In the following photograph on the left, comedian Daisy May recreates Kim Kardashian’s infamous “Break The Internet” photo taken for Paper magazine, replacing the champagne bottle and glass with chips and ketchup.
Image credit: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/oct/16/daisy-may-cooper-its-like-im-flypaper-for-embarrassing-myself (Left)
The photo of Kim Kardashian was taken by photographer Jean-Paul Goude, and references one of his own earlier works: “Carolina Beaumont, New York, 1976”.
Image Credit: https://www.1stdibs.com/art/photography/jean-paul-goude-carolina-beaumont-new-york/id-a_11275/
That photograph in turn references some much earlier images: 19th century caricatures of a South African woman named Sarah Baartman, who was exhibited at freak shows in Europe under the stage name of “the Hottentot Venus” (Parkinson, 2016) due to her steatopygic figure – the state in which an individual has substantial amounts of tissue on their buttocks and thighs, a widespread genetic trait of Khoisan people (Anitei, 2007).
Images credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Baartman
Made before the age of digital image manipulation, “Carolina Beaumont, New York, 1976” was physically assembled by the photographer from multiple photographs taken of the model, in order to create a playful, physics-defying scene while exaggerating her buttocks:
(http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com, ND)
We can see an example of how the image was constructed on the artist’s website, on which a digital archive of many of his past works and their sketches is maintained, and where images of another work, “Grace Revised and Updated” are displayed together with images documenting the artist’s process:
(http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com, ND)
The extreme extent to which these photographs are manipulated and physical traits typical to black culture are highlighted in them brings to mind the excessive use of photoshop in celebrity photos and the objectification of celebrities in pop culture we see today. If we assume that Goude’s intention was to draw the parallels between the treatment of Sarah Baartman in the 19th century and the toxic culture in which black celebrities were subjected to all the way up to the present day in the 21st century through the use of his photo of Kim Kardashian, the influence of the Pop Art Movement in his work becomes clear: he has taken a famous and controversial image and re-made it through mechanical means in a way that is easily mass produced and distributed. He has used an image of a figure from popular culture behaving in a crass manner that accentuates a more “vulgar” side of her (as angrily pointed out by many internet users in digital forums), removed from its original context and isolated in a single magazine cover with the added provocation that it was meant to “break the internet”.
Sarah Baartman’s story sparked controversial discussions about the fetishization and commodification of black women’s bodies, black female agency or lack thereof, and racism across historical narratives. Perhaps ironic but fitting, then, that we see ourselves revisiting these conversations in a photograph of a wealthy black socialite celebrity, often harshly scrutinized and criticized by the public for her wealth, body and influence.
Works Cited
Anitei, S., 2007. What is Steatopygia? An ancestral trait. [Online] Available at: https://news.softpedia.com/news/What-is-Steatopygia-51231.shtml [Accessed 16 11 2021].
http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com, ND. French Correction Archives #03 - Consuelo and Carolina. [Online] Available at: http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com/en/archives/french-correction [Accessed 16 11 2021].
http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com, ND. Grace Jones Archive #05 - Grace Revised and Updated. [Online] Available at: http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com/en/archives/grace-jones [Accessed 17 11 2021].
Parkinson, J., 2016. The significance of Sarah Baartman. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35240987 [Accessed 16 11 2021].
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