older men, reproductive consequences notwithstanding. Because pre- and post-women's movement, women are not always victims with no desires or agency and men are not always predatory. I don't feel as bad about the fact that her private pictures are public as much as the fact that people are assuming he used her. It feels more cruel to strip their feelings from the affair than to see her undressed.
posted by billiebee at 11:03 AM on April 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
This is also perhaps more outragey for me because I've lost stuff in moves, at times incredibly intimate things, like photos of exes and journals of relationships. And the idea that that stuff could be put on display for the funsies is just really upsetting.
I don't understand this attitude.
Lots of people seem more concerned about the moral implications of exposing a recently-deceased person's private life to public scrutiny, that (I suspect) they would not have if this were, say, a record of a medieval relationship that had recently come to light.
I'm very interested in the records of ordinary people's lives; I think it is tragic how, when ordinary people die, they fade so quickly from memory and the world moves on.
If she weren't deceased, I could imagine the woman who is the subject of this exhibition being actually touched and gratified that her moments of intimacy and pleasure were of such interest to the public. It is not a foregone conclusion that older people are ashamed of their youthful romantic dalliances. Documents like this are extremely important records of ordinary lives that usually don't get preserved in such painstaking detail.
There was a question here on Metafilter years ago, where someone was asking whether they should throw out their old diaries. I was shocked by how many Mefites came in to say things like "throw 'em out, who could possibly be interested in them?" I think meticulous documents of an ordinary life are inherently valuable, no matter how embarrassing or triggering they may be for those of us who attribute some privacy interest to the deceased person.
And, well, as for people like Miko who come in to tut-tut about the power differential in this relationship. Whatever. It's just as possible that this woman's affair with this man was the time of her life, and it's rather presumptuous to think we know better.
posted by jayder at 3:16 PM on April 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't understand this attitude.
Lots of people seem more concerned about the moral implications of exposing a recently-deceased person's private life to public scrutiny, that (I suspect) they would not have if this were, say, a record of a medieval relationship that had recently come to light.
I'm very interested in the records of ordinary people's lives; I think it is tragic how, when ordinary people die, they fade so quickly from memory and the world moves on.
If she weren't deceased, I could imagine the woman who is the subject of this exhibition being actually touched and gratified that her moments of intimacy and pleasure were of such interest to the public. It is not a foregone conclusion that older people are ashamed of their youthful romantic dalliances. Documents like this are extremely important records of ordinary lives that usually don't get preserved in such painstaking detail.
There was a question here on Metafilter years ago, where someone was asking whether they should throw out their old diaries. I was shocked by how many Mefites came in to say things like "throw 'em out, who could possibly be interested in them?" I think meticulous documents of an ordinary life are inherently valuable, no matter how embarrassing or triggering they may be for those of us who attribute some privacy interest to the deceased person.
And, well, as for people like Miko who come in to tut-tut about the power differential in this relationship. Whatever. It's just as possible that this woman's affair with this man was the time of her life, and it's rather presumptuous to think we know better.
posted by jayder at 3:16 PM on April 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
If you asked a whole bunch of people if they'd like to have naked and near naked pictures of them which documented their extra-marital affair splashed all over the internet, what percentage do you suppose would actually agree?
Sure, it's possible that these people would actually have no problem with this. But is it probable?
posted by jacquilynne at 3:54 PM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sure, it's possible that these people would actually have no problem with this. But is it probable?
posted by jacquilynne at 3:54 PM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's pretty definite they don't have a problem with it, seeing as how they're dead and all. Would they have had a problem with it while they were still alive is a completely different question, and totally moot, since that didn't happen. If near-naked photos of me were on the Internet now I'd die (although tbh no one would want to see them). But after I'm dead? Knock yourself out.
posted by billiebee at 4:10 PM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by billiebee at 4:10 PM on April 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes, but the children and other spouses may still be alive.
posted by corb at 4:20 PM on April 1, 2015
posted by corb at 4:20 PM on April 1, 2015
I'm trying not to roll my eyes here, since everyone hates it when the other guy is rolling his/her eyes, but consider the current almost-daily uproar about someone's nude "selfies" being leaked into cyberspace and enjoyed by thousands upon thousands of people. These are photos that people took of themselves, fully nude, trying their best to look sexy and enticing.
