Backlash Over Kylie Jenner’s Wheelchair Shoot
Kylie Jenner is in a wheelchair – but nowhere looking disabled and powerless, but is in fact dressed in a pair of latex pants with booty cutouts, sitting in a gilded wheelchair appearing stiff and with a blank expression, making her resemble a sex doll.
The images, published Monday was for the Interview magazine’s website, featuring the 18-year-old reality TV star wearing fetish outfits.
Now, what is so wrong about this picture?
Plenty, say disability advocates, who argue that the photo spread for Interview magazine is at best a tone-deaf disaster.
“It’s deeply disturbing,” said Emily Smith Beitiks, associate director of the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability in San Francisco. “People with disabilities are already seen as powerless, and this just reinforces that,” she said.
The youngest member of the E! reality television series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians is taking heat on social media from others who consider the able-bodied reality star posing in the wheelchair to be offensive.
Kylie Jenner looks like a retro sex doll in this shoot for the magazine. In one shot, she is seen inside a wooden shipping crate. In another, a man totes Jenner on his side like a package, her arms and legs rigidly outstretched. In some shots, she is seated in a wheelchair.
But that’s not only what people are talking about. It’s actually the gilded wheelchair that she posed in for two of photographer Steven Klein’s shots that provoked the most intense reactions.
“I’m constantly infantilized because of my wheelchair, denied even the idea of sexuality and agency let alone desirability. But Kylie?” Atlanta writer Kayla Whaley tweeted. “She gets paid and praised to wear the shallowest possible illusion of my disability for a few hours.“
“So disabled models can’t get work or advance in the fashion industry, but Kylie Jenner can use a wheelchair and be classed as edgy,” Twitter user @Bendy_Mermaid posted.
“Oh, I see! When I’m in my wheelchair no one can look me in the eye, but when Kylie Jenner sits in a wheelchair it’s FASHION. Silly me,” Twitter user @amysgotmilk said.
The images are troubling for a variety of reasons, Beitiks said. They highlight the often devalued portrayal of disabled people in popular culture and the almost vanishing small role of the disabled in fashion and entertainment, she said.
“I think she’s literally being objectified made to look like a sex doll, and this wheelchair is an added element of passivity they’re adding on.“
In other words, they’re pushing both disability and gender objectification buttons at the same time, she said.
So what to do? An apology would be nice, Whaley said Tuesday, although she doubts it will happen. And maybe start including people living with disabilities in creative discussions about art, fashion and media, she said. “Just include us,” she said.
Interview has since told E! that their intention was to “create a powerful set of pictures” and “certainly not to offend anyone.” Their spokesperson also explained why the wheelchair was used as a prop:
At Interview, we are proud of our tradition of working with great artists and empowering them to realize their distinct and often bold visions. The Kylie Jenner cover by Steven Klein, which references the British artist Allen Jones, is a part of this tradition, placing Kylie in a variety of positions of power and control and exploring her image as an object of vast media scrutiny.
The spokesperson also said that Interview’s art issue celebrates “a variety of women who are both the creators and subjects of their artistic work,” and that the feature on Kylie is aimed to unpack her status as an “engineer of her image and object of attention“. Kylie has not commented on the controversy. Source
