Cutting The Cake Analysis

At first glance, Cutting the Cake seems to be a basic photograph of a happy wedding party but in closer examination a unique outlook on mothering is found. A mother holds her child as she and her husband cut their wedding cake, surrounded by their five other children. This image renders many assumptions, but suddenly introduces a host of new ideas when one realizes the mother and father are famous. The scene of a vowel renewal or marriage of a blended family could be described in similar terms as this image. Without having seen the picture, one could also insinuate the mother may be low-income and young, marrying out of necessity for her children. But the circumstances are a world of different. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt could afford to post-pone …show more content…
Cutting the Cake depicts one of the major rituals at a wedding, the cake, and therefore depicts some of the major aspects of the life of the people in it. In this photo, the cake is the most prominent component that ties together many other details into the theme of the picture and wedding: simplicity. In most weddings, the cake is professionally made or at least crafted by someone with experience. Celebrity weddings take the cake a step further, constantly pushing boundaries of height, weight, and extravagance. But the Jolie-Pitt wedding cake appears handcrafted, as if it were made hours before in the family kitchen. It is obvious that the children were the bakers and the decorators, the pleasure granted to them by their parents. In mothering, this cake signifies the importance of the children over extravagant things but no homemade cake can hide their …show more content…
Age, race, clothing, and expression are signals that a child wields for the world to see and make determinations about the status of the family, and most importantly the status of the mother. As previously stated, the children are in a very formal setting, yet not confined to a dress code. This odd casualness along with the absence of shoes on the youngest daughter would normally signal indigence, but in respects to such a prominent mother, Angelina Jolie, they simply represent her approach to mothering. She allows her children freedom of expression and is able to because of her status and wealth. Moreover, the wide range of ages represented in her children describe to the viewer that she is able and willing to provide for them all and has chosen to do so. Especially because the mother and husband are being married at an older age, indicated by the father’s specks of gray hair and mustache, there exists an impression that this couples status exempt them from the social norms of being married and then having children. Lastly, the races of these children are further able to signify the mothers options and what choices she made in regards to motherhood. There are four races represented in the picture, three of them different from the parents, denoting that these children were adopted, a luxury that many women cannot afford especially while unwed. Wealth gave the mother in the photo the option of