And here we are muttering about photos of a young woman taken 45 years ago by her lover, most of which show her fully clothed - definitely wearing more than a bikini would reveal today. And she knew her boyfriend took the pictures - what did she think he was going to do with them? She undoubtedly thought he'd keep them to himself, which he probably did, as long as he lived. But would she be horrified, now that they're both dead, to see these photos and this story hit the internet? I can't imagine why she would do anything other than to laugh and say, "See how I was when I was young? Beautiful, wasn't I?"
As for the age difference, sometime in their 20s most people enlarge their circle of friends - and lovers - to include people who are not in the same age bracket; IOW, once you're out of high school you can choose to love whoever you wish. She obviously felt safe with this man or she wouldn't have let him take the pictures and do whatever else he did - maybe she enjoyed being cared for by someone who was delighted that someone so young and fresh could love him. Who on earth knows? What difference does it make? They were happy being who they were.
As for her children still being alive - yes, so are mine. They're nearly 50 now and their own love-life is a bit tawdry - it would be difficult for them to point fingers at my indiscretions when I was in my 20s without looking damn hypocritical and silly, really. My granddaughter has seen pictures of my own from those days and she teases me about being a "hottie" and a "hippie" and a "gypsy" and whatever else. Why would I think my kids or my grandkids would be surprised to find that I'd slept with someone or had an affair with someone so many years ago? I'd expect them to be extremely surprised if I hadn't. I don't pretend any connection to angels.
We didn't have much porn then - men kept their Playboy and Hustler magazines tucked away someplace, and we didn't have the internet or smart phones to display our nakedness, but we did have sex and to deny that would be ludicrous considering that that's how newbies arrive in this world. The 60s and early 70s were the years of free love, remember? "Make Love, Not War" - good advice, really - sex had come out of the closet and was openly talked about and people touched and kissed in public and boy-o-boy was that something new when compared to the phony, appearance-focused 50s. Years later, gay people came out of the closet and now trans people are doing the same thing - YAY for all! - but in the 60s it was just trying to get the word "sex" into circulation, if you can believe that.
The pendulum swings and then swings back. In fact, it was only a few years ago that I found out what "going commando" meant - not that I was shocked - there are a kazillion new terms, even if they're just new words for old behaviors; you might notice that this girl is wearing pants AND panty hose and still it's sexy enough he takes her picture in a classic sexual pose.
Women's Lib was just getting off the ground in the late 60s and it was pretty well limited to big urban areas for the most part. Bra-burners were on the TV and there were marchers and banner waving and it was a very good, good thing in that the focus was on putting an end to domestic violence and establishing the basic rights of a woman to earn equal pay for equal work and to be treated decently. It wasn't a new idea - women had earned the right to vote by the same methods - but it was very important work and I supported it - most everyone did. What was not a part of the early Women's Lib, or at least it wasn't a big part of it overall, was the idea that men were 100% at fault for the problems of women; at that time, women and men enjoyed life in their own way, even down to having passionate affairs, without creating much of a fuss - and they discussed women's rights and the space race and the cold war and Nixon.
posted by aryma at 6:35 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
And here we are muttering about photos of a young woman taken 45 years ago by her lover, most of which show her fully clothed - definitely wearing more than a bikini would reveal today. And she knew her boyfriend took the pictures - what did she think he was going to do with them? She undoubtedly thought he'd keep them to himself, which he probably did, as long as he lived. But would she be horrified, now that they're both dead, to see these photos and this story hit the internet? I can't imagine why she would do anything other than to laugh and say, "See how I was when I was young? Beautiful, wasn't I?"
