An Iranian music streaming site is causing public uproar after it emerged they erase all evidence of women from the front of their own album artwork. A handful of notable new releases from the likes of Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and Taylor Swift have had their covers altered to remove the women.
A look at streaming site Melovaz shows male musicians still present on their albums. However, there are no women present. In the case of Lana Del Rey’s recent release, she was removed while the male subject remained. So harsh are the conditions, that even a sketch of Nicki Minaj was removed from her artwork.
Rapper Iggy Azalea tweeted after the backlash, writing:
The jokes on them cause I put a vagina reference in every song so who really won.
The alterations are in line with the country’s strict Islamic law, with harsh restrictions on women’s self-expression. As Insider puts it:
The country maintains under the law that it is illegal under most circumstances for a woman to be seen uncovered, and in this case, that seems to apply to women who don't outwardly practice Islam, and aren't physically in the country.
Insider reached out to Melovaz, but received no comment. Plenty of album covers currently remain on the site with female subjects censored.
Since when did Fstoppers become a political outlet?
This needs to be exposed to the world, why are you harping on Fstoppers for publicizing this?
Since this is a photo site and not always equipment plugs, I mean "reviews", pictures of cats or slinky 20 year old models, Fstoppers sometimes reports on the business or current events regarding photography.
Censorship is one of the things that is interesting to photographers.
By clumsily censoring the images, the results are sad yet funny. The LDR and Ariana G and Celine Dion's images are really quite absurd.
If the leaders of the country want to protect their people, I wonder how they justify not censoring the music as well. Or do they?
Next step is banning women altogether from performance, even recorded? I guess we all feel sorry for these people. No wonder so many have left that country.
Why don't they just ban women from the country altogether? It will make their job of censorship and keeping women from watching sports events so much easier.
Interesting. Then, after a few generations, no more problem. I like.
Imagine believing in this crap, advocating it, and living in a society where that's not just accepted, but *enforced by law*.
It's baffling that women need to be condemned for practically everything in the Middle East. Wasn't it last year that women were finally able to drive in the UAE??
sdrawkcab ssa if you ask me, being in the Middle East isn't exactly great anyway, but to be a woman on top of that has got to be a truly sh*t existence. Absolutely awful the human rights situation over there.
I sometimes have to think and rationalize about how it is acceptable that it can be a crime or even cause your death to have certain images in your possession. We aspire to create excellent, compelling images. Our freedom in this regard is constrained by the societies we work in.
This world would be so much better off without religion. This is no stranger than the whole Jesus on a Stick story.
Horrifying.
Someday there will be a cure.