“Children Playing Gangsters” Mary Ellen Mark

My eya was first drawn to the guns that are present. Seeing that the name of the art title contains gangster it made me think that the children were playing with real guns in order to feel as if they were actually gangsters. There is a group of really young boys standing up against a wall with there arms up as if they were being detained. This makes me think that they were out in public playing around and were caught and told that this isn’t something they should be pretending to be. In the top right corner there is a no trespassing sign; the boys may have been running around and ended up somewhere they shouldn’t have been may because they were curious about this forbidden place. The group of boys are also African-american, so it would be easy for most people to presume that they live in the “hood” or “ghetto”. They probably grow up around people who are actually in gangs and carry around weapons.