As for the age difference, sometime in their 20s most people enlarge their circle of friends - and lovers - to include people who are not in the same age bracket; IOW, once you're out of high school you can choose to love whoever you wish. She obviously felt safe with this man or she wouldn't have let him take the pictures and do whatever else he did - maybe she enjoyed being cared for by someone who was delighted that someone so young and fresh could love him. Who on earth knows? What difference does it make? They were happy being who they were.
As for her children still being alive - yes, so are mine. They're nearly 50 now and their own love-life is a bit tawdry - it would be difficult for them to point fingers at my indiscretions when I was in my 20s without looking damn hypocritical and silly, really. My granddaughter has seen pictures of my own from those days and she teases me about being a "hottie" and a "hippie" and a "gypsy" and whatever else. Why would I think my kids or my grandkids would be surprised to find that I'd slept with someone or had an affair with someone so many years ago? I'd expect them to be extremely surprised if I hadn't. I don't pretend any connection to angels.
We didn't have much porn then - men kept their Playboy and Hustler magazines tucked away someplace, and we didn't have the internet or smart phones to display our nakedness, but we did have sex and to deny that would be ludicrous considering that that's how newbies arrive in this world. The 60s and early 70s were the years of free love, remember? "Make Love, Not War" - good advice, really - sex had come out of the closet and was openly talked about and people touched and kissed in public and boy-o-boy was that something new when compared to the phony, appearance-focused 50s. Years later, gay people came out of the closet and now trans people are doing the same thing - YAY for all! - but in the 60s it was just trying to get the word "sex" into circulation, if you can believe that.
The pendulum swings and then swings back. In fact, it was only a few years ago that I found out what "going commando" meant - not that I was shocked - there are a kazillion new terms, even if they're just new words for old behaviors; you might notice that this girl is wearing pants AND panty hose and still it's sexy enough he takes her picture in a classic sexual pose.
Women's Lib was just getting off the ground in the late 60s and it was pretty well limited to big urban areas for the most part. Bra-burners were on the TV and there were marchers and banner waving and it was a very good, good thing in that the focus was on putting an end to domestic violence and establishing the basic rights of a woman to earn equal pay for equal work and to be treated decently. It wasn't a new idea - women had earned the right to vote by the same methods - but it was very important work and I supported it - most everyone did. What was not a part of the early Women's Lib, or at least it wasn't a big part of it overall, was the idea that men were 100% at fault for the problems of women; at that time, women and men enjoyed life in their own way, even down to having passionate affairs, without creating much of a fuss - and they discussed women's rights and the space race and the cold war and Nixon.
posted by aryma at 6:35 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
What was not a part of the early Women's Lib, or at least it wasn't a big part of it overall, was the idea that men were 100% at fault for the problems of women; at that time, women and men enjoyed life in their own way, even down to having passionate affairs, without creating much of a fuss - and they discussed women's rights and the space race and the cold war and Nixon.
1. You are not the only expert on, nor is your experience related here representative of, early "Women's Lib" (a telling phrase in itself).
2. Your statement here - "men and women enjoyed life in their own way, even down to having passionate affairs, without creating much of a fuss" - just isn't true. You can speak to your own experience, and perhaps you felt that way about your own life, but your statement does not apply to wider, more general experience. Some people did not enjoy life when archaic mores were in place, whether they were open or secret, and some people did create a fuss. A fairly big fuss, as it turns out.
Listen, I don't know how this woman felt about this affair, then or before she died. I do know, though, that the reason there was a women's movement was the enormous pile of crap women endured in relationships, up to and including having abortions because men couldn't deal with condoms, and being first sought out and then rejected as age changed their desirability, and seeking identity and meaning through their relationships with men because they had never known how to find it in themselves. Again, in the absence of specifics, who knows what this woman was thinking - but we know what thousands of others were thinking, because they wrote about it, talked about, ran discussion groups about it, published books and papers about it, and founded scholarly studies of women's experience because of it. Any one person may be entirely sanguine about the conditions of her life before the women's movement of the late twentieth century, but that doesn't invalidate the experience of the thousands, millions of women who drove it forward by articulating experiences that were other than that.
tl;dr: Speak for yourself, but please don't speak for a generation and a movement you don't seem to have much in common with. It's indistinguishable from trolling.
posted by Miko at 7:02 PM on April 1, 2015 [6 favorites]
1. You are not the only expert on, nor is your experience related here representative of, early "Women's Lib" (a telling phrase in itself).
