By Clash Daily
It’s been a big week for Sports Illustrated. First, a blogger leaked
the swimsuit issue’s much-anticipated cover, upstaging David Letterman’s
big reveal on Monday. Now website Jezebel is calling out the men’s
magazine for using minorities as “props” in photos featuring models in
bikinis posing in seven different continents.
Sports Illustrated coverJezebel argues that the magazine is
perpetuating racial stereotypes by drawing power and class lines between
the Westernized models and the “primitive locals” and points to a long
history of media using people of various ethnicities as “extras”, citing
Nylon magazine, the Free People catalog, British Vogue, and J-Crew.
Depending on where you look, the reaction has been mixed, even among the men who are supposed to be titillated. On Jezebel’s website, one male commenter
wrote, “Pics of woman with local natives is NOT hot, it’s exploitative,
so the mission is fail right there. Oh and exploitative. I do not know
what they were thinking….fail all around.” While another guy wrote,
“Some of the examples are ›‹reaching a bit…the one with the boat….why
pick that for China? Especially when everything I read about China is
how they’re an industrial powerhouse.” And one helpful reader on Sports
Illustrated’s Facebook page pointed out, “Technically speaking they were
not shot in all seven continents. While Easter Island may belong to
Chile, it’s a Polynesian island, and not part of the South American
continent.” Oy.
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