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Kylie Jenner causes outrage after posing in golden wheelchair

8 years ago
by sianabigail

For some people, a wheelchair can be an integral part of their daily life, and something they can’t live without. For Kylie Jenner, it was used as a prop for her fashion photoshoot with Interview.

The TV socialite posed, pouting and doll-like, dressed in black latex and draped over a golden wheelchair. The shoot used the wheelchair as a fashion accessory, a prop for her to model on. Jenner stared blankly into the distance, a broken prop as fake as the wheelchair.

A wheelchair user has recreated Kylie Jenner from the photoshoot after she came under fire for apparently glamourizing disability. It left people wondering how this overtly offensive photoshoot ever made it into print, let alone be thought up as an idea to begin with.

Some disabled people suffer with intense prejudice and stigma daily. Others even shared their stories of being refused modelling opportunities because of being in a wheelchair, and even having people avoid eye contact with them.

Erin Tatum posted an image of herself on Tumblr, with her hair and clothes styled to replicate the original shoot. The 24 year old wanted to show the stark contrast between reality and a ridiculous, phony photoshoot.

This fashion shoot has received immense backlash from social media users, especially those who are part of the disabled community. Kylie Jenner has been trending on twitter, with many people taking to the site to express their disgust at how they believe it portrayed ableism.

Some tweets included: “What on earth was @KylieJenner thinking? My wheelchair is my reality, not your fashion statement.”

Interview tried to defend the overtly provocative images, shot by Steven Klein, telling E! News:

“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.”

It seems the publication wanted to remodel an artist’s vision of submissive women, but instead just showed how they didn’t give a single thought to who this would offend.

People were outraged that this provocative shoot featured a wheelchair as if it was an item of beauty. Claiming they want to grant Kylie Jenner power is taking power away from disability and peoples power to define themselves. They don’t want to be told what their disability means to them, they don’t want an able-bodied person doing this for them.

Ableism is the discrimination of physically disabled people in favour of able-bodied people. So whilst Kylie Jenner took her fully functioning legs to drape across an unrealistic metal plated wheelchair, social media users shared images of real disabled models in their own photoshoots, raising positive awareness of the often hidden side of fashion.

There was dispute over who was more responsible for the shoot, and so the fight for power between director and subject continues.

I’ll leave you with one woman’s message to Kylie Jenner. 

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