Recently I ran across this fashion editorial in one of the blogs I follow in my reader. The response to it has been mixed, of course, and for my initial reaction you can check my tumblr.
Other blogs have gotten around to saying that they don't like this editorial of course. Refinery29 says they aren't down with it, and fashionlogie presents the info in a more news-like manner. My least favorite reaction was from fashion copious where the poster asked: "Maybe she was taking in a culture? Is the problem
in our own viewing?"
Another poster on Refinery29 said the same thing in a more ham-fisted manner, stating "If Daria wasn't a famous model, no one would be discussing the editorial like this. Other models are the subjects as well, and I think if people interpret these surreal and almost painterly images as "racist," that's their own problem, not the photographs'."
So yes, I think that these images are racist. If not racist, I think, at minimum, that they are the paragons of bad taste. Fashion editorials routinely fall into traps of cultural appropriation and the objectifying of the "other" and I find this shoot to be no different. The problem isn't that the other models are subjects. The problem is that the white woman in the shoot is seen as a focal point. I don't give a damn that Daria Werbowy is famous. What I really care about is the fact that she is white, and her juxtaposition with people of other races in this shoot clearly points to her being more important than the other models. In a society where notions of white beauty are clearly prioritized, putting a white woman in the center of a fashion shoot is nothing surprising. It just reinforces the same old (fundamentally racist) ideas.
Additionally, the claim that the problem is in the way we view the spread: bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I agree it is not the responsibility of the artist to be held accountable for every single interpretation of a piece. However, when your "art" draws from common racist ideology, you have to be aware of the implications. In these photographs, the lighting and coloring of the shoot makes the models of color blend into the background. They are nothing more than actors in the fantasy that is the white woman's descent into exoticism. The bottom line is that an artist can't put an enormous canvas featuring a penis into a gallery and then claim that it doesn't mean anything, that it's just a portrait of the artist's boyfriend's dick. No, a painting of a penis would carry many cultural implications, and the artist has to be aware of these possible interpretations. Artists' responsibility is to be deliberate with their imagery. If they are going to manipulate racist tropes, there most certainly can be an explanation as to why they have been used. But putting the art out there, saying that it's just for the aesthetic and has no deeper meaning, and then claiming racism is only in the eye of the beholder is, at best, irresponsible. [for the record, Interview/the photographer have not staked this claim, but their defenders have]
So yes, I'm calling "racist" on this shoot. If I wanted to be kind, I would at least call it "careless" and that's equally as bad.
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