Why Do Few Know or Care About the Lewis Carroll Reality?

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FrankGSterleJr
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Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:41 pm

Why Do Few Know or Care About the Lewis Carroll Reality?

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

With celebrity sexual assault and harassment scandals flowing from the showbiz industry, some people (including one CNN-based commentator) wonder whether they’ll feel comfortable consuming quality products involving seriously offending entertainers and producers. Meantime, some big-celebrity fans will continue viewing their favourites nonetheless, while others may indefinitely remain in denial, as superstardom’s brightness can be blinding—especially when the product becomes legendary.

(The late Michael Jackson’s questionable history of having young boy sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch, comes to my mind as a current example, because of the enormous organized vicious attacks via various media on anyone, including big TV producers, who dare suggest that the legendary pop-music artist was a pedophile. He simply was—and still is—that great and loved.)

As a pre-broadcast-era artist example, many people to this day have great difficulty accepting, or perhaps even caring, that acclaimed author Lewis Carroll—writer of the Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass children’s novels—enjoyed having little girls pose nude for his camera.

“[Carroll] would ask mama if it was alright for him to photograph the little girl; and later on he would ask if he could photograph her in a costume; and eventually he would work his way up like a lover to, if he could photograph the child in the nude,” says retired Temple University English professor emeritus Donald Rackin, in a Great Books documentary (a copy of which I own). “We know that of course he was refused sometimes, but it was astounding how many mothers said, ‘go ahead’.”

Acclaimed writer and commentator Will Self has stated: “It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/was-l ... -so-237222

As a prestigious figure, instead of being reprimanded or thrown into a Victorian-era prison, he took his numerous child photos.
Carroll’s ability to get away with his perverted predilection for such photography may have been but indicative of the societal entitlement he enjoyed, even as an oddball loner.

Yet some feel Carroll was unfairly misunderstood. According to Hollywood Reporter guest columnist Will Brooker, who also authored Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture, “Lewis Carroll is treated [by his critics] like a man you wouldn’t want your kids to meet, yet his stories are still presented as classics of pure, innocent literature … Compared to some of our celebrities—the sportsmen, film directors and singers who commit real crimes like assault and abuse and are still welcomed back by fans—Lewis Carroll was a regular saint.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bookm ... oll-897812
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Why Do Few Know or Care About the Lewis Carroll Reality?

Post by Terrapin Station »

I couldn't care less about the personal lives or views, including criminal activity, of any artist, and for others, I'd only care insofar as it directly has something to do with their products or services as presented to the public. I might have some trivial curiosity in that sort of stuff if either I'm a big fan of the person's work or if they were a very unusual person in whatever respects, and if they did something that I agree should be criminal, I'd want them to suffer the consequences of that, but nothing in that vein would ever at all impact my assessment of their work or my willingness to engage with it. The tendency of people to moralize is a big pet peeve of mine.
Advocate
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Re: Why Do Few Know or Care About the Lewis Carroll Reality?

Post by Advocate »

>The late Michael Jackson’s questionable history of having young boy sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch, comes to my mind as a current example, because of the enormous organized vicious attacks via various media on anyone, including big TV producers, who dare suggest that the legendary pop-music artist was a pedophile. He simply was—and still is—that great and loved.

This was not my experience of that situation. Pedophilia, even the mere accusation of it, is almost universally vilified and as far as i can tell it makes no difference how famous or loved you are in advance.

>[i]“[Carroll] would ask mama if it was alright for him to photograph the little girl; and later on he would ask if he could photograph her in a costume; and eventually he would work his way up like a lover to, if he could photograph the child in the nude,”[/i] says retired Temple University English professor emeritus Donald Rackin, in a Great Books documentary (a copy of which I own). [i]“We know that of course he was refused sometimes, but it was astounding how many mothers said, ‘go ahead’.”[/i]

There is nothing notorious about photographing anything or anyone in its natural state. The fact that mothers, then as mothery as in any other era, did not sense any danger to their children shows that danger was not inherent.

>Acclaimed writer and commentator Will Self has stated: [i]“It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”[/i]

It is tremendously sad that those two ethically distinct situations are melded by ignorant minds. It's the ad hominem fallacy legitimized by weight of majority feels.
FrankGSterleJr
Posts: 212
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:41 pm

Re: Why Do Few Know or Care About the Lewis Carroll Reality?

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

There is nothing notorious about photographing anything or anyone in its natural state. The fact that mothers, then as mothery as in any other era, did not sense any danger to their children shows that danger was not inherent.
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One might argue that the little girls' "natural state" was the way they were when they arrived at Carroll’s door—with their clothes on.

As for the children’s mothers, Carroll's prestige and social entitlement may have played a large part in their permission.

Also, the following portion from a January 30, 2015 article posted on the website ArtNetNews may be revelatory:
“My understanding is that he was in love with Alice, but he was so repressed that he never would have transgressed any boundaries,” says Vanessa Tait, great-granddaughter of Alice Liddell, in the documentary. She adds that the explicit photograph may explain the rift that made Carroll break contact with the Liddell girls in 1863, when Alice was 11 years old. Crucially, Carroll’s diaries from April 1858 to May 1862, a period which coincides with his friendship with the Liddell girls, are missing.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/was-l ... -so-237222
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