Drugstore Photo Cowboy
Go camping with your 3- and 8-year-old kid. Fail to show proper Puritan fear of nudity, and document lack of said fear with disposable camera. Find yourself and your family relocated to hell.
Amazing (amazingly horrifying, that is) story of a family turned in by an Eckerd drugstore photo developer thanks to a few bare-ass, non-sensual photos of the kids. Jodi Jenkins tells the tale on $alon:
As usual during the trip, we took several photos. Because I forgot my digital camera, I bought a disposable camera at a gas station on the way to the campground. I took pictures of the kids using sticks to beat on old bottles and cans and logs as musical instruments. I took a few of my youngest daughter, Eliza, then age 3, skinny dipping in the lake, and my son, Noah, then age 8, swimming in the lake in his underwear, and another of Noah naked, hamming it up while using a long stick to hold his underwear over the fire to dry. Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time. We also let the kids take photos of their own.When we returned on Sunday, I forgot the throwaway camera and Rusty found it in his car. He gave it to his wife, who I'll call Janet, to get developed, and she dropped it off the next day with two other rolls of film at a local Eckerd drug store. On Tuesday, when she returned to pick up the film, she was approached by two officers from the Savannah Police Department. They told her they had been called by Eckerd due to "questionable photos."
One officer told Janet "there were pictures of little kids running around with no clothes on, pictures of minors drinking alcohol," she recounted for me in an email. "I asked to see the pictures and was told I couldn't. I explained there must be a mistake. I was kind of laughing, you know, 'Come on guys. There must be an explanation. This is crazy. Let me see the pictures.' The officer told me that he personally did not find [the photos] offensive and that he had camped himself as a kid and knows what goes on." But the officer also told Janet that "because Eckerd's had called them and that because there were pictures of children naked, genitalia and alcohol, they would have to investigate."
Janet asked the photo lab clerk what was on the photos and the clerk "replied very seriously that they were bad, that there was one that looked like a child's head had been cut off, one with children drinking beer and pictures of naked kids." As she drove to her house, Janet said, "I was in shock and felt sick to the pit of my stomach and was trying to process all of it." She called my wife, who was driving home, and explained what had happened. Sensing how bad this might become, my wife pulled her car to the side of the road and fought the urge to throw up.
Neither my wife nor I, Rusty nor Janet has a criminal record of any sort. Yet over the next several weeks, the Savannah Police Department and the Department of Family and Child Services (DFCS) investigated us for "child pornography" and then "sexual exploitation of a minor." We suffered the embarrassment of having DFCS interview our family, friends, employers and our children's teachers, asking them whether we were suitable parents and what kind of relationship we had with our kids.
I think about the Christmas and New Year's I spent in Rome in the late 90s, with my friends Thomas and Roberta. Thomas is German, Roberta's Italian, and we went to her parents' house every night for dinner -- as did much of her extended family. I was amazed by how, when some relative came in with a baby, they immediately passed the baby around, with everybody cootchie-cooing it. Nobody was at all worried that Grandpa was a funny uncle like they are here. For more on the dumb things people are terrified of vis a vis the stuff they should be afraid of, read Barry Glassner's book, The Culture Of Fear.
Maybe a less fearful and less precious approach to child-rearing and child socialization is why kids in Latin countries -- France, Italy, Spain, South American countries -- don't seem so terrified and upset by non-family members as American children are.
Posted by aalkon at July 21, 2006 11:40 AM
Comments
It's long been a theory of mine that we live in a "fear based economy" predicated on scaring as many people as possible, if not by death or dismemberment, but something as stupid as hurting someones feelings by not purchasing a proper gift for Mothers Day. This is one reason i abhor mainstream media and TV.
i, for one, choose to live in Florida, which is in a region where hurricanes are quite possible. Every June 1st, when hurricane season begins, we have a 5 day "tax holiday" where we can purchase hurricane supplies without paying tax. Every June 1st, the lead story on the local news is all about the tax holiday, how many named storms are predicted,showing long lines at the store, ect....scare everyone by showing footage of last years hurricanes, and you have people flocking to the store to "stock up"
i'm not surprised that someone would jump on something like a few nude photos of little kids. When our society is bombarded with stories like child molestation, kiddie porn busts, gun crimes, high speed police chases, terrorist plots, anyone can look at any photo and come to thier own conclusion.
