Selena Gomez accused of ripping off another artist’s aesthetics in her latest video
Jun 7, 2018
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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It’s not uncommon that one artist gets inspired by another artist’s work. But sometimes it’s more of an imitation than inspiration, and pop star Selena Gomez has recently been accused of plagiarism. After launching her latest video for Back to You and a series of promo images on Instagram, many people accused her of blatantly copying the aesthetics of photographer Sarah Bahbah.
People on social media first called out on Gomez for putting captions on photos and in the video, which is what Bahbah does in her work.
As a response, some users mentioned Tumblr, where captions on photos have been the thing since 2010:
https://twitter.com/tiredestangel/status/1003121076753354754
https://twitter.com/chanelaulait/status/1003851464639438849
Other than arguing about captions, some people have noticed that there’s more than that taken from Bahbah’s work. Some Twitter users accuse Gomez of plagiarizing the aesthetics of Bahbah’s images:
https://twitter.com/manzuma111/status/1004255318250057728
When it comes to captions only, I believe calling out on Gomez for plagiarism is ridiculous. I don’t think any artist has an exclusive right on putting captions on their photos, at least not that I know of it. However, when it comes to aesthetics, I have to admit that Gomez’s video and Instagram images really have the same melancholic “feel” as Bahbah’s photos. And I guess that putