By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The editor of a popular French magazine, well-known for its penchant for the provocative, is believed to have been fired just weeks after the debut of the December issue that featured girls as young as six in provocative clothes.
Jennifer Grant of Christianity Today’s Her-Meneutics blog is reporting that Carine Roitfeld, former editor in chief of Vogue Paris, announced that she was leaving the magazine just weeks after the December issue carried a section entitled Cadeaux (Gifts) which featured a photo spread of heavily made-up little girls.
Roitfeld recnetly told The Guardian that she “likes to have something every month that is – how you say? – not politically correct. A little bit at the limit. Sex, nudity, a bit rock’n’roll, a sense of humour. That is very French Vogue.”
However, in the same interview, she claimed to have limits. “There are some things we never touch. I don’t want pictures with violence, I don’t want drugs, I don’t want horrible things like that.”
As Grant points out, dressing up little girls to look sexually provocative doesn’t appear to be on Roitfeld’s list of no-nos, leaving some to speculate that this might be one of the reasons behind her abrupt departure.
“Are fans of the December issue correct when they say that those of us who find some of these images disturbing are just dirty-minded ourselves?” Grant writes. “The girls, after all, aren’t naked or engaged in sexual acts. What’s wrong with a game of dress-up? Don’t all little girls love to raid their mommies’ closets and put on high heels and silky slips from time to time? Could I be — how you say? — prudish or naïf to find the pictures unsettling?”
But the French Vogue spread is different from girls’ innocent dress-up games, Grant says. “Its purpose is to sell high-end products, such as parfum, to adults. That there is so much sex in the surrounding pages also affects the way these images are understood.”
She also points out that Tom Ford was the guest editor and designed the controversial issue. Ford is close friends with photographer Terry Richardson, a man who has been accused of exploiting underage girls.
In 2009, the Huffington Post reported on a feud between supermodel Rie Rasmussen and Richardson which broke out after the photographer used photos of her in a book that featured compromising images of underage girls.
Rasmussen accused: “He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves.”
“It’s not only the surrounding pages or Ford’s affiliation with Richardson that trouble me in regards to the photos. It’s some of the elements of the wider culture as well,” Grant writes.
“This is a world in which many very young girls look to Paris Hilton as a role model, a woman who was arrested for the third time (most recently for cocaine possession) last . . . It’s a culture in which teen clothing companies add maternity lines to their offerings. Fashion can be inventive and fun. It can drive us to question some of what we take for granted — and I think those are good things. But the cynical Cadeaux goes too far. Instead of eroticizing them and presenting these little girls as sexy pushers of luxury items, mes amis, I say let them eat cake . . . fresh out of the Easy-Bake Oven.”
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