“This one is for all the troll haters out there that cannot seem to give me an ounce of credit for my daily workouts!”
That was what Khloe Kardashian said after haters criticized her photoshoot for Complex Magazine. From Mum to Daughters, at one point or the other, the Kardashians have all revealed their booty on one magazine cover or the other.
Beautiful bodies they have, no one can deny that. Kim Karsahian-West Kimoji App even broke Apple Store.
Most people only got the app because of Kim’s booty emoji, the best invention in booty calls sexting.
A couple of weeks ago, reports that Beyonce was planning to write and star in a film about Saartjie Baartman sparked a lot of controversy online.
Although the rumours have been denied by her representatives, Jean Burgess, a chief from the Khoikhoi group that Baartman was from, argued that Beyonce lacked “the basic human dignity to be worthy of writing Sarah’s story, let alone playing the part”
But who is Saartjie Baartman and what effect does she have on the world of booty photography.
Baartman was the most famous of at least two Khoikhoi women who, due to their large buttocks (steatopygia), were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus.
“Hottentot” was the then current name for the Khoi people and Venus is the name of the Roman goddess of love.
Steatopygia is the state of having substantial levels of tissue on the buttocks and thighs. This build can extends to the outside and front of the thighs, and tapers to the knee producing a curvaceous figure.
She was lured to Britain by a doctor who later partnered with a showman named Hendrik Cesars, who turned her into a freak show.
She was put on display with crowds invited to look at her large buttocks.
An account of her appearance claims she never stood in front of this people naked, she was always wearing a garment albeit a tight fighting one.
After the British crowd got weary of her freak shows, she was transported to France where she was painted and examined by scientists who were fascinated with her body.
Once her novelty had worn thin with Parisians, it is said she began to drink heavily and support herself with prostitution.
Baartman died aged 26. The cause was described as “inflammatory and eruptive disease”. Some suggest that this was a result of pneumonia, syphilis or alcoholism.
After her death, naturalist Georges Cuvier made a plaster cast of her body before dissecting it. He preserved her skeleton and dissected her brain and genitals, placing them in jars displayed at Paris’s Museum of Man.
This exhibits was on display until 1974 and in 1994, President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela requested the repatriation of Baartman’s remains and Cuvier’s plaster cast.
Her remains were laid to rest 192 years after Baartman had left for Europe. Saatjie had many skills, she spoke many languages—Dutch, English, some French, and her maternal tongue. She was both literate and sophisticated.
Today, she is often described as ‘the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism, of the ridicule and commodification of black people.’
He story reminds us about a past when blacks were nothing but acquisitions and also teaches us to value ourselves.
Saatjie’s only crime was her enormous booty and she paid dearly for the natural gift she had.
The Kardashians had to acquire and add to this booty gift and they have commodified it in a way that is not so different they way the Europeans commodied Saatjie.
They say history repeats itself.
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