Bad things happen in foreign countries too. It's just not broadcast 24/7.
Posted by: Rob at July 21, 2006 6:16 AM
25 years of health insurance (never been sick), auto insurance (never had an accident), home insurance (1 hot tub hit by lightning claimed), disability insurance (never disabled a day), unemployment insurance (never unemployed), umbrella insurance (never been sued), errors and omissions insurance (never been sued), social security (which is AT LEAST 30 years away), and all the other insurances, I think you may be on to something there Rob.
That said, I believe the film developers have some sort of (actual) legal reponsibility to inform the local police of questionable photographs. (It does sound like the clerk was a bit hysterical, heads chopped off and all.) But it seems like the system worked here, inconvenient and embarrassing as it was.
Posted by: eric at July 21, 2006 8:48 AM
I live in Reno, first stop on the way back from burning man.
Last year they had a news story about how one of the (way too many) Walmarts had to put up a sign in the photo department indicating that any illegal activity on photos they developed would be reported to the police.
At least they warned their customers to drop their expectation of privacy.
When does a beer cease to be a beer and become recycling?
Posted by: smurfy at July 21, 2006 9:22 AM
Interesting observations about living in a fear-based society. I just finished reading 'Die Broke' where he focused on the fear of not having enough money saved up for "retirement." (Like anyone under the age of 50 is going to have a traditional retirement anyway.) Worth a read!
Re kiddie molester fears, the VAST, OVERWHELMING majority of children who are abused or molested are victims of their own family members. The idea of shady characters lurking near playgrounds isn't impossible, just very improbable. It's pretty sad when your kids are fat and sickly because you are afraid to let them cross the street and go to the park.
When I was a kid, we took off on our bikes in the morning and didn't come back until suppertime. I honestly don't believe things are much worse today than they were 25 years ago, but I do think people are much more paranoid and afraid.
Posted by: Pirate Jo at July 21, 2006 11:50 AM
Geeze! I cringe to think about all those weekends I spent at the Colorado Sunshine Club (a nudist camp) while I was still in my teens, and playing vollyball with other naked boys and girls.
I shudder to think what the repercussions might have been had cameras been permitted in camp. I suspect everyone would have been hauled off to jail if the rules of today's insanely political correct society had been in charge.
Posted by: Inkpad at July 21, 2006 7:06 PM
Holy Christ, Amy. If you knew how many naked-butt photos there are of me as a toddler (I'm not gonna say, it's embarrassing). Little kids love being naked, and often its really hard to keep clothes on the little dudes, as they attempt to disrobe as quickly as possibly. I remember reading an article about a new father who was investigated for abuse after a clerk developed photos of him kissing the baby's tummy after a bath. What the hell?
Posted by: amh18057 at July 22, 2006 5:10 AM
My little 5-year-old neighbor spent yesterday in his Batman underpants playing with the garden hose with his little sister -- who was wearing only a shirt and her diaper. His mom and I came out and talked and watched them for a few minutes. Luckily, nobody took any developable photos.
Posted by: Amy Alkon at July 22, 2006 7:00 AM
Hi All,
all this jazz about parents getting into trouble for taking pictures of their kids naked in the tub or playing outside w/ out any clothes on is no big deal, we all have done it when we were little. All kids like to be naked at some time or another, it is part of growing up, and these people who work at these film devolping stores are so stupid, and they see one picture of a boy or girl naked and they immediatly call the police, so now you git drilled by the police and DCFS, and usually in the end it turned out to be totally innocent. and when your kids are little you take pictures of them in diffrent poses yes some are naked and some are half naked, but again whats wrong w/ that?? there is nothing wrong in my eyes about photographing your kids in the nude. I don't know of anyone who hasn't photographed their kids in the nude I bet even the police and the photo developers has at one time or another. people these days need to realize this is the year 2006 not the 60's & 70's, where people were prudes. you are welcome to email me at: wayne541@webtv.net
Regards;
aries6-9
Posted by: arie6-9 at September 3, 2006 9:27 PM
Leave a comment