The year 2015 doesn’t seem to augur well for singer Madonna. The pop icon has come under the gun after posting doctored photos of civil rights icons Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr that look like her new album cover on her social media accounts, reported Al-Arabiya News.
The cover photo for her latest album Rebel Heart features a close-up of her face entangled in black string. As part of her promotion campaign, she applied the same effect on renowned faces, including Marilyn Monroe. But what sparked the ongoing furore among the Twitterati and Facebookers was the photographs she posted of Mandela, MLK and Bob Marley, where she refers to them as ‘rebel hearts’.
Madonna gave individual captions to each photograph. She captioned Mandela’s picture as “This #rebelheart fought for freedom,” MLK’s as “This #rebelheart had a dream,” and Marley’s photograph as “This #rebelheart sang about One Love,” reported billboard.com.
Deeming the posts as ‘offensive’ and ‘racist’, netizens slammed the singer for placing herself on a par with legends of the civil rights movement. While some comments regarded the posts as insensitive, others defended Madonna’s artistic license.
Posts on Twitter showcased the anger of her followers, with one tweet stating, “To lessen Mandela’s and Dr King’s achievements as far as making their faces involuntarily a part of a marketing campaign for some irrelevant pop music is just a huge perception disorder.” Another tweet said, “I’m already unnerved by all these pictures with strings on people’s faces. This despair is such a cringe factor. It’s a pity.”
Madonna addressed the criticism in a statement released late Friday night, reported ABC News. “I’m sorry. I’m, not comparing myself to anyone. I’m admiring and acknowledging that they’re rebel hearts. This is neither a crime or an insult or racist,” read the statement. Madonna added that the images were generated by fans. She said that she also posted pictures of other famous personalities who were not dark-skinned.
Rebel Heart, which is Madonna’s 13th studio album, is slated to release on March 10. Owing to the recent wave of unauthorised song releases, Madonna was forced to offer six of her tracks to iTunes, but requested her fans to wait for the complete album, the Daily News reported. “Look at what’s going on with Sony Pictures. It’s just the age that we’re living in,” she recently said in an interview. “The Internet is as constructive and helpful in bringing people together as it is in doing dangerous things and hurting people. It’s a double-edged sword.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2015.
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