Kim Kardashian’s body has been celebrated for what South African woman Sarah Baartman was degraded for.
(Jon Kopaloff /FilmMagic/Getty Images/Wikimedia Commons)
Controversy erupted online when The New York Times published a review comparing Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman, an enslaved African woman who was degraded for her full figure, to reality starlet Kim Kardashian.
Chief theater critic Ben Brantley wrote a review of the Off Broadway revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Venus,” which centers on the unfortunate life of Baartman.
“Attention, please, those of you whose greatest ambition is to acquire the traffic-stopping body of Kim Kardashian,” Brantley wrote in a Monday, May 15 review. “There is a less drastic alternative to costly and dangerous buttocks implants.
“To wit: the fulsomely padded body stocking that is being modeled with flair and poignancy by Zainab Jah in the title role. …. It’s doubtful as to how comfortable such a stocking is as 24-hour wear. But it has the great advantage of not being permanent.”
Baartman was a South African woman who was forced to work in the European circus and the Parisian zoo, with white spectators gawking at her large buttocks and elongated labia, the former of which was the result of a genetic trait called steatopygia. Her body was sexualized by Europeans, who were amazed that her body was not like that of white women.
Brantley’s review touched on some of the racism Baartman endured but said she was “complicit in her own exploitation” after stating she was “seduced in South Africa with promises of lucre by a fly-by-night entrepreneur.”
“To contemporary eyes, Ms. Jah’s artificial figure doesn’t look all that different from the bodies of celebrity goddesses who populate People [magazine] and The Daily Mail wearing second-skin dresses,” Brantley concluded. “One hopes that these women own their bodies — and their images — in a way that was tragically denied Saartjie Baartman.”
The article was shared on Twitter with a title focused on Kardashian’s likeness to Baartman.
— ashley ✨ (@kualitykontent) May 16, 2017
Twitter users zeroed in on his comparison to Kardashian, who has profited from an image Black women have been objectified for.
The New York Times is trash RT @nytimestheater: Kim Kardashian of another era returns in Suzan-Lori Parks's "Venus". https://t.co/BGLgaLgufS
— Genie Lauren's #FastLife (@MoreAndAgain) May 16, 2017
Hey @nytimestheater Somebody tell Ben Brantley that some Black women naturally have a "traffic-stopping body". #DeleteYourAccount pic.twitter.com/JFnhcxyUfe
— DaBaby’s White Gold Grill ✨ (@BasicBlaecGirl) May 17, 2017
Saartjie Baartman was not a “Kim Kardashian of another era.” Only a white dude (Ben Brantley) could write something so ridiculously obtuse. https://t.co/iVwovm28l6
— Charles, Distance Incarnate (@CharlesPulliam) May 16, 2017
Ben Brantley sitting thru a play abt Saartjie Baartman & iterating in his review the VERY BULLSHIT THE PLAY criticizes is MIND BOGGLING.
— LaT ⚖💖💜💙 (@latxcvi) May 16, 2017
The NYT removed their tweet, but that didn’t satisfy Twitter users as the article remains posted.
We deleted an earlier tweet to our review of “Venus.” It was inappropriately framed, and we regret the error.
— NYT Theater (@nytimestheater) May 16, 2017
@nytimestheater Deleting a whyte supremacist themed tweet and publishing an article that does the same isn’t being accountable, hiring BW to do it right is
— iont give af (@sapiopaz) May 16, 2017
@nytimestheater Delete the article while you’re at it. It conveys the same points that the tweet did
— Ashley (@kualitykontent) May 16, 2017
@nytimestheater Who the hell passed this article and title as okay for publish… Disgusting! pic.twitter.com/bpWaaj8WYV
— Susie Carmichael (@1i1BoyBlue) May 16, 2017
