When I schedule events in bookstores, I try not to limit myself to sitting behind a table waiting to pounce on passersby and ask them to buy my book. That always seems like a recipe for social awkwardness, so I like to give a talk. It helps to entertain the crowds and gives me something to do other than point out where the bathroom is or help a customer find Stacy Schiff’s latest biography.
Given that my limited expertise is related to completely trivial information about people who have been dead for thousands of years, coming up with an interesting talk was a challenge. However, one of my favorites is called Bad Girls of the Ancient World. It’s a great lecture to give because my heroine, Cleopatra Selene, happens to be related to a startling number of history’s Girls Gone Wild.
However, as a recent bookstore manager reminded me, Barnes & Noble is a family establishment. To that end, I began to worry about my presentation which includes the obligatory half-naked painting of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and a somewhat racier public domain depiction of the seduction of Olympias by Giulio Romano.
Now, some of my friends have tried to convince me that what I’m looking at in this painting is actually a foot, but having counted up the various limbs involved in this sexual tryst, I’m not sure that I agree. So, I submit the matter to my mature readers to decide. Does that look like a foot on her knee or is he happy to see her?
Hence, my dilemma.
Option #1 involved cropping off the offending foot, which rather diminishes the intensity of the artistic rendition. Or…option #2…
The not so proverbial fig leaf.
And since this talk is as much about feminism and equal opportunity as it is about ancient history, perhaps I should go with this…
It starts to get a bit silly, doesn’t it? And I admit to being obnoxed by the idea that famous paintings might not be considered family friendly or safe for young women to view. I’m sure Augustus would have agreed and that, in itself, makes me feel rebellious.
What do you think?
Well drat, I can not view the pictures! Hmm, I wonder if it is a problem on my end of the internet.
Oh no. The post won’t work without the pictures. Bah. Anybody else having this issue?
Svea, I updated it. Try now 😉
I don’t know whose foot that could possibly be. What time period is this from? I mean, the Romans certainly had no problem with showing us their naughty bits. If it’s Roman or any culture that looks back to antiquity then I will go ahead and assert my art historical authority and say that man is definitely happy to see her. And can you blame him?
There is absolutely no way, what so ever, that under that fig leaf there is a foot. None. Unless he has a foot where something else should be…which would be even more inappropriate, I think. Because, seriously, what’s he doing with a foot there in lieu of the appropriate organ?
Personally, I think it’s fine to have without any sort of censoring because, yes, it does get to be really silly really quickly. And frankly, I think it does you a disservice as a serious and mature author.
If it’s a really big deal for some places, perhaps print up another copy of the handout that does not have that picture? I think that’d be a shame, but a better solution than trying to put a fig leaf or a big black “CENSORED” bar or pixelating it or any other such nonsense.
I can’t see the pictures anyway, but I’m not surprised. The UAE blocks everything. Knowing the period and the subject, I’m pretty sure he’s happy to see her. I don’t have an answer for your conundrum though. While I don’t think it’s such an awful thing to see, I also know that bookstore managers will be not so excited to have you back (despite the fact that they want you to speak because you have a salacious topic.)
Um, good luck?
I can’t see the pics and my computer has no blocks whatsoever (I’ve googled ‘racks’ once and I know what it allows to get through 😀 ) so I think it’s a technical issue. They are .tiff files and those suck; try to resave as .jpeg and post those.
Okay, lesson learned. I have replaced them with jpegs 😉
And now I can see them fine.
Heh, that first pic is about the same sort as the dwarf statue found in Mainz I’m not sure I can show on my blog without an adult content warning. If my readers were German, no problem (after all the naughty dwarf is displayed in plain sight in a museum, to the delight of giggling school kids), but I’m not sure about US readers.
I think you should do it. It’s not an actual dwarf with his privates showing. It’s a sculpture. God help my countrymen if they can’t deal…
Yeah, it’s a penis. And balls. But they still *look* like a foot!
NO fig leaf. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of a twelve-year-old girl seeing that image (because she could be one of your readers, and thus in your audience), then find a new picture.
But if there’s a twelve-year-old girl attending a “Bad Girls of the Ancient World” lecture, methinks she’s not going to be too shocked by the foot-phallis.
Definitely not a foot. Unless he has a foot growing out of his crotch, hehe.