Second Article Assignment InstructionsF21
Due: Sunday, 9/5 by 11:59pm to the appropriate folder on d2l.
Length: Approximately XXXXXXXXXXwords.
Article for this assignment:
Cramer, M. “Why the Baby on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Album Is Suing Now”. The New York Times, August 25th, XXXXXXXXXXRetrieved from https:
www.nytimes.com
Accessing the article: The article can be accessed either through your NYT subscription or through a text version of the article posted on d2l.
Preparing for the Assignment
Read the article carefully, taking notes about the circumstances su
ounding creation of the cover for Nirvana’s album Nevermind and its commercial use, and also about the claims of wrongdoing and harm asserted by Mr. Elden.
The Assignment
Compose a short essay in which you evaluate Nirvana’s decision to use the photograph of Mr. Eland for the album cover of Nevermind from the consequentialist perspective of Act Utilitarianism, the deontological perspective of either Kantian Ethics or Rossian Ethics, and then develop your own analysis of the morality of Nirvana’s decision, situating this analysis in relation to the ethical perspectives you have discussed.
To do the assignment, complete the 5 elements of this assignment, using a SEPARATE PARAGRAPH for each element, and appropriate transitions between paragraphs (your answer should read like an essay, and not separate answers to a list of questions). You may use the first person – “I”— in developing your answer.
First: INTRODUCTION/CONTEXT/THESIS: Introduce your topic. Describe what Nirvana did in producing the cover for Nevermind, selling the album, and the subsequent controversy about this decision. And
iefly indicate what moral stance you will take (in part 4) regarding Nirvana’s actions.
Second: ACT UTILITARIANISM: Apply Act Utilitarianism to Nirvana’s decision to use Mr. Eland’s image for their album cover. In this paragraph be sure to say what Act Utilitarianism morally requires and then evaluate Nirvana’s decision according to this theory (explaining why Act Utilitarianism has the implications that it does in this case).
Third: KANT or ROSS: Apply EITHER Kantian Ethics or Rossian Ethics to Nirvana’s decision. Here first say what your chosen theory morally requires, and then how a proponent of this theory would evaluate what Nirvana chose to do.
Fourth: EVALUATE/CONCLUDE: Explain and
iefly defend your own view about the morality of the Nirvana’s decision and situate your analysis with respect to the approaches you have described in parts 2 and 3. In this section put the main claim for which you arguing – Nirvana acted rightly, wrongly, etc. – in bold.
Fifth: REFERENCE PAGE and INTERNAL CITATIONS: Include a separate references page in which you include a reference for the article on which this assignment is based AND for our textbook. You can use any standard citing format that you are comfortable with (APA, MLA, Chicago).
You need not internally cite information from the assigned article unless you directly quote it or closely paraphrase it. If you do need to internally cite the article, you can just use (Cramer, XXXXXXXXXXFor our textbook, you can use (Shaw, p. X) for internal citations, though please do not quote Shaw extensively and if you do quote passages from our text be sure to ALSO put this into your own words (so that I can tell that you understand the material). For this assignment you do not need to do any outside research, though feel free to do so if you want to get a little more information about the context su
ounding this event. However, if your answer does, however, substantially rely on outside sources, then please include this source in your reference page as well, and internally cite it where appropriate.
Ru
ic:
Context/Thesis: 20%
Act Utilitarianism: 25%
10% for accurately explaining the theory
15% for applying the theory to Nirvana’s decision
Here be sure to consider a number of consequences, positive and negative of this decision, and how these are to be balanced.
Kantian Ethics or Rossian Ethics: 25%
10% for accurately explaining the theory
15% for applying your chosen theory to Nirvana’s decision.
Your Own View: 25%
5% for stating your position clearly and putting your position in bold
10% for defending your position adequately
10% for explaining connections with the other views you have discussed.
References: 5%
5% for including an appropriate reference page
Grammar: Each significant grammar mistake will be penalized 1% (capitalization, subject-ve
agreement, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, etc.), up to a maximum penalty of -10%.
Organization: Each significant departure from clear organization will be penalized 5% (not using separate paragraphs, paragraphs without a clear main idea, etc.).
Instructions: Each significant departure from the assignment’s instructions will be penalized 5%.
