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Before you look at another photo of Tiger Lily Hutchence, think about this Before you look at another photo of Tiger Lily Hutchence, think about this
(about 2 hours later)
You’d be hard-pressed to find any ethical justification for a lurking adult to secretly photograph an orphaned teenager when she’s in briefs and a bra spending time with her boyfriend. Harder still would be to excuse the sale of the young girl’s photographed body to the internet, offered for the commercial judgment of her figure and face, as well as speculation about her sexual life and romantic attachments.You’d be hard-pressed to find any ethical justification for a lurking adult to secretly photograph an orphaned teenager when she’s in briefs and a bra spending time with her boyfriend. Harder still would be to excuse the sale of the young girl’s photographed body to the internet, offered for the commercial judgment of her figure and face, as well as speculation about her sexual life and romantic attachments.
Yet when it comes to Tiger Lily Hutchence, the orphaned daughter of celebrities Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence, the intrusive fascination of global media outlets apparently overrides any ethical concern. This week, the 19-year-old’s innocent day at the beach with her boyfriend and extended family was splashed across the internet with details of everything from her lilac bikini to the way she hugs her half-sister’s widowed husband. A Daily Mail feature contained a photoset of no less than 58 images. Australia’s Woman’s Day claimed the same images as “exclusives” – in the age of viral sharing, it’s an arrangement only made possible when cash changes hands.Yet when it comes to Tiger Lily Hutchence, the orphaned daughter of celebrities Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence, the intrusive fascination of global media outlets apparently overrides any ethical concern. This week, the 19-year-old’s innocent day at the beach with her boyfriend and extended family was splashed across the internet with details of everything from her lilac bikini to the way she hugs her half-sister’s widowed husband. A Daily Mail feature contained a photoset of no less than 58 images. Australia’s Woman’s Day claimed the same images as “exclusives” – in the age of viral sharing, it’s an arrangement only made possible when cash changes hands.
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It’s an exploitation made more horrible for the intersection of two cultural forces of equal unpleasantness. The first is a media that has transacted her family’s tragedies for years. Hutchence’s adoptive father, Bob Geldof, took pains to keep the underage Tiger Lily away from a tabloid media that packaged and resold her biological father’s gruesome end, then her mother’s, then a painful custody battle with Michael Hutchence’s surviving family, and her sister’s tragic death last year.It’s an exploitation made more horrible for the intersection of two cultural forces of equal unpleasantness. The first is a media that has transacted her family’s tragedies for years. Hutchence’s adoptive father, Bob Geldof, took pains to keep the underage Tiger Lily away from a tabloid media that packaged and resold her biological father’s gruesome end, then her mother’s, then a painful custody battle with Michael Hutchence’s surviving family, and her sister’s tragic death last year.
There are arguments to be made that Michael Hutchence, Paula Yates and Bob and Peaches Geldof chose careers in public life. But, in death, everyone is a private citizen – especially to those who are left behind. In the era of a digital media with an open comments section, how is the tabloid habit of picking over an autopsy in anyone’s real public interest? It’s sensationalism, but one imagines the effect on a child who lost her father before she was two, her mother at four and her sister at the age of 17 is anything but sensational.There are arguments to be made that Michael Hutchence, Paula Yates and Bob and Peaches Geldof chose careers in public life. But, in death, everyone is a private citizen – especially to those who are left behind. In the era of a digital media with an open comments section, how is the tabloid habit of picking over an autopsy in anyone’s real public interest? It’s sensationalism, but one imagines the effect on a child who lost her father before she was two, her mother at four and her sister at the age of 17 is anything but sensational.
Bob Geldof thought it best to keep Hutchence away from her own grandmother’s funeral, “for fear of the media attention” – a decision vindicated as “admirable” even by the bereaved Hutchence half of her family. She may now be “of age”, but it’s worth remembering that Hutchence, for all her celebrity lineage, has not herself chosen a career in public life. The Daily Mail itself even headlined an article a year ago claiming that Hutchence’s move from London to New York was “to escape the spotlight on the Geldof family”. It was not even Hutchence but “a source” who reported her plan to study as just like “any other student in a crowd”.Bob Geldof thought it best to keep Hutchence away from her own grandmother’s funeral, “for fear of the media attention” – a decision vindicated as “admirable” even by the bereaved Hutchence half of her family. She may now be “of age”, but it’s worth remembering that Hutchence, for all her celebrity lineage, has not herself chosen a career in public life. The Daily Mail itself even headlined an article a year ago claiming that Hutchence’s move from London to New York was “to escape the spotlight on the Geldof family”. It was not even Hutchence but “a source” who reported her plan to study as just like “any other student in a crowd”.
That she’s now a young woman, is, sadly, the second issue relevant to the present media investigation into her choice of bikini. At 19, she’s really just a kid – even if she has weathered the kind of life events that usually only strike deep into a mature adulthood. But as the female scion of famously sexy parents, the “fascination” with her life is not merely for its inclusion in the “Geldof soap opera” but an almost eugenic curiosity into how she’s turned out. Six months before her 18th birthday, News Corp was already running articles about her “blossoming”. Now, liberated from any moral restraint to observe the legal privacy of children, the Mail’s latest slavers over her “toned and tanned” “beach body”.That she’s now a young woman, is, sadly, the second issue relevant to the present media investigation into her choice of bikini. At 19, she’s really just a kid – even if she has weathered the kind of life events that usually only strike deep into a mature adulthood. But as the female scion of famously sexy parents, the “fascination” with her life is not merely for its inclusion in the “Geldof soap opera” but an almost eugenic curiosity into how she’s turned out. Six months before her 18th birthday, News Corp was already running articles about her “blossoming”. Now, liberated from any moral restraint to observe the legal privacy of children, the Mail’s latest slavers over her “toned and tanned” “beach body”.
It reminds, in the worst possible way, of the creepy eagerness that awaited the coming of age of Harry Potter star Emily Watson, or the intrusive voyeurism around the celebrity photo-hack of 2014, whose victims numbered too many women who had originally found fame underage. Defending pap photos of Hutchence in a bikini as in the “public interest” is the defence of an ancient patriarchal assumption that female bodies are social property. It reminds, in the worst possible way, of the creepy eagerness that awaited the coming of age of Harry Potter star Emma Watson, or the intrusive voyeurism around the celebrity photo-hack of 2014, whose victims numbered too many women who had originally found fame underage. Defending pap photos of Hutchence in a bikini as in the “public interest” is the defence of an ancient patriarchal assumption that female bodies are social property.
It shouldn’t, of course, matter that Tiger Lily Hutchence is the daughter of celebrities, or pretty, or that she happens to be female. It’s irrelevant that she’s survived the amount of bereavement and crises to which complex machinations of fate have subjected the Yates/Geldof family, or that those crises have happened in public.It shouldn’t, of course, matter that Tiger Lily Hutchence is the daughter of celebrities, or pretty, or that she happens to be female. It’s irrelevant that she’s survived the amount of bereavement and crises to which complex machinations of fate have subjected the Yates/Geldof family, or that those crises have happened in public.
What matters is that she is a person who has chosen a private life, and neither her family, nor her sexuality, nor her body is public property.What matters is that she is a person who has chosen a private life, and neither her family, nor her sexuality, nor her body is public property.