BY HEIDI JOHNSON WRIGHT, AKA EARTHBOUND TOMBOY
By now, you’ve probably seen the fruits of the Kylie Jenner
photo shoot in the current issue of Interview magazine. The teenage reality TV
star is dressed provocatively in leather bondage gear. In some of the shots,
even her delicately-curved derriere is exposed.
But with all of the photos we average folks are bombarded
with on the Internet – celebrities posing in little more than body paint and
glitter, fashion models striding nearly nude down catwalks – Ms. Jenner’s
photos are not terribly remarkable. You, dear reader, have probably seen much
more revealing stuff on your friends’ Instagram accounts.
So why am I even mentioning this? Well, it seems that Ms.
Jenner has revealed something intimate about herself that goes beyond bare
skin.
Kylie Jenner is a gimp girl wannabe.
In two of the shots, Kylie is wearing a black leather
strapless onesie and a black leather collar while sitting in a gold-tone manual
wheelchair.
Looking at the shots left me flummoxed. You see, I thought
Larry Flynt was the only gimp out there rocking a gold chair.
Then I tossed that thought aside. I mean, if anybody else
could acquire a golden gimp-mobile, it would be a member of the storied
Kardashian-Jenner family.
Next, my eyes went to the expression on Kylie’s face. In one
photo, she stares off into space as if she’s perhaps experiencing a petit mal
seizure. My cynical side wanted to dismiss this as the typical empty gaze of a
high fashion model. You know, that look that says “I am insanely gorgeous and
make $10 grand an hour, yet I’m so misunderstood.”
But then I realized that Ms. Jenner is really trying out the
look of someone who has a disability. She wants to live it, to feel it.
Kylie’s tired of her incredibly privileged, affluent,
non-disabled life. She wants to know what it’s like to have precarious health,
to struggle to find employment yet keep her government benefits so she can pay
for attendant care. She longs to spend weeks trying to find an accessible
apartment she can afford, only to have the landlord tell her that the “no pets”
policy means she can’t bring her service dog. She yearns to sit in the rain
waiting for a bus, only to find that the one that stops has a broken lift and
she has to wait another 20 minutes for the next one.
Kylie Jenner, I pronounce you an honorary gimp girl. Welcome
to the club.
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