Too Short: Under 250 words, -10%; under 200 words, -20%
Length: There is no penalty for assignments that go longer than the suggested approximate length
Why the Baby on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Album Is Suing Now
Spencer Elden, 30, says Nirvana engaged in child pornography when the band used a picture of him naked on the cover of the
eakthrough album.
By Maria Crame
Published Aug. 25, 2021Updated Aug. 26, 2021, 1:01 p.m. ET
Spencer Elden was 4 months old when he was photographed by a family friend in 1991 drifting naked in a pool.
The picture, taken at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, Calif., would be used that year for the cover of “Nevermind,” Nirvana’s seminal second album that helped define Generation X and rocketed the Seattle band to international fame.
In the decades that followed, Mr. Elden appeared to cele
ate his part in the classic cover, recreating the moment for the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries, though not naked.
“It’s cool but weird to be part of something so important that I don’t even remember,” he said in 2016 in an interview with The New York Post, in which he posed holding the album cover at 25.
Now, however, Mr. Elden, 30, has filed a federal lawsuit against the estate of Kurt Cobain, the musician’s former bandmates, David Grohl and Krist Novoselic, and Mr. Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, among other parties. He claimed that they, along with Geffen Records, which released “Nevermind,” profited from his naked image. It is one of the best-selling records of all time, with at least 30 million copies sold worldwide.
“Defendants knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in federal court in California.
Mr. Elden suffered “permanent harm” because of his association with the album, including emotional distress and a “lifelong loss of income-earning capacity.” The lawsuit did not provide details about the losses and said they would be disclosed at trial.
Mr. Elden, an artist living in Los Angeles County, has gone to therapy for years to work through how the album cover affected him, said Maggie Mabie, one of his lawyers.
“He hasn’t met anyone who hasn’t seen his genitalia,” she said. “It's a constant reminder that he has no privacy. His privacy is worthless to the world.”
The lawsuit said that Mr. Elden is seeking $150,000 from each of the 15 people and companies named in the complaint, including Kirk Weddle, the photographer who took the picture. Mr. Weddle did not respond to messages requesting comment.
The photo of Mr. Elden was picked from among dozens of pictures of babies Mr. Weddle photographed for the album cover, which Mr. Cobain envisioned showing a baby underwater.
Mr. Weddle paid Mr. Elden’s parents $200 for the picture, which was later altered to show the baby chasing a dollar, dangling from a fishhook.
“They were trying to create controversy because controversy sells,” Ms. Mabie said. “The point was not just to create a menacing image but to cross the line and they did so in a way that exposed Spencer so that they could profit off of it.”
She said her client sometimes agreed when the band, media outlets and fans asked him to recreate the photo as an adult, but he eventually realized that this only resulted in the “image of him as a baby being further exploited.”
The representatives for Mr. Cobain’s estate did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Representatives for Mr. Grohl, Ms. Love, and Geffen Records, which is now part of Universal Music Group, did not respond to messages.
Mr. Elden, who declined to comment on his suit, said in a short documentary in 2015 that the album cover had “opened doors” for him. For example, he worked with Shepard Fairey, the artist who was sued by The Associated Press for using an image of Barack Obama for his piece “Hope.”
Over the years, he has expressed ambivalence about the cover.
“It’d be nice to have a quarter for every person that has seen my baby penis,” he said in a New York Post interview in 2016.
In a different interview that year, he said he was angry that people still talked about it.
“Recently I’ve been thinking, ‘What if I wasn’t OK with my freaking penis being shown to everybody?’ I didn’t really have a choice,” Mr. Elden said to GQ Australia.
He said that his feelings about the cover began to change “just a few months ago, when I was reaching out to Nirvana to see if they wanted to be part of my art show.”
Mr. Elden said he was refe
ed to managers and lawyers.
“Why am I still on their cover if I’m not that big of a deal?” he said.
Ms. Mabie said that Mr. Elden has long felt discomfort over the images and had expressed it in even earlier interviews when he was teenager.
“Mr. Elden never consented to the use of this image or the display of these images,” she said. “Even though he recreated the images later on in life, he was clothed and he was an adult and these were very different circumstances.”
Ms. Mabie said his parents never authorized consent for how the images would be used.
She noted that Mr. Cobain once suggested putting a sticker over the baby’s genitals after there was pushback to the idea for the cover.
The performer, who died in 1994, said the sticker should read: “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.”
Mr. Elden is “asking for Nirvana to do what Nirvana should have done