Karl Smallman
MICHELLE Obama may be used to appearing on the cover of magazines but it is unlikely she gave her approval for this latest appearance.
The Spanish magazine Fuera de Serie has stirred up controversy by revealing a photoshopped picture of the First Lady bare breasted and as a 19th century slave.
The original portrait, titled Portrait D’Une Negresse, was released in 1800, when French artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist exhibited the painting at the Louvre’s annual salon.
At the time the portrait was viewed as a tribute to emancipation and the beginning of a feminist movement in France coming just six years after the country had abolished slavery.
But this message has been lost on online viewers who have simply found the cover offensive and racist.
Even the article’s headline ‘Michelle Granddaughter of a Slave, Lady of America’ has done little to calm reader’s fury.
“As a non-Spanish speaker I first looked at the image and just thought OMG that’s Michelle Obama’s boobs,” writes Jessica Wakeman on The Frisky.
However the artist responsible Karine Percheron-Daniels has defended her work saying it shows an ‘alternative unexpected reality’ by allowing the viewer to see ‘famous individuals in a different way’.
“I’m sure Obama would love it, and I hope that someday she can see it,” she said.
The image is part of a series of edited photos that show famous people’s faces on the heads of other nudes.
The terrifying original, au naturelle, can be seen on the Google search. Unpixelated. Yikes! Will somebody please think of the children!
The Olive Press must ban this material as soon as possible. It’s up there with the Sur In English ads.
I love the fact that there’s another Fred on the olive press that always seem to post what I’m thinking.
I am going to make a picture of Reproducer Percheron-Daniels, standing next to her best works of art, and print it on every sheet of a toilet roll. Next i’m going to mass produce these bog rolls and give them to hotels, restaurants, etc.
Whats that? you dont think its right? i should have asked? thought about consequences?
I used the back of my own head while copying a Beatles cover – can i get the same pay for a magazine cover.
Me too.
Darn GOOD THING this magazine did NOT print a similar image of the POTUS because they could NOT imagine, “that portrait would be viewed as a tribute to… anything”!
Shame on the artist.
If this Magazine did NOT have a SIGNED Publication Release for this from M. Obama, she could SUE and easily WIN everything from this Mag .. including their printers ink. Stupid media.
J Molitor – “If this Magazine did NOT have a SIGNED Publication Release for this from M. Obama, she could SUE and easily WIN everything from this Mag .. including their printers ink. Stupid media.”
It’s actually complicated. “Public figures” under US law aren’t entitled to the same type of protection from media usage that a private citizen is. It isn’t like in Europe. There is an enormous amount of racist, vile and pornographic (edited/photo-shopped) images of US public figures. Some would probably fall afoul of laws in some European countries contrary to racism; those laws don’t exist in the USA, it is more relaxed as far as “free speech” is concerned. Part of that protected speech often includes parody and even fictitious usage of images and what is illegal hate speech in some parts of Europe.
It’s not France or Spain where you have to blur out an image of a person in public – or are prohibited from filming in public. Americans consider it fair game.
There is also very little precedent for politicians (anywhere) suing, even if they would have a winning case for libel/slander or otherwise. The reason is just politics – it would make them look bad. Better to just take it on the chin.