Kim Kardashian Photo Controversy: Beautiful or Bigoted?

The recent release of photos of Kim Kardashian shot by Jean Paul Goude have been under heavy fire in a debate on whether or not the photos are racist and/or sexist.

For years now, reality television star Kim Kardashian has been in the spotlight for racy videos, familial catfights, excessive shopping, and just general airheadedness. Although some regard her as a media genius, what with her wildly popular app "Kim K: Hollywood" and 'private' wedding photos sold for millions of dollars, Kim has just taken things too far in a recent photoshoot.

Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères, Bibliothèque Nationale de France / Via upload.wikimedia.org

In the 19th Century in France, there was a woman named Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman who suffered from a physical deformity that caused her to have extraordinarily large buttocks and genitals. She was "discovered" at work in Cape Town, South Africa by a Scottish doctor who took quite in interest in her; she then went with said doctor to London to be examined for her condition. This "examination" turned out to be subjection to being poked, prodded, and displayed in a freak show because of her deformity. Baartman was objectified and put on display to show customers of the freak show her oversized genitals and rear end. Not only was she over-sexualized, but the fact that she was a woman of color contributed to the exoticism, eroticism, and general interest that the predominantly white audience surrounded her with.

Jean Paul Goude / Via static02.mediaite.com

The recent photos of Kim Kardashian taken by world-renowned photographer Jean Paul Goude are hardly original; they are, in fact, recreations of photos that Goude had taken many years prior of his then-girlfriend Grace Jones. The poses that Goude put Jones and Kardashian in (in this particular photoshoot) are reminiscent of images of the previously mentioned Saartjie Baartman. Jones is from Spanish Town, Jamaica, and is naturally quite dark-skinned, and has a similar complexion to that of Baartman. Goude has published literature about his fetish for African/dark-skinned women. In most, if not all, of Goude's photographs of Jones, he positions and portrays her as being almost primal: an animal or object meant to be looked at and used, rather than a human to be appreciated inherently and interacted with. That being said, Goude's photography has incredibly apparent racial undertones. While the photoshoot with Kim Kardashian is a recreation of some of Goude's less offensive work, the fact that he (as a photographer and artist) had originally shot these photos in a fetishized, over-sexualized, and objectifying nature makes the photos of Kim Kardashian offensive and oppressive.

Kardashian released these photos of herself with the intention of causing controversy, which is proven by the accompanied hashtag #BreakTheInternet (meaning that she wanted to cause such a stir that everyone would just go insane). She wanted to get a reaction out of people, meaning that she must have had some idea of how vexed and contentious these photos are. That fact alone makes this entire situation worse, considering that Kardashian is creating not only racial but also sexual inequalities.