Praising Smiles

From: McKenzie

The creative techniques used in my photo relate to the subtopic of “The Two Cultures of Childhood” in unit five. I chose to take a photo of my friend, we’ll call him Smiles, posing for me with his nails painted yellow while having a big smile on his face. I wanted to push the typical sense of “gender norms” and when I brought up this project and my idea he was all for it. I believe that both men and women, girls and boys can and should be able to do and wear anything they choose. The article states that over time, the more children don’t play with each other, the more “gender typed their play activities become” and “this suggests a socialization by peers”. Children quickly develop strong gender schemas from their social environments. The article also then talks about the fact that “Some toys are for boys and some are for girls”, most likely, children have learned to avoid being seen playing with toys associated with the other gender; “thus children not only segregate themselves but also engage in different kinds of play within these groups”. Children separate themselves and over time may not learn to grow and develop side by side with the other gender, in today’s society, typically, a male seen with painted fingernails wouldn’t be taken lightly and some may even speak out and against the boy for going against the gender normalities.

In the presented photo, Smiles has his eyes closed and I wanted that to specifically represent his innocence and to focus more on his nails and smile. We actually chose a color together for the nail polish and decided that a pastel yellow would be best because the color yellow represents happiness, positivity, optimism and energy, thus representing his personality overall. In the background I attempted to include the playground on AACC campus but only a very slight view of it to represent a background sense of youth and playfulness. There are also some steps to the left side of the photo, which are portraying the fact that as a society we are taking steps, although small, to grow and become more comfortable with fighting the typical gender norms and rewriting the “script” that boys are supposed to follow to manhood. Then if you look more closely Smiles is wearing sports attire because he also plays baseball and I wanted to try and show that masculine men can still do things such as wearing nail polish and still be a male at the same time.