Why Interview Magazine's 'Pretty Wasted' Fashion Editorial Is So Disturbing
Interview magazine is receiving negative attention for an editorial featured in its November issue called “Pretty Wasted.” The fashion shoot features models Anja Rubik, Andreea Diaconu, Lily Donaldson, Daria Strokous, and Edita Vilkeviciute posing passed out in a dark alley surrounded by empty alcohol containers. The women, wearing couture from Marc Jacobs, Prada, Versace, DVF, Saint Laurent, Armani Privé, Tommy Hilfiger, and more, being represented in weak, subservient positions speak to a larger issue of inequality in media.
The photos, which were first posted to the Internet by fashionscansremastered.net, were captioned, “To be honest, I can’t distinguish whether this editorial is supposed to be disturbing and dark or ironically funny and artsy, or just plain retarded.” On Twitter, Davi Rutenberg writes that women are “not just commodities-glamorized depictions of victims.” Donal Clancy tweeted, “Very disturbing stuff. Intended to shock to impress, but Holy God!”
“These pictures look like they were created by people who hate women,” Patricia Phalen, associate professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University tells Yahoo Style. “The media industries are notoriously sexist — in the content they create as well as the work environments to which women are subjected. These pictures reinforce the message of our culture: human life is cheap, and women are merely props.”
Marcia Dawkins, assistant professor at USC Annenberg tells Yahoo Style, that the particular way the models are splayed as empty, defenseless, and submissive sends a poor message to readers. “Portraying drunk and unconscious women as sexy/beautiful sends the message that women in their sober and conscious minds are less beautiful and sexy,” she says. “The pictures not only take away the women’s consciousness and voices, but also their ability to consent to whatever happens to them next.”
Fashion editorials in particular have regularly come under fire for inappropriate and provocative images. In August, Indian photographer Raj Shetye’s series “The Wrong Turn,” which depicts a woman wearing high-end clothes trying to fend off the advances of a bunch of men on a bus, was called out for similarities to the actual story of the young New Delhi woman who was brutally gang-raped by six men on a bus in December 2012. And a feature in Vogue Italia’s May 2014 issue shot by Steven Meisel shows female models cowering in fear, holding bloodstained weapons, hiding from a predator.
The way that women are characterized in the media has been a longstanding issue. As Dawkins explains, by portraying women as equivalent, complex human beings, it would influence additional aspects of society such as the workplace, politics, education, religion and family. But when women are repeatedly cast as less than men, then this serves as a justification for discrimination within cultures around the world. “It relieves us all (women and men) of the responsibility we have to make women’s equality a reality,” she says.
