With the rapid dissemination of images via the Internet, celebrities who grace the cover of fashion publications are deemed or dismissed as household names faster than ever. Paper Magazine, a relatively unknown magazine, niche at best put Kim Kardashian on the cover of its November 2014 issue. Kardashian, a cult product of 21st century’s obsession with fame and wealth, became a goddess whose buttocks held a champagne glass in front of the lens of famed photographer Jean-Paul Goude. Another cover saw Kardashian showcasing her bare buttocks, which are coming out of a fabric that resembles a trash bag. Both covers serve as a majestic tribute to the Internet who crowned Kardashian as one of the most successful celebutante. Her status as the “celebutante,”
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Paper Magazine’s response to the leaks that angered victim celebrities was in the form of presenting Kardashian, who also happens to be one of the victims, fully nude. Jon Stratton (1996) ties hysteria to spectacularization of a naked body, “Hysteria may then be understood as the symptomatic presentation on the surface of the alienated and objectified body, where in the case of women sexual desire had also been constructed into a passive form, a body now also fetishized and spectacularized, of forms of mental distress.” Far from the mental distress, feelings of achievement have been activated on the both covers where Kardashian’s body becomes a marker for famed territories of her grandiose figure. By releasing the covers at such timely manner, Paper Magazine juxtaposes the feelings of public shaming and humiliation of celebrities to a different frame where Kardashian’s consented nude images become celebratory visuals of her envied figure. The trash-like quality of Kardashian’s dress also marks the way in which the public viewers have responded to the “The Fappening.” In a way, celebrities bombarded with insults such as “whore” and “slut” “that characterize sexual (or sexualized) women as ‘trash’” (Purcell, 2012). Adam Knee then (2006) argues how publications render famed celebrities as porn
Paper Magazine’s response to the leaks that angered victim celebrities was in the form of presenting Kardashian, who also happens to be one of the victims, fully nude. Jon Stratton (1996) ties hysteria to spectacularization of a naked body, “Hysteria may then be understood as the symptomatic presentation on the surface of the alienated and objectified body, where in the case of women sexual desire had also been constructed into a passive form, a body now also fetishized and spectacularized, of forms of mental distress.” Far from the mental distress, feelings of achievement have been activated on the both covers where Kardashian’s body becomes a marker for famed territories of her grandiose figure. By releasing the covers at such timely manner, Paper Magazine juxtaposes the feelings of public shaming and humiliation of celebrities to a different frame where Kardashian’s consented nude images become celebratory visuals of her envied figure. The trash-like quality of Kardashian’s dress also marks the way in which the public viewers have responded to the “The Fappening.” In a way, celebrities bombarded with insults such as “whore” and “slut” “that characterize sexual (or sexualized) women as ‘trash’” (Purcell, 2012). Adam Knee then (2006) argues how publications render famed celebrities as porn