Betsy Schneider, associate professor of photography here at the good ol’ New American U., showed some of her work in downtown Phoenix in August and the beginning of September. As some of us may recall from the stories covered across various news outlets, including The State Press, part of the exhibit included nude photos of Schneider’s children taken in their earlier years. This exhibit was the product of several years during which Schneider took a photo of her children every day.

According to the Phoenix New Times, her work drew a high of 12 people at any given point on the exhibit’s opening day, with a family of four protesting outside. No other protests really took shape.

After the exhibit that some labeled “child pornography” initially sparked so much debate in the media, it was surprising that the photos didn’t draw more attention or ire.

Instead, the story moved from the foreground to the artistic spotlight. The exhibit became yet another work of art, not a source of vehement non-artistic tangential debate.

There was no new front established in the culture war.

Looking back, it’s kind of disappointing. Here was a juicy morsel that could have choked the media into not talking about the upcoming election for five minutes.

After all, given the nature of Schneider’s photos, many — including myself — were unsure what to make of the situation originally.

I mean, I’m all for a bunch of naked hippies dancing around a maypole and everything, but nude photos of children? That’s much too far in some people’s books, and maybe there’s some logic to that line of thought.

According to the East Valley Tribune, the Phoenix Police Department extended that logic and even looked into whether displaying the photos violated any laws — which isn’t the case.

In an interview with me via e-mail, Schneider pointed to the idea of America as a free market of ideas, and claimed that “we have to be willing to consider ideas we find difficult or even repellant. … We need to be challenged and confronted with things we fear.”

This is everything the McCarthys of the world hate to hear, and is a perfect primer for a standoff between the powers that be and the rebellious left.

Unfortunately for the media, the exhibit was nothing for the populace to worry about, despite the expectations.

Rather than being the controversy it was built up to be, the exhibit was mostly a collage of childhood, growing up and time. The Antichrist was not resurrected.

Betsy Schneider was simply using the greatest of all muses, personal experience, to show the world a little bit about itself.

You see, we all have these private spheres for ourselves and our loved ones, and we often don’t let the world into those bubbles.

Schneider took that distinction and completely forgot about it; for her, life is a synthesis of the most important things to her — her children and her art-making.

In doing so, Schneider wasn’t doing anything diabolical like exploiting her children. She was just trying to share her family’s private life with the public world; kind of like sitting us down for a really artistic and thorough family photo album.

Brett is a religious studies and history senior. He can be reached at blivingo@asu.edu.