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Emily Ratajkowski on Reclaiming Her Own Image
- tomcam 6y agoBeautifully written and horrifying. Took me a few tries because it was so close to home. I am one of those lucky dudes who was raped and beaten at a very young age and gaslit in many of the same ways as she describes. Ended up with what they now call body dysmorphia. If you aren’t raised that way then how she reacts to bad situations probably feels nonsensical at best and alien at worst. But when you’re assured from a very young age that your grasp of reality is fundamentally wrong then it’s easy to derive whole chains of logic where each successive choice compounds earlier bad decisions.
- ykevinator 6y agoI'm sorry to hear about your experience, I hope you are healing and getting better every year. You are courageous to speak about it with such frankness. Articles about models annoy me but your comment was compelling.
- oh_sigh 6y agoDebates on whether this is HN worthy or not aside, what a silly point it is that starts the article. The picture in question just has a completely anonymous, faceless feminine shape it in. It could be a modern day Le fils de l'homme. Why would Ratajkowski own that image, which is almost entirely interesting because of the composition and not the person present in it? From reading the first few paragraphs, I thought the context was going to be a picture of, say, her just stepping into a building, and then she reposted it to say that paparazzi are just stalkers for hire. But she reposted the image because she liked it and wanted to use it as her own, not to point out how these people are invading her life.
- dillondoyle 6y agoYou should read the whole article. On the whole it's about male dominated culture and control over powerless women in fashion (she is relatively very powerful and one of the few to speak out). But to your point owning rights to your own image is the law in some countries like Germany Think about all the HN rage against mass surveillance, AI facial recognition, and right to privacy.
- oh_sigh 6y agoI have read the whole article. My point was that they should start the article with a good point, not a ridiculous one. The bad thing about the initial point is that even people who are very familiar with Ratajkowski would not recognize her as the figure present in the photo.
- dillondoyle 6y agoThe fashion industry has huge problems. environmental damage and carbon cost of cheap throw away garments. slave/exploitative labor. copying. And so much more than Emily's story of huge problems perpetrated by a male dominated industry. It's kind of shocking how big the male/female power differential is in both the number of men employed and the amount of power they have. If you view fashion (especially photography) as art you can see parallels especially the high end fine art world. Gagosian was alluded to in the article. If you're interested in learning more I highly recommend following Diet Prada and their new paid content! They cover rape culture, racism, blatant copying (diet prada..), the environmental impact and more. https://www.instagram.com/p/CFLJvGKHPc5/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CFLJvGKHPc5/ I'd also highly recommend reading the Diet Prada post which has a lot of comments and the disgusting misogynistic attacks from Imperial Publishing - the company that published a book of Polaroid's from one of the instances she details in her story. They said "We are all deeply disturbed to read Ms. Ratajkowski’s latest (false) statements to NY Mag in her never-ending search for press and publicity,” the rep said. “Of course Mr. Leder totally denies her outrageous allegations of being ‘assaulted.’ It is grotesque and sad that she is so vindictive to lie in such a way to the press routinely.”
- myself248 6y agoIt's still bizarre to me that clicking a shutter button is a "creative process" but being the subject of the photograph gives you no rights whatsoever. I've been on both sides of the lens and there has to be a better balance than we've struck in this country.
- rasz 6y agoImagine finding a rock in the stream when you are ~10. Rock so beautiful you become center of attention everywhere you show it. Soon enough you start wearing it as necklace. People stop you in the street to strike conversations, take pictures, offer presents. Life is good, everything is easy. No roadblocks, no queues, no entry exams, all because of something you found as a child. You start to get paid for just standing still while people photograph your pet rock. Obviously you drop out of uni, uni is for lesser people. You dont need education, you dont need skills, you have your pendant, you are set for life! With time you start to get jealous of people taking pictures. Its your rock! how come they get paid for its image? You are angry because someone managed to capture the side with slight blemish. It gets insane to the point you drop $80K on a picture of your own rock, so you can stand next to it for double the rockiness. You learn rocks erode after a while. The horror of losing the only thing you ever had going for you finally hits hard. Its so unfair, you were supposed to coast on the cloud for eternity. Maybe there could be some legal avenues you could explore to exploit all of those photos of your rock after all? Will someone think of the poor rock owners?