Reply #122: The Fashionable People or The Critic

[eyeofdelphi]

the photo you're referring to is by Weegee, one of my all time favorite photographers. His work is really awesome.
here is a piece from the paper i wrote in college about him:

His most well known photograph “The Critic” was taken in 1943 at the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera. Although he never admitted it, he staged this photo. He used a woman who was a regular at Sammy’s, luring her with wine to the opera. Waiting for the right moment, he had his assistant let her go right when two of the most well known, wealthy women of New York were entering the theatre. The women were draped in fur and covered in jewels. The drunken woman stands to the side looking aghast at the ostentatious display of finery during wartime while everyone else in America is cutting back and doing without. It’s even more amusing that the rich women only have eyes for the camera, smiling for the photographer, never noticing the drunken woman to their left. This photograph was even used as propaganda by the Nazis. Late in 1943, during the invasion of Anzio, Italy, leaflets were dropped out of the sky into the foxholes, where one Charles Kavenaugh sat. The leaflets had the photo “The Critic” and the words “GIs, is this what you’re fighting for?” Kavenaugh was too embarrassed to mention to anyone that one of the rich women in the photo was his grandmother.

http://museum.icp.org/museum/collections/special/weegee/

here's a link to the photo. i don't know why it wouldn't let me paste the actual photo, oh well.