Katy Perry and George Clooney's wax statues displayed in stereotypical gender roles deemed sexist
To demonstrate life under quarantine amid the widespread coronavirus outbreak across the globe, a display in Germany borrowed from its Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Berlin, the statues of pop singer Katy Perry and actor George Clooney. What followed was a stereotypical view of gender roles deemed sexist.
The figures in question were placed inside a picturesque home. In the first pose, a wax Perry stood with one hand, raised over her head and resting on her back and another on her waist. She was standing in front of a barbecue grill apparently cooking some form of meat and vegetables in the balcony.
Clooney, on the other hand, sat back on a comfortable armchair beside her, taking in the sun, with coffee on a table near him and a laptop resting on his lap.
Another photograph demonstrating wax Perry showed her in the same pose standing in the kitchen, wearing an apron this time and covered in flour. In front of her, on the kitchen top, was a tray of freshly baked cookies and muffins.
The stereotypical gender roles were evident in the photos, with the man chilling and relaxing, and the woman taking care of all the household chores. Both the photographs were obtained by TMZ. One restriction that the demonstrator might have faced was the fact that he had to make the best use of the statues in the poses that they were available in as the postures could not be changed.
Nevertheless, there seemed to be a stark lack of imagination when it came to displaying the figures. However, this is not the first time that the Madame Tussauds in Berlin has come under fire.
Earlier this year, the museum was criticized for unveiling a wax statue of rapper Nicki Minaj that, according to the fans, looks nothing like the singer. The wax figure unveiled January 7 held a crouching position on a table in a jungle setting and was dressed in the outfit that Nicki wore during her 2014 iconic music video of her song 'Anaconda' with a gold chained bra and high-waisted black underwear.
“That wax figure of Nicki Minaj got her looking like the cleaning lady off of family guy. Try again on that one,” wrote a disappointed fan, with another commenting, “The new Nicki Minaj wax statue in Berlin had to be intentionally awful, right? There’s no way they thought this was good!”
Mimicking a similar sentiment, another one wrote, "Listen, I’m not even die-hard Nicki Minaj fan but she can RAP and [people] don’t give her talent the credit it deserves. That wax figure Madame Tussaud’s [sic] put out… that’s not Onika Maraj. I’m so sorry. Does Google not exist? They looked at that mess and said 'yah, we got it.' No, you don’t."
However, according to TMZ, Nicki gave her stamp of approval to the wax figure of herself years ago, when it was originally unveiled at the museum's Las Vegas branch in August 2015. In fact, the musician's team reportedly worked with the statue makers before the 'Chun Li' singer signed off on it.
At the time, Nicki could not stop praising her statue, saying she could not wait to see it in person, commending how much it looked like her. The unveiling came just as she was celebrating the completion of the one-year anniversary of her iconic song 'Anaconda.'