Skimpily Dressed Model Posed in Real Poverty Setting Drew Flak For Being Insensitive

Alright, how many of you didn’t actually read the whole title and just clicked because of the girl in the thumbnail and “Skimpily Dressed Model”?

That’s probably what a Philippines-based photographer 7AM Rant wanted to achieve with their latest photo-shoot album “Grungy”, which means dirty or grimy.

It shows a model wearing strategically torn clothing on… certain locations, a small amount of dirt, and #nohairdo hair that somehow looks pretty neat.

Well, the thing is, that would have all been fine if it was just that. But people aren’t quite happy after realising that the album was based on a poverty setting.

Street Kid

You can see her pretending to be a street kid at junkyards, posing with a white sack for collecting usable junk, begging and getting change from a taxi driver, and posing with some other kids.

It is not known if the boys are actual real street kids.

And they also have this sunset shot because that’s probably what poor people do with their professional gear camera and have nothing else to do except fool around in the junkyard right?

The model had proper makeup, including contouring and false lashes. She was actually wearing earrings and even had precise highlights in her hair.

Honestly, if I didn’t read more news articles on this, I wouldn’t have known this was a poverty shoot. I might have thought it was a zombie apocalypse shoot or something (with a surprising lack of zombies).

Flame for poverty porn

People aren’t quite happy about it for romanticising and seemingly ignoring the real problems of poverty.

Model: STFU If You’ve Got Nothing Good To Share

Here’s the model’s response. When translated to English (using Google translate, may be incorrect): “We’re not romanticising poverty here…we just want the concept. And you have nothing to say … if nothing says good, better stfu…”

It’s basically a shitstorm in the comments, with a repeat of the above about 20 more times. To understand how well the post did in terms of views only, it received 7,700 reactions, 2,700 comments and 7,200 shares.

Maybe it was all about the views… and something more

Let’s try to be fair here and understand the artist’s perspective. While I would like to post some of the artist’s other works here to illustrate his/her usual works, that would turn GoodyFeed R18, so it isn’t quite feasible.

Let’s just say that it shows pretty girls doing pretty girl things and looking pretty.

But let’s give the artist the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe there was some other message behind it. What if it simply featured some poor kids actually doing poor kids things?

Other posts in his/her profile certainly DID NOT have 7,000 shares and likes. All of his/her other posts have less than 100 reactions and less than 10 comments and shares.

In the alternative that a normal shoot was done, it is entirely possible that actual poor kids might only get the same muted reactions.

Maybe it isn’t about the message something that the artist wants to give. Maybe it’s the interpretation of the other people to the photo that the artist is interested in.

Think about it. The artist certainly didn’t increase his/her own reputation in the community after this, but it did spark a lot of discussion and shares.

And that could be quite valuable especially when it wasn’t a force-fed message.

If the purpose is to spark controversy and gain views, I think the album fulfilled its purpose.

And remember. It may be a sensitive topic, but nobody was actually harmed in the process of this shoot, except the artist.