Who is Jessie Mann?

Jessie Mann appears as an enigma. The ambiguity in name and face does not help the viewer solve the photo’s mystery. In the backwoods of Virginia, Sally Mann posed and documented Jessie and her other children for the show: Immediate Family in 1992. It debuted at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and attracted a storm of fear and criticism. The photos were said to be pornographic. Despite the controversy over the lines between fine photography and child pornography, other intriguing issues are imbued in the contents of the photos. What is beauty and when and how can a person (or child) be beautiful? Are any of the qualities of beauty defined by gender or can qualities of beauty cross between genders? At what point does a handsome boy become a beautiful girl? In what way is a gender allowed to be attractive? Jessie poses just those questions in Jessie as Madonna, and Jessie as Jessie, two photos in the recent XX/XY exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art.

            Jessie Mann is a pretty young girl. But Jessie Mann is also a handsome young boy and the difference between the two is hard to find. A little girl looks like a little girl, dresses like a little girl, and behaves like a little girl. And it is the same for little boys in American culture. Little girls play dress up and little boys play with toy trucks. A woman is pretty and a male is handsome. And yet, both adjectives, pretty and handsome, could be applied to Jessie as Jessie. Jessie asks audiences consider if Jessie could be a pretty boy or a handsome girl. One could be convinced of both, and yet, how quickly would the adjectives change was the photo to be named Jessie is a Boy or Jessie is a Girl? Would the word pretty even be conjured to describe Jessie were an audience believe Jessie to be a boy? It seems to make one question the ownership of these adjectives. One is asked to evaluate if the word “pretty” is de-masculinizing and if “handsome” is de-feminizing. The androgyny of a child is less threatening to an audience than and that of adults—it is expected that the looks and behavior of a young child is not telling of their future sexuality or affinities. They are considered innocent. But, had Jessie been ten years older and still androgynous, would an American audience react differently? Jessie as Jessie in a show like XX/XY confronts audiences with exactly these issues.

Jessie Mann is also a handsome boy, dressed as a sensual woman. Jessie Mann is also a pretty girl, dressed as a sensual woman. Jessie as Madonna asks audiences a a different, perhaps deeper, set of questions about what many find sacred. And for the questions to be posed by a child, painted with lipstick and rouge, is intolerable. It straddles the line of child pornography. But, despite this controversy, the questions are of worth. Is it more acceptable for Jessie to be an attractive young girl dressed up as an uncomfortable, yet alluring woman, and is it more uncomfortable to accept Jessie as a handsome young man in drag? And why does a culture become distressed about a sexualized child and not a sexualized adult, as many children become? If we take Jessie to be a girl, she asks us what ways we encourage young girls to become magnetizing and how. It certainly could have been Jessie’s idea to dress as a woman for fun in an innocent game of dress-up. But Jessie’s face suggest otherwise. The strained neck and squinted eyes send a threatening message. It is clear that Jessie was aware of what the enhancements suggested and what she would be capable of with the same enhancements in ten years older. So one must wonder, will she use these same enhancements? The power that pursed lips and red lipstick suggests to girls should not to be overlooked and Jessie throws this in audiences’ faces. Jessie could be saying that that photo is practice for future intentions and that one day, Jessie will too become magnetizing, in the same way that Marilyn Monroe was. 

Marilyn Monroe

And it is no coincidence that Marilyn Monroe’s images were in close proximity to Jessie’s on the gallery walls. We find Jessie’s image haunting. Perhaps out of guilt for what may be inevitable. When living in a world in which female sexuality is sold, where the role models that Jessie and her mother were told to imitate were scarcely powerful without their sexuality, Jessie scares us into looking at our culture values regarding women and sexual power.

pepper

 Jessie as Madonna shows us what Marilyn was before she became a powerful pepper, (a term that the juxtaposition of Edward Weston’s Pepper, 1930 and Nude, 1936 gives us)—that Jessie is a child with potential to be something else, perhaps something better. 

woman

And to live in a culture that is so keen on simultaneously expecting prudence and seductive appeal from women, if Jessie is a girl, the image becomes ironic. It is ironic that an audience is likely to be offended by a sexual child because the culture thinks of children as innocent and yet, it relentlessly endorses the powers of sex appeal and magnetism. It will not be surprising if one Jessie one day picks up the lipstick and rogue and embodies their powers of magnetism. But the image is also dualistic—for if Jessie is a boy, it takes on another meaning entirely.

A boy in drag may be the hardest interpretation of Jessie as Madonna for audiences to handle. It is fair to assert that a sexualized child is more tolerable than a homosexual child. The possibility of a gay child attacks some of our most sacredly held absolutes. Child sexuality is not questionable or negotiable to many parents and it is insulting and intolerable to consider. American culture refuses to accept the idea of a child having sexuality. This idea has been fought against since America’s Puritan beginnings, through Freud and now into contemporary times. The possibility of child homosexuality is found especially threatening to beliefs about nature and life. So then, when OMA shows who is believed to be Sally Mann’s son with rouge touched cheeks, painted lips, and a false mole, the consideration of these issues is asked. Jessie, as Madonna, squints at the audience uncomfortably. Is this a lewd joke on behalf of Sally Mann? Or, could it have been Jessie’s idea and if so, why is it considered a bit more worrying? Could Jessie be a gay little boy? Catherine Opie’s captured her son (Oliver) at her washing machine, in a pink tutu, and crowned with a tiara.

Oliver, boy

 Catherine Opie had no problem releasing the photo. Why would she display what would be a worrying and embarrassing moment to many parents to the world? It might have something to do with how her disposition on gender and sexuality is affected by her being a lesbian. It also may be for the purpose of making the same points that one could find in Jessie as Madonna were Jessie to be seen as a boy. Further, there is a possibility that both Oliver and Jessie may grow up to be gay, transgendered or transvestites. They ask the audience about how they will decide to treat these them—how they will treat their homosexual or transgendered children. This is exactly the confrontation Jessie as Madonna may bring to the worrying parent or homophobe. How will they treat their gay and transgendered children or neighbor is glimpsed in the reaction to Jessie as Madonna.

Jessie Mann is as an enigma. He leaves tricks and traps at around every corner that make us questions what we accept as beautiful and acceptable. Jessie makes audiences question what they are asking of children without realizing and what they expect them to be or not be as they grow up. Jessie’s ambiguity is a strength that allows questions to be asked on both gender’s behalves.

 On one hand Jessie says: “Look at the world we are living in. Look at what we must be to be magnetizing”,

Madonna, singer

 and on the other, asks: “But what if I don’t want to become that—will you still accept me?”

Robert Mapplethorpe, gay artist

 Can Jessie be a handsome girl if he wants? Can Jessie be a pretty boy is she wants? What if Jessie grows into a gay man or woman, or transgendered adult or powerful pepper? She asks us, what is okay, what is not, and in what ways will you accept her. He asks us to consider the possibilities of a world in which people are allowed define for themselves the ways they are magnetizing. She makes us image a world in which people are beautiful in whatever way they choose to be—a world in which a woman doesn’t have to be a beautiful pepper to be magnetizing

Marylin Monroe, powerful pepper

and a man doesn’t have to be handsome to be beautiful--

James Dean, powerful pepper

a world in which beauty is genderless. He shows us that all should be beautiful.