You may have seen the show Fashion Police. The series airs on E! and features Joan Rivers, Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne, and George Kotsiopoulos as the hosts. Throughout the show, celebrities and reality stars are critiqued on their outfits worn to various events. One segment of Fashion Police has been drawing a lot of attention lately and it’s not because of the gorgeous outfits that celebrities are occasionally complimented for.
Instead, the section “Starlet or Streetwalker” has been enduring a lot of backlash. Essentially, this part of the show “features celebrities alongside real girls and young women who are being exploited in the commercial sex industry under the guise of a ‘fun’ guessing game of which is which” according to the petition that is out to end the damaging segment. The petition feels that it is not at all appropriate to compare wealthy celebrities’ poor fashion choices to women who may be living on the streets, forced to work under the control of a pimp, and/or undergoing extreme forms of violence and exploitation. And I happen to agree.
While Fashion Police may be featuring this segment to get a few good laughs from their audience, they seem to have taken it a little too far. Rachel Lloyd, the founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) and one of the people who helped launch the petition, makes some great points in her op-ed on the Huffington Post. If this sounds like a cause you want to support, I definitely recommend checking it out and then heading over to sign the petition. So, what do you think collegiettes™? Has Fashion Police gone too far with “Starlet or Streetwalker” or is it a segment appropriate for television?