Dear VICE magazine: Please End Your Lazy Journalism

This was originally published in the comments section of an article published by VICE magazine a few months ago. I’ve edited it for clarity. You can find the article in question here.

I’m disappointed but not surprised by the stereotyping in this article. Let’s not pretend that this article is about the women of Cameroon who’ve experienced breast ironing. This article is clearly about the White, French, male photographer’s project. Noble as his intentions may be, becoming the voice of the people you are trying to help removes agency from the survivors and puts the focus on you. Were there no Cameroonians already fighting to bring awareness to this practice? Why didn’t VICE seek them out? Oh, because clearly none have the kind of social capital required to bring attention to Yet Another Savage African Practice. Sure, we read a few lines of the photographed women’s experiences, but we do so without context. The writer could’ve included a few basic contextual questions that would have given this piece more substance. For example: is this custom widespread amongst the entire population, or is the practice concentrated among a certain demographic/region? Is socioeconomic opportunity a factor? Does religion play a role? Are there any government regulations about the practice (for example, how old does a girl have to be before she can be allowed to be married)? Who are the most ardent supporters of the practice? These answers require real journalism, not an interview with the noble Savior.

No shade to the photographer’s skill level, but as for the artistic quality of the images, it’s not very high. The setup is boring, completely unimaginative. Perhaps Paré should have done his research on existing visual documentation of African women from colonial times to the present. These images bear such a liking to Carrie Mae Weems’s photographic series “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,”1995–1996 (image courtesy of Jack Shainman gallery). He said it himself, “for many women there are no visible scars, but rather they are afflicted by the psychological trauma”. Why have the women stand topless against a dark background looking woeful and forlorn? Unknowingly or not, it plays right into the preexisting assumptions of what Victims of Savage African Practice should look like. Do better VICE. You often cover stories about the world that other mainstream outlets don’t care to touch. So do your job well, and stop falling prey to easy, lazy, journalism.