2. Your statement here - "men and women enjoyed life in their own way, even down to having passionate affairs, without creating much of a fuss" - just isn't true. You can speak to your own experience, and perhaps you felt that way about your own life, but your statement does not apply to wider, more general experience. Some people did not enjoy life when archaic mores were in place, whether they were open or secret, and some people did create a fuss. A fairly big fuss, as it turns out.
Listen, I don't know how this woman felt about this affair, then or before she died. I do know, though, that the reason there was a women's movement was the enormous pile of crap women endured in relationships, up to and including having abortions because men couldn't deal with condoms, and being first sought out and then rejected as age changed their desirability, and seeking identity and meaning through their relationships with men because they had never known how to find it in themselves. Again, in the absence of specifics, who knows what this woman was thinking - but we know what thousands of others were thinking, because they wrote about it, talked about, ran discussion groups about it, published books and papers about it, and founded scholarly studies of women's experience because of it. Any one person may be entirely sanguine about the conditions of her life before the women's movement of the late twentieth century, but that doesn't invalidate the experience of the thousands, millions of women who drove it forward by articulating experiences that were other than that.
tl;dr: Speak for yourself, but please don't speak for a generation and a movement you don't seem to have much in common with. It's indistinguishable from trolling.
posted by Miko at 7:02 PM on April 1, 2015 [6 favorites]
Miko, I agree with you, but I also think it's weirdly paternalistic for us to assume we know anything about this relationship, including whether or not it was fucked up and manipulative. Older men and younger women together is very often like that, but not always, and any other relationship orientation can be fucked up and manipulative too. But people want to assume they know everything about this couple after watching a little Mad Men.
I have a lot of empathy for people who had affairs back when marriage was practically mandatory and divorce wasn't an option for most. I can practically guarantee that I would have, and I've never cheated once.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:06 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have a lot of empathy for people who had affairs back when marriage was practically mandatory and divorce wasn't an option for most. I can practically guarantee that I would have, and I've never cheated once.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:06 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Like I said, I don't know anything about it. I do, however, know a lot about the aggregate pattern. This may or may not fit the pattern.
I don't really care about people having affairs if they must. That's their decision. I just don't think you can ignore historical context - it has been very common for older men and younger women to form relationships in a kind of exchange of the different kinds of social power they have been afforded under patriarchy, and some have been consensual and some have been predatory and some have been combinations of both - even if you allow that this relationship may not have fit that pattern.
posted by Miko at 7:08 PM on April 1, 2015
I don't really care about people having affairs if they must. That's their decision. I just don't think you can ignore historical context - it has been very common for older men and younger women to form relationships in a kind of exchange of the different kinds of social power they have been afforded under patriarchy, and some have been consensual and some have been predatory and some have been combinations of both - even if you allow that this relationship may not have fit that pattern.
posted by Miko at 7:08 PM on April 1, 2015
What's so striking in this little debate is that her voice is entirely missing. Here we are, trying to read the tea leaves of her life, when we wouldn't even know about her except that one man obsessively "collected" her, and another has now "curated" her. The best scenario would be to know, from her, how she felt about this episode of her existence as she developed through life. We can never have that now. She's effectively silenced, and we're left to project on and argue over a flat image, a paper doll, in a neat simulacrum of the framing she was placed in by her original documentarian. We have been placed in his shoes, reading only what we think we see, seeing her only in the clothes we picked out for her.
