This particular Vice magazine fashion shoot was titled “Last Words” and consisted of seven photographs of models re-enacting the suicides of famous female authors. The authors portrayed were Virginia Woolf, Iris Chang, Dorothy Parker, Charlotte Perkins, Sylvia Plath, Sanmao and Elise Cowen.
Most notable were the images of Chang pointing a revolver at her mouth, an overhead shot of Cowen sprawled on the sidewalk, and Taiwanese author Sanmao with a pair of stockings around her neck (she committed suicide by hanging). The cherry on top was that Vice decided to include the fashion credit for these tights, just in case you wanted to buy them.
This spread chose to include the writer’s names, age of death, place of birth, place of death and manner of suicide, as well as the fashions they were wearing. What this spread did not highlight were the written works that these women had been renowned for.
This spread single-handedly reduced these women to their surface attributes of beauty and glamour, and failed to recognize their individuality and self. It did not attempt to highlight their works or other important details of their lives that made these women important literary figures, but instead used it as an opportunity for a photoshoot to sell clothing. The use of clothing credits almost normalized the content contained within by labelling it just like any other fashion photoshoot. It used these women’s lowest moments to create something commercial.
Typically, the point of fashion shoots is to glamorize outfits, accent the desirability of being a model, and present to us an ideal lifestyle that we should all be striving to attain. But when the lifestyle presented is of depression and suicide, it is definitely not something that needs to exist in this sort of commercial context.
By doing so, the spread made light of suicide and mental health problems by framing it as an edgy photo opportunity. It is typical of Vice to use controversial and provocative subject matter to get more page views, but many agreed that this had crossed several lines. Some publications described this as a “cynical bid for clicks,” which seemed to be a fairly accurate description.
Should a brand attempt to stay edgy even in the face of their readers own mental health? The media almost has a duty to protect their readers from this sort of harmful content. The inclusion of suicide in media is shown to increase the incidences of the particular type of suicide that is portrayed. By depicting famous female authors and using models to portray them, it was presenting two types of careers that are commonly idolized. Many young women would revere the career choice of an author or a model, and these fashion-photo suicides were depicted to those who identified with these women, and it almost normalized the act and made it acceptable.
Not surprisingly, many were outraged over this distasteful fashion shoot and Vice was blasted with criticism. In fact, in the middle of writing this editorial, the fashion spread was removed from the Vice website, likely due to this backlash. The editors left a comment to “apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended.” But unfortunately, they did much more than simply hurt or offend their readers. Not only had they perpetuated the glamorization of suicide and failing mental health, they had also reduced these women to their surface attributes while blatantly ignoring what had made them valuable individuals in the first place.