Kanye’s casting call commands controversy on social media platforms
In the latest installation of what Kanye West may not consider his Kanye best, the rapper’s fashion show “Yeezy Season 4” recently flopped, leaving a disgruntled audience in its wake.
Many watched this event from the front row seats of the Internet or from Tidal where the fashion show livestreamed on Wednesday, Sept. 7.
In case you missed it, I can assure you it was a hot mess by countless people’s standards. A resounding “what is going on” seemed to be the accompanying tagline, but even before the show took a dive, West was disturbing the waters with his casting calls.
Three days prior, West put out a casting call in New York for “multiracial women only.”
Many people, being the social warriors they are, took to the battlefield, a la Twitter, to voice their opinions. Accused of favoring light skinned women, West addressed these remarks in an interview with Vogue. He described his casting call not as a means to exclude, but rather to provide variety.
“How do you word the idea that you want all variations of black? West said.
“How do you word that exactly?”
Being a pop culture expert and an all around drifter through all things remotely MTV worthy, the fact that there was a problem with West was not the least bit surprising to me (throwback to 2009 VMA’s and the T’Swizzle incident).
What did come as a surprise was his call for “multiracial” models and the backlash that followed. To be clear, I didn’t understand that out of all the possible upsetting things our problematic fave had to offer, his call for “multiracial” models was the issue.
When I first heard about it, thoughts of “All Lives Matter” groups and Meninists came to mind, so like any reasonable young adult, I looked to the internet for confirmation.
Turns out I agree with Yeezy on this one. Initially even hearing the term “multiracial”, I assumed it meant a slew of diverse women of many shades, colors and bodies. Hence, the “multi” in “multiracial.”
However, looking at the arguments of these twitter fighters I could understand where they were coming from.
As stated in Huffington Post article, “Kanye West Under Fire for ‘Multiracial Women Only’ Casting Call”, plenty of models showed up nonetheless and many (if not all) did not seem bothered or deterred in any way.
In all honesty I was surprised I didn’t find any big qualms from non-multiracial people on their exclusion from this opportunity (but I’m sure they exist anyways).
In any case, “Yeezy Season 4” left me and many others feeling underwhelmed and so in the words of the Notorious B.I.G., “If you don’t know, now you know.”