Fucking hell.

Anti-racism and feminism are on the same stakeout in the 21st Century. And this is why.

This horrendous image is a still from the winning photoshoot on the show Britain's Next Top Model. Hundreds of people must have been involved in its vetting and dissemination. This means that, by the time the photo was aired, hundreds of people had failed to notice the gag-making racism and sexism implicit in its careful organisation, or had failed to speak out.

Images of unnaturally thin, groomed, flawless, poreless, white western women dominate the cultural exchange of the 21st century. As Naomi Wolf put it:


“'Beauty' is a currency system, like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.”

Add to that 'white hegemony' and 'consumer-capitalist oligarchy' and we're just about cooking, Naomi.

The timeless white silk dress and focus on the unearthly paleness of model Alex (19)'s legs and body is a tacit reference to L.R Haggard's 1887 novel, She. This does not make the image or its semiotics one jot more acceptable - She is also a staggeringly racist tract and has been read as such by generations of literature faculties. The eponymous heroine is the immortal white witch-queen of a tribe of cannabalistic Africans, destructively beautiful and utterly evil, portrayed as a sexually monstrous being -i.e, she is a woman who expresses sexual desire. The image is here updated for the 21st century beauty industry, in that rather than expressing sexual desire the model in the photograph is stretched out provocatively, smugly entitled and entirely unchallenging.

And if that makes you spit, imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the guys in the bottom of the photo, snatched from central casting and shoved into a ridiculous leopard-print strappy-top and woolly hat in order to make you look 'tribal'.

Fucking, fucking hell.