posted by Miko at 7:18 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Miko at 7:18 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Miko, I speak for myself and for my friends of that time, for the women I worked with and those I knew personally. I was divorced in 1969 and walked out of the courthouse and into a world that was just coming alive with the Women's Movement - if you prefer that term to Women's Lib, which is what it was called at that time - the liberation of women. Over the next ten years I worked at an aerospace and engineering firm in the Silicon Valley and at Philco-Ford doing statistical typing at night, then back to Arizona to Hughes, where I worked for six years. In that period of time I was acquainted with a lot of women and we talked - a lot - about the difficulties that women had. At one point, for instance, I was denied a chance to look at an apartment with the idea of renting it because the landlady "didn't rent to divorcees" - so the problems weren't lost on me. And I knew, of course, that there were women who were in miserable situations - the fault would vary from one to another - but for myself and those I worked with and my personal friends, we just went on working and dating and raising our kids and trying to keep the cars running and the bills paid.
The movement did get bigger, of course - and I'm sure it accomplished a great deal - but, again, we just went on living - yes, with passion, doing everything we could to make life as good as it could be for our kids and ourselves. I hoped to find someone to love who'd love me back - forever -and I almost married twice - as many of my friends did - but for personal reasons I took a pass.
I'm not intending to diminish the good effects of the Women's Movement, only to note that not everyone was deeply immersed in it. We had the Vietnam War to protest and try - desperately - to bring to an end; the soldiers fighting that war were my classmates and it was common knowledge that the US was not wanted in Vietnam - it was a political maneuver only and it was taking thousands of lives; that's where most of our protesting energy went. We had to deal with angry police and media that was telling lies and a President who was a terrible excuse for an American, let alone an American President. It was a shock to us - we were all raised to be strongly patriotic but our pride in our country was shaken.
So that's where my activist efforts went - and those of my friends and coworkers. I honestly didn't know anyone who was seriously caught up in the Women's Movement, but there certainly were plenty of women very active in it and it brought about positive change.
posted by aryma at 9:42 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
The movement did get bigger, of course - and I'm sure it accomplished a great deal - but, again, we just went on living - yes, with passion, doing everything we could to make life as good as it could be for our kids and ourselves. I hoped to find someone to love who'd love me back - forever -and I almost married twice - as many of my friends did - but for personal reasons I took a pass.
I'm not intending to diminish the good effects of the Women's Movement, only to note that not everyone was deeply immersed in it. We had the Vietnam War to protest and try - desperately - to bring to an end; the soldiers fighting that war were my classmates and it was common knowledge that the US was not wanted in Vietnam - it was a political maneuver only and it was taking thousands of lives; that's where most of our protesting energy went. We had to deal with angry police and media that was telling lies and a President who was a terrible excuse for an American, let alone an American President. It was a shock to us - we were all raised to be strongly patriotic but our pride in our country was shaken.
So that's where my activist efforts went - and those of my friends and coworkers. I honestly didn't know anyone who was seriously caught up in the Women's Movement, but there certainly were plenty of women very active in it and it brought about positive change.
posted by aryma at 9:42 PM on April 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not intending to diminish the good effects of the Women's Movement, only to note that not everyone was deeply immersed in it.
Granted. I think that was my point: your point of view is one of someone who wasn't deeply immersed in it. I certainly agree that many people were not deeply immersed in it, just as many people today are not. Others were, however, so these ideas were in circulation, whether or not they were mainstream. It's not accurate to say that no one was thinking about power discrepancies in relationships due to patriarchy. I know, with certainty, that many were.
posted by Miko at 12:29 PM on April 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Granted. I think that was my point: your point of view is one of someone who wasn't deeply immersed in it. I certainly agree that many people were not deeply immersed in it, just as many people today are not. Others were, however, so these ideas were in circulation, whether or not they were mainstream. It's not accurate to say that no one was thinking about power discrepancies in relationships due to patriarchy. I know, with certainty, that many were.
posted by Miko at 12:29 PM on April 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
« Older Prank. Not Even Once. | kakkoii Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by OmieWise at 3:20 PM on March 31, 2015