Art as Reflection of Society

Tonight, Amy and I switched off with the young'uns, and as I got to the parking lot, Daniel was fast asleep in the Sienna, looking more innocuous than ever.  Unfortunately for him, Ian had his camera, one of those gaudy kiddie-cameras, which is more of a delivery system for video games than a camera in its own right - which the boys don't seem to have a problem with.  One of its features is a kind of grammar-school equivalent of Photoshop; you can decorate the pictures that you take with all kinds of "stamps" - various little images, and review it on the screen, and share it with your victim.  This evening, it turned out that Ian had taken a beautiful picture of his young brother, sleeping the Sleep of the Righteous in his booster seat, and then he decorated it with what looked like all kinds of fruit and flowers or butterflies on the periphery, like a colorful frame.

For whatever reason, Daniel wasn't fond of this enhanced portrait, and he started screaming at Ian to give him his camera back.  He then invoked The Paternal Court of Appeals. for what it's worth, and asked me to remand the camera back to its rightful owner.  The fact that this was, in fact, Daniel's camera, made the whole thing problematic.  I like to encourage a kind of collectivism when it comes to property and sharing the wealth, but I saw this case from a unique angle; although I liked the picture, and I wanted Daniel to share his camera with his brother, there seemed to be something uniquely perverse about Ian's policy of using Daniel's camera to torture Daniel.  So I made him give it back to its rightful owners, however reluctantly.

When we got home, Ian pointed out, unfortunately quite correctly, that it was Daniel who destroyed Ian's camera - with a swift kick some 17 months ago, at a moment when Ian was coincidentally taking another unwelcome photo of his brother.  Ian's argument made sense; some kind of restoration seemed to be in order.  Then I had a thought:  Ian could use the family camera if he wanted to take pictures.  I love Ian's pictures, and love his videos much, much more - especially the narrated ones, so I offered Ian the use of the communal digital camera.  But then Daniel pointed out what it was that Ian would be more interested in Daniel's kiddie-cam than in my Canon Powershot:

"That, you can't make funny photos with, so he doesn't want it."

(June 24, 2013)