Eye of the Beholder

(This post should be safe for work, but it probably isn't)

Surely a little late to the party, but I finally ran into Kate Perry's video of running around with Elmo on Sesame Street and the surrounding controversy about the appropriateness of her attire and the sexuality of the entire deal. In case you feel a need to examine Katy Perry's controversial cleavage personally, I've included the video.



Some people might argue that children will take this as overly sexual, and that it isn't appropriate for them. This is all I have to say


Depending on how your mind works, you will see either a couple holding one another or nine dolphins which are not all the same size. Take a moment, and find both in the image.

This piece is called "Message d'amour des dauphins" (A message of love from the dolphins in English) by Sandro Del-Prête. Born in 1937, this man is a fairly underrated artist who is still alive and kicking ass, but that's a rant for another day. The point is that he routinely makes illusion images with a second, more adult meaning in them, such as Life in the Rose (1990).

This one is far more direct in displaying both images.

Now, I'm sure you're all quite capable of finding pictures of naked people on the internet, so why is this relevant?

Large amounts of anecdotal evidence (I was pretty upset to spend an hour on the internet and not find a single legitimate study) say that when children look at these paintings (particularly the dolphin/couple one) they see only the dolphins.

This tendency of adults to make things horrible when kids don't care is a well explored phenomenon at such credible research institutes as 4chan. Lazytown is one of their favourite targets.



But, when it all boils down what we're basically looking at is a glorified version of a Rorscharach or ink-blot test. If you haven't ever looked through the 10 "traditional" cards on wikipedia its a good laugh, although I have no idea what a doctor would make of me finding Cthulhu, the sword in the stone, human vertebrae, jellyfish polyps, rabbits and the Eiffel Tower in there.

The point is, we see what we want to see, and if your 5 year old kid looks at these things and can't imagine anything but sex, maybe you should thank Sesame Street for alerting you to a problem and get your kid to a doctor.