Submitted by Michael Davis, Feb 1, 2007 18:53

The reason the little boy in Diane Arbus' photograph, "Child with a toy hand grenade" looks so freakish is that he was told to repeat what he had been doing moments earlier when he was imitating the monster Frankenstein. I was another boy in a group who were with him at the time. We were playing army with toy weapons and had paused to reflect upon the subtleties of the previous afternoon's movie when this "grown up" came over and selected him to pose for some photographs. I remember wondering what made him so special, since all of us seemed equally skilled at being monsters. Years later, when I saw the published photograph I knew it had to be the girl's blouse, lederhosen-style shorts, and awkward demeanor that made him so attractive as a photographer's model and so unsuitable as Frankenstein.

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