Kylie Jenner’s New Enemy: The Handicapped Community
Kylie Jenner takes her golden wheelchair for a spin. Photo: Steven Klein/Interview
Kylie Jenner slightly dented the Internet Tuesday with the release of her new Interview cover story and risque Steven Klein-shot editorial.
But it wasn’t her bare bottom that many people found most offensive—it was one of her props. No, not that pine sex doll box, but the golden wheelchair she’s posing in for several of photos.
Now, members and supporters of the disabled and handicapped community have taken to one of Jenner’s personal favorite outlets—social media—to express their disapproval of the shoot and its 18-year-old subject:
This is offensive and disgusting. Ableism is real and this just reinforces it. A wheelchair as a prop? @KylieJenner pic.twitter.com/UgAWbyKcR5
— Gregory Brown (@Whalewatchmeplz)
NEWSFLASH: BEING IN A WHEELCHAIR IS NOT A GLAMOROUS FASHION STATEMENT⁉️@KylieJenner this is ableism. pic.twitter.com/piZxJSo2sM
— hayl storm (@hxyleylxtour)
As someone in a wheelchair @KylieJenner @InterviewMag, this is offensive. My chair is not haute couture. pic.twitter.com/y3sBaiJzIH
— Jessica Jewett Jones (@JJ9828)
@KylieJenner wow being in a wheelchair is so fun and fashionable! #Ableism is the ultimate fashion statement! pic.twitter.com/lOScQnODhy
— Ophelia Brown (@bandaidknees)
I like how @KylieJenner can pose in a wheelchair for a magazine but whenever I use one I get shouted at with abliest slurs & get called ugly
— candycane ho (@CalyCupcake)
In a statement to E!, Interview defended its decision to feature the controversial pics of Jenner, saying that the shoot was meant to “[place] Kylie in a variety of positions of power and control and [explore] her image as an object of vast media scrutiny.”
“Our intention was to create a powerful set of pictures that get people thinking about image and creative expression, including the set with the wheelchair,” Interview continued. “But our intention was certainly not to offend anyone.”
The magazine also notes that many of the photos were directly inspired by British artist Allen Jones, whose controversial artwork and furniture designs involving mannequins and sex dolls have been causing upset since the ‘60s.
To be fair, it’s not at though Jenner is the first able-bodied person who’s attempted to make wheelchairs look en vogue. Lady Gaga famously rolled around in one in her music video for “Paparazzi” (and, later, onstage—in what seemed to be an homage to Bette Midler’s mermaid routine). And just this past spring, Steven Klein also put supermodel Joan Smalls in a golden wheelchair for V Magazine.
But if being a role model and leading so-called simple life is truly what Jenner’s after in the long-run—as she claims in her Interview piece—it may be time for her to figure out that this sort of controversy-courting photoshoot isn’t the way to do it.
Steven Klein put Joan Smalls in a wheelchair in V’s March 2015 issue. Photo: Steven Klein/V
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