The body-positive campaign turned into a scandal: photos of women were used without permission, models added a leg instead of a prosthesis
The launch of a body-positive campaign in Spain under the slogan "Summer is ours too" turned into a major scandal. It was presented a few days ago by the Spanish Women's Institute, which belongs to the Ministry of Equality. Three women have already complained that the author of the illustration used their personal photos from social networks without permission. Moreover, a leg was added to the girl with a prosthesis, and one missing breast was “added” to the other.
The campaign is aimed at combating stereotypes and protecting the rights of women who, for one reason or another, are embarrassed to appear on the beach. It was explained that the poster is a protest against "fatphobia, hatred and denial of non-standard bodies." The illustration depicts five heroines of different build, age, skin color. One of the women is shown half-naked, her breasts have been removed.
When the illustration by artist Arte Mapache was published, it immediately attracted the attention of the world media, the Minister of Social Rights of Spain reposted on her page. However, unexpected details soon began to emerge.
British model Shan Green-Lord complained that the illustration showed a photo from her Instagram. The model did not agree to this. But most of all, the girl was outraged that her image was radically edited: the prosthesis was replaced with a leg. Also, the heroine of the poster added body hair.
Green-Lord, who lost her leg in 2013 in a car accident, says:
I don't even know how to express the anger I feel. I am literally shaking with rage. It's one thing to use my photo without permission, but quite another to photoshop my body with a prosthesis... I don't know what to say, but it's just wild. Shang said she was shocked because "she's been trying to come to terms with her peculiarity for a long time."
30-year-old plus size model from London, Naomi Nicholas-Williams, said the same thing - her photo was used for the poster, while she knew nothing about the campaign. According to the girl, this is her personal picture, not a stock photo, so she was extremely surprised when subscribers sent her a poster. Nayomi is angered by the situation, but she tries to respond with humor:
I'd like to meet the rest of the women in this illustration so we can team up as the Spice Girls and report to the Spanish government.
Naomi Nicholas-Williams
But the writer Juliet Fitzpatrick does not see anything funny in what happened: her image was also heavily edited. In reality, both of her breasts have been removed, but her "double" from the poster is a woman with one breast.
My topless photos have been used many times for different campaigns, but always with my permission and under my control, says Juliet.
Illustrator Arte Mapache has already publicly apologized to the women whose photos she took without permission. She noted that she did not want to offend them, but only intended to show how much they inspire with their example. As it turned out, the font used on the poster was also not free, but the artist did not know this and simply took it for her work.
As compensation, Arte offered to share the fee she received (about 4.5 thousand euros) among all the real heroines of the poster.
A completely idiotic story happened with the "Beach Bodies - Any Bodies" campaign, which we discussed a few days ago. For some reason, the illustrator of the project took photos of people from Instagram without asking and used them as the basis for the drawing. It would be nothing, but she added a leg to one of the models with a prosthesis. As they say, they wanted the best, but it turned out ....
- the telegram channel Good morning, Karl! writes about this story.