Fabulous Fetishization: Kylie Jenner’s Interview Cover and Wheelchair Identity Politics

Abstract

Wearing a shiny black bodysuit, Dior shoes, and a collar, Kylie Jenner stares aimlessly downward, her unflexed arms lending no movement to the luxuriously golden wheelchair in which she sits. Because Jenner is able-bodied, this appearance on a December 2015 Interview cover incited critical reactions from the disability community. Disabled bodies are not generally associated with high fashion, making the use of a wheelchair in a fashion shoot is rare. While my work, like previous research on the Jenner family, considers Jenner’s role as sex symbol, here I am also interested in her performance of cripping up and disability simulation, in which Jenner appropriates the wheelchair from communities who see it as a symbol of access and independence. Jenner’s position in the fashion industry as a beautiful, sexualized woman is an interesting juxtaposition with her appropriation of the wheelchair, given that disabled individuals are so often portrayed as asexual. In this work, I position disability as a performance contextualized by culture, a perspective characterized by an understanding of disability as an embodied, enacted identity that is institutionally enforced. Understanding disability as performance allows a perspective on Jenner’s use of the wheelchair as part of a dramatic scene, while understanding that Jenner does not have the same societally-enforced or embodied experience of a person who uses a wheelchair because of physical need. I argue that Jenner’s performance, photographs taken in response to her shoot, and the discourse surrounding the controversy construct boundaries of what ethically acceptable wheelchair use should be, particularly with regard to media portrayals.