Terry Richardson’s Work is Degrading to Women

[Les_Sucettes]

LMAO. Is this for real? Nobody can possibly think this is an authentic conversation with Terry Richardson, can they?

"Felice Fawn: So thanks again for your compliments.

Terry Richardson: dont be, i am a pervert like the rest in fashion"

Yeah, ok. I'm surprised he didn't also confess to doing drugs, killing Kennedy, not stopping at a stop sign and lying to his mother.

"Terry Richardson: like i said, daily 20 models do offer me to **** them for fame and all others i know in fashion also **** around"

LOL. I seriously feel bad for people falling for this. Are we to believe TR is this huge scheming pervert who been preying on young models for years without leaving any concrete evidence behind, suddenly starts texting/messaging unknown tumblrinas about it? All the while he has 20 offers daily from other models? Moreover, he's so dumb that he'll be explicit and obvious about it, so that it's really easy for the world and the police to convict him of a crime. Yep, that's totally plausible.

I'm inclined to believe some of these rumors surrounding TR. One, I don't like him or his photography. Two, there's been too much smoke from too many sources without there being some fire. But this here is straight up absurd in how removed from reality it really is.

I agree. This is like some sort of badly done cliche impersonation of what people think a sex pest might act.

 

[daniellat]

I think Sara Ziff and Coco Rocha can be trusted. They have founded the Model Alliance and abused models can contact them if they have a problem at work. So if is really a perv, they must have a lot of complaints about him. I wish they could do something against him.

Yeah, but Terry is not an idiot. He would obviously look for "easy targets". A lot of the up and coming models are very young and foreign, they wouldn't know about going to the Model Alliance to file a complaint. Besides, this is something embarrassing, last victims want are to make it public. It takes great courage to come out with allegations of sexual harrassment, that's why more established models are the only ones speaking publicly.

 

[KateTheGreatest]

Terry Richardson and scandal come hand-in-hand these days!

It seems like every few months, a new model is accusing him of some atrocious deed.

And even though Uncle Terry denies any wrongdoing, the piles of accusations are enough for many publications — and people — to try to disassociate from him as much as possible.

American Vogue has been avoiding him since 2010, and they recently confirmed their lack of interest in ever working with him again. And now, The New York Times' publication T Magazine is coming forward to announce that they also have no plans to work with him under their current leadership — EVER!

Spokesperson Eileen Murphy wrote:

“Under Deborah Needleman, T Magazine has not worked with him and there are no plans to do so.”

Before Deborah Needleman was hired to head the style magazine in 2012, Mr. Richardson had been hired as a photographer for the publication multiple times (he photographed Lana Del Rey, Amber Heard, and Azealia Banks for them).

perezhilton.com/cocoperez

yet another magazine has decided to not work with him (although his photography doesn't really fit with this magazine). If only HB and VP also decided to do so ...

 

[Not Plain Jane]

LATEST TERRY RICHARDSON ACCUSATION PROVEN FAKE, CLEARLY THIS GUY HAS 9 LIVES

Famed photographer and alleged sexual predator Terry Richardson has something to celebrate today. Reportedly, the Facebook message that was sent to Emma Appleton on Sunday, in which the 48-year-old Richardson supposedly offered the British model a Vogue photo shoot in exchange for sex, was sent from a fake account. Theo Yedinsky, a digital forensic expert hired by Richardson’s team, proved Thursday that the message came from an “unverified page” registered under a “random gmail account.” This information has been confirmed by Facebook and the account in question has since been deleted.

Jeez, talk about a man with nine lives.

Despite the growing number of sexual abuse allegations mounting against Richardson, he always seems to emerge on the other side relatively unscathed. While Vogue has distanced themselves from the photographer since the Appleton scandal, telling US Weekly that they “have no plans to work with him in the future” (which is promising), the horror stories about Richardson, which have been surfacing since at least 2010, haven’t stopped him from booking shoots with major celebrities like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus. I just don’t understand.

Thus far, Richardson has been able to dodge every indictment that has come his way. It makes my skin crawl and my blood boil, and if I’m this upset, I can’t even imagine how the victims of his alleged abuse must be feeling. In a way, I’m almost glad that this most recent incident has been proven false — I wouldn’t want Richardson to finally be taken down by a phony scheme, only to be vindicated a short time later. Numerous women have come forward to expose the abuse and harassment that models have allegedly been subjected to at the hands of Richardson, and sooner or later, I have to believe that something’s going to stick.

If he is indeed guilty, eventually his luck, which is the only word I can think of to accurately describe his baffling ability to evade these accusations, will run out.

