Somebody named Lucas Shelemy started an on-line petition calling the scars "offensive" and "disgusting." Shelemy says:
"The tagline of the product, of celebrating your 'imperfections' seems distasteful in the case of scars but more worrying still is how the majority of the designs resemble self-harm scars. Topshop should not be normalising self-harm or presenting it as a fashion trend. Not only is the glamorisation of self-injury dangerous for the mainly teenage demographic but harmful for others who have struggled with self-harm and see what for them, is a painful reminder being presented as acceptable – as long as its temporary and elegant."Somebody wrote at the Topshop website: "I can't believe Topshop are glorifying self-harm scars, whilst not advertised as self-harm scars the scars are placed on the arm in a row which is the stereotypical idea of self-harm, absolutely disgusted."
That was enough. The product was treated as if Davis had intended to celebrate deliberately cutting yourself, a self-hating (or at least self-destructive) impulse, when the idea was to feel happy about the body's imperfections. Talk about destruction: What have the haters created?
My heart goes out to young Lucie Davis. As a person of discontinuous color (freckles), I appreciate her work.
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15 comments:
Feeding frenzy! Watching SJWs devour each other is all good fun.
Didn't a bunch of mostly black basketball players wear actual raised burn scars as body art?
Either fraternity symbols and other markings.
I think the idea is a good one, but I think presenting self-harm scars with the tagline "flaws worth fighting for" (that's the tagline) is actually really tasteless.
I guess that some of them are very reminiscent of self harm scars, which may indeed be where the idea hatched in the artist's mind.
Remember when we used to be a free country before the puritan SJWs took over?
Of course there's a long historical tradition of ritual and ornamental scarification, particularly among African cultures. Why so racist, guys?
"Remember when we used to be a free country before the puritan SJWs took over?"
I think it's England.
A tattoo is a self-harm scar. I get that these were fake ('transferable') tattoos, but whatever point she's trying to make about 'glorifying self-harm' stands no matter what the fake tattoo looks like.
Brian: That assumes the point of a tattoo is to cause harm.
Self-harm means hurting oneself as the goal, not as a side effect of an aesthetic decision.
(Otherwise, "exercise" is "self-harm", since it often makes one sore or causes injuries, no?
Self-harm is definitionally about a very specific damaging intent - one not present in at least the vast majority of tattoos.)
Ms. Davis should just put those "disturbing" tattoos in the back of the shop, in a separate room, like the video rental stores did with pornos, and the tobacco shops did with the head-shop stuff. That way only the adults will see them.
American Apparel had the right idea. Less clothing = less surface area available for self-harm.
JSM
Sigivald,
Though I didn't write it out, I am aware of the assumption you identify in my thinking. I happen to think it is true in virtually all cases --- that almost every tattoo is an externalization of a feeling of alienation and pain.
And yes, I think some, perhaps even most, exercise should count as self-harm, too, and have admitted to my friends and family that a desire to externalize psychic pain underpins my own (pretty extreme) fitness regime.
I understand that mine is a minority point of view.
What's the big deal wit certain Tattoos? Aren't all Tattoos ugly defacements of the beautiful men and women.
I have a tattoo of a panther scratching my arm with its claws. I got it 25 years ago. It looks like those parallel scratches that are being treated as an encouragement to self harm.
Jim S,
Your tattoo is not a line of products intended to call attention to bodily flaws that their owners are proud enough to "fight" for. It's a tattoo of a panther.
Context is everything.
They are 'cut here' tats.
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