Sports Illustrated under fire for ‘racist’ photoshoot where white models pose with African tribesman and Chinese man in a cone hat

Sports Illustrated sparked a racial controversy this week over its latest swimsuit edition featuring bikini-clad models posing with African and Chinese natives dressed in traditional garb. 
The overall theme of this year's issue, which is currently on sale, was the seven continents, with the models doing photo-shoots in countries like Spain, Chile and Australia.

However, the magazine landed in hot water over its decision to have the scantily-clad women photographed next to some local inhabitants in the places they visited as if they were ‘exotic props,’ according to some critics.

Outrage: Critics lambasted the magazine, currently on the news stands, for pairing a Caucasian model with a man in tribal garb carrying a spear for the Namibia shoot

Bumpy ride: In its latest swimsuit issue, now on sale, Sports Illustrated featured a white, blonde model sitting on a raft in China operated by a man wearing a typical cone hat

One of the images that has sparked the most outrage shows model Anne V, who is Caucasian and blonde, sitting on a traditional raft on a river in Guilin, Guangxi, being piloted by an elderly Chinese man sporting a typical cone hat.   

Cover girl: Model Kate Upton, pictured on the front of the 2013 swimsuit issue, posed in a tiny white bikini against the backdrop of penguins in Antarctica

The second image that has been deemed offensive depicts Emily DiDonato frolicking in a two-piece swimsuit in Namibia with a man wearing a loincloth and other tribal-looking accessories, and carrying a spear.

Writer Dodai Stewart scolded the magazine in the prominent feminist blog Jezebel, accusing Sports Illustrated of perpetuating age-old stereotypes harking back to colonial times and using natives as fashion accessories while emphasizing the ‘centrality’ of the white models.

 

'China has tons of skyscrapers and modern cities that make New York look rickety, but this image recreates an age-old narrative in which anything non-Western is quaint, backward and impoverished,' Stewart wrote in reference to the China photoshoot.

In her takedown of the Namibia images, the Jezebel writer noted that despite Africa's status as the cradle of civilization and the continent’s impressive diversity, Sports Illustrated chose ‘to tap into the West's past obsession/fetishization with so called savages.'

According to HipHopWired.com, a black model was supposed to be featured in the Africa photoshoot, but a white model was chosen instead, allegedly to provide 'better contrast.'

Dr David Leonard, associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, told Yahoo! Shine that much like picturesque locales, people of color are seen as exotic and uncivilized 'as a point of comparison for the civilized white beauties.'

Leonard went on to say that beyond their use as human props, the natives in the images are imagined as servants there to please Westerners on their exotic adventure.

Bevy of beauties: Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models (left to right) Natasha Barnard, Adora Akubilo, Anne Vyalitsyna, Jessica Perez, Jessica Gomes and Kate Boch ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange

Controversial: Model Jessica Gomes holds the swimsuit issue showing the China spread that has drawn fire from critics

Interestingly enough, for the magazine's Antarctica shoot, the blonde beauty Kate Upton posed in a teeny white bikini against the backdrop of penguins.

This is not the first time that a magazine has stirred a controversy over featuring native inhabitants. J. Crew was blasted once for using kids in Bali for a photo-shoot, the Huffington Post reported.

In 2011, Vogue Italia was widely criticized for showing models wearing hoop earrings, which the magazine referred as 'slave earrings' on its website.

Posted in: World news