Bustle.com/entertainment

http://www.bustle.com/articles/2230...tion-proven-fake-clearly-this-guy-has-9-lives

 

[KateTheGreatest]

^ I thought that would be the case and now it makes the other victims look bad.

Also interesting:

BuzzFeed Asks 25 Fashion Companies: “Will You Still Work With Terry Richardson?”

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/buzzfeed-asks-25-fashion-companies-will-you-still-work-with

 

[Not Plain Jane]

^ The ones under "no response" probably will work with him again since most have worked with him this year!

I'd like to see a similar list for models, pop stars and magazines!

 

[fashionista-ta]

Two questions in my mind at the moment ... Did Richardson's team really hire whoever posed as him so he could be innocent of something? And when is Glenda Bailey going to stand UP?

Anna W may be annoying, but at least she'll speak up for what she believes in. A good reason to resubscribe to Vogue ...


Good to see that W hasn't worked with him since 2011. (I just resubscribed after some years.)

 

[jennifer~]

^ I thought that would be the case and now it makes the other victims look bad.

Also interesting:

BuzzFeed Asks 25 Fashion Companies: “Will You Still Work With Terry Richardson?”

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/buzzfeed-asks-25-fashion-companies-will-you-still-work-with

Wow, that gallery really shows what an awful photographer he is.

 

[Emmanuelle]

When they say they have "no plans" with him, does that mean they will never use him again or that there is just no shooting scheduled for now ?

 

[fashionista-ta]

When they say they have "no plans" with him, does that mean they will never use him again or that there is just no shooting scheduled for now ?

I take that as a fairly definitive statement, vs. those who won't say anything. However, I'd like to think that there is no one who won't be thinking twice about hiring him now.


From now on, finding his name in the credits of any magazine I buy or subscribe to is going to result in a letter to the editor & that magazine going on my list of subscriptions not to renew.

 

[Chanelcouture09]

I don't mean to sound like I'm defending him because I'm not, but there are plenty more people out there with his authority or his influence who abuse that power in order to do whatever he does, he isn't the first and certainly won't be the last, so to expect everyone to stop working with him is like expecting an executive who does exactly the same thing to his female or male employees to never have a job again, what I would say is if Terry has a problem in some way such as an obsession with sex then to seek some sort of advice for that, there will always be an abuse of power from people in those positions and of course there are ways and means to stop that but I think Terry was stupid enough to get caught because I do truly believe other photographers have done it or are doing it still today whether they are gay or not, but I think a large amount of this is down to the fact that the fashion industry has this obsession with sexuality, sex, S&M and nudity amongst other hardcore subjects.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

I do truly believe other photographers have done it or are doing it still today whether they are gay or not, but I think a large amount of this is down to the fact that the fashion industry has this obsession with sexuality, sex, S&M and nudity amongst other hardcore subjects.

But we don't see the same sort of persistent sexism in the WORK of other photographers. We don't hear model after model complaining about their experiences with other photographers.

So how does that jibe with your reasoning?

I am not saying it doesn't exist behind the scenes with other people; you're probably right. But seriously, Richardson's work is appalling. His mainstream work is dull and repetitive and his underground work borders on p*rn*gr*phy. It's beyond me why or how he has the power that he does and why people like Kate Moss or Beyonce, etc, still work with him. I just do not get it.

 

[fashionista-ta]

I don't mean to sound like I'm defending him because I'm not, but there are plenty more people out there with his authority or his influence who abuse that power in order to do whatever he does, he isn't the first and certainly won't be the last, so to expect everyone to stop working with him is like expecting an executive who does exactly the same thing to his female or male employees to never have a job again, what I would say is if Terry has a problem in some way such as an obsession with sex then to seek some sort of advice for that, there will always be an abuse of power from people in those positions and of course there are ways and means to stop that but I think Terry was stupid enough to get caught because I do truly believe other photographers have done it or are doing it still today whether they are gay or not, but I think a large amount of this is down to the fact that the fashion industry has this obsession with sexuality, sex, S&M and nudity amongst other hardcore subjects.

I'm not worried about how the sexual predators of the world are going to support themselves. If some of them temporarily find themselves out of work and scrambling, perhaps they'll start to feel just a bit of the panic they've inflicted on others. That can only be instructive.


I'm not asking everyone to stop working with him. Merely large, mainstream magazines that expect to appeal to the majority of American women, and large, mainstream pop stars who are women and claim to be decent people who are supportive of other women. I think that would be a very nice first step.

 

[Chanelcouture09]

But we don't see the same sort of persistent sexism in the WORK of other photographers. We don't hear model after model complaining about their experiences with other photographers.

So how does that jibe with your reasoning?

I am not saying it doesn't exist behind the scenes with other people; you're probably right. But seriously, Richardson's work is appalling. His mainstream work is dull and repetitive and his underground work borders on p*rn*gr*phy. It's beyond me why or how he has the power that he does and why people like Kate Moss or Beyonce, etc, still work with him. I just do not get it.

Yes we do, Steven Klein is one, Helmut Newton was another, I know we've never heard stories about either of those, but Olivier Zahm is another who actually on the same lines as Richardson, in the style and 'hardcore p*rn*gr*phy' style images he produces if you look back at his photography on Purplediary you'll see perfect examples of that same sort of life style we're all accusing Richardson of having.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

Yes you're right about Olivier Zahm's work for sure.

I see Newton on a different plane. His work isn't tawdry in the same way. It's got loads of S&M references, yes, but it's much more tongue in cheek and I've often seen it as being more about female power than subjugation, as in the case of Richardson. Steven Klein's work strikes me as surrealist - lots of horror images, many from dark dreamscapes and fantasies. Again, I don't get a "p*rn*gr*ph*c vibe" from most of his work - although it's there in some of it. So I see what you mean.

As for these 3 that you've named, have models complained about sexual harassment while working with them?

For some reason I can see it with Olivier; we always see him in photos creeping around models at parities, lol.

 

[Les_Sucettes]

I like Terry's work, he's a good fashion photographer. I do not think at all that his type of photography is more or less p*rn*gr*ph*c or even mysogynist than the work of other fashion photographers, look at Juergen Teller, he's simply more crude and not so good for people to think it will be a great loss if this accusations are proven true, and we do not see another photo from him again. He's no Woody Allen.

Richardson does not have "nine lives" or has been evading accusations he has never actually been accused by the police of a sexual offence. That's the crux of the matter. Those allegations are strong enough in itself for people to decide not to work with him anymore, but at the same time those who do want to work with him can simply disregard this allegations if they choose.
Reading the testimony of that 19 year old model, I find it baffling that the police simply said that there was no crime at all, how is that even possible?

 

[Not Plain Jane]

The crux of the matter is exactly that. He needs to be charged in a court of law. And then, we'll see.

I find many of his non-fashion related images, and even some of his fashion photography, decidedly misogynist. I don't know how else to describe an image of a woman being pushed into a garbage can with the word sl*t written on her. Sigh.

But I do agree: charges need to be pressed for all of this to amount to anything. Otherwise it's just accusations/allegations.

 

[Les_Sucettes]

I agree with you, and do not get me wrong I think his non fashion images are straightforward p*rn*gr*phy so the fact that he seems to think they have some artistic merit is actually reinforcing the point his victims are trying to make.
But a pornographer can be a good photographer, and in my opinion he really does take good fashion pictures.
Fashion photography seems to work but it's own rules and It is innerantly mysogynist, I just do not find Terry's fashion work in itself more degrading to women than the work of any other top photographer. A woman on a bin is no different for me, than Lara with a noose on her neck or tied to a cross or with her boobs encased in metal. They are all conveying the same message with different degree of subtlety.

 

[fashionista-ta]

His images in the magazines I subscribe to are much more white bread than that ... but I would agree that there is no alternate interpretation of a woman in a trash bin.


If the average age of models weren't so very young, I don't think we'd even be talking about this, because the problem would have already been solved. It's a really unfortunate situation, where there are so relatively few models with seniority, and it's so, so easy to discard a young model.


I don't know exactly how close to the line of legality Richardson is treading. I guess I wonder why the models' agencies aren't backing them up ... just where are the agencies in this? Have the agencies he works with tacitly agreed to look the other way?


Personally I think the fact that sexual harassment has occurred is absolutely clear. In my world I would have recourse with HR, and if I were an independent contractor, with two HR departments--the company's and the agency's. I have never worked in the fashion sector ... but if Richardson is in charge of his end, and the agency doesn't care, or perhaps even is colluding, then I can certainly see where there would be a problem. Typically, failing an internal solution, harassment is handled as a lawsuit. For the police to get involved, I believe there would need to be a greater accusation than sexual harassment on the table, am I correct?


I don't see why this can't be handled (i.e., consequences created) by applying pressure to all mainstream entities hiring him.

 

[Birkin]

I find many of his non-fashion related images, and even some of his fashion photography, decidedly misogynist. I don't know how else to describe an image of a woman being pushed into a garbage can with the word sl*t written on her. Sigh.

The only person to blame in that kind of photos is the model who posses in them. I don't think there was a guy pointing a gun to her head to take the photo. When are women going to take responsability for their own actions instead of putting the blame on others? i wonder.