Sapphires Protest Over 'Disrespectful' Cover Aug 5th 2013, 12:33
The indigenous Australian women who were the inspiration for the movie The Sapphires say the film’s US DVD cover portraying a white male actor as the lead is disrespectful to people of colour.
The feel-good film is about four singers sent to entertain troops in Vietnam.
In Australia, the DVD cover shows the women. But on the US version they are 'blue washed' and placed in the background, while Irish actor Chris O'Dowd, who plays their manager, is front and centre.
O’Dowd appears in the centre and in full colour on the US DVD version
The original Sapphires – Naomi Mayers, Beverly Briggs, Lois Peeler and Laurel Robinson – have joined a global campaign and written to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in the US (NAACP).
In a letter written on their behalf by the Aboriginal Medical Service, the women say the DVD cover completely missed the trauma that people of colour experienced in Australia and in the US.
''The US cover of the DVD… in fact reinforces precisely the sort of bigotry that Naomi, Beverly, Lois and Laurel fought so hard against,'' it said.
''We're hopeful that the NAACP, with its long and proud history of advocating strongly for the interests of people of colour, will add its significant voice to calls for the DVD cover to be changed.''
Mayers, who works at the Aboriginal Medical Service in inner Sydney's Redfern suburb, told The Sydney Morning Herald: ''What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point (of the film) entirely.
''It's disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to us as a group.
''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives."
Mayers said the women were proud of their work with the Sapphires and of the film.
The US cover has already caused a storm on social media, with O'Dowd himself tweeting in response to a question that it was "ridiculous, misleading, ill-judged, insensitive and everything the film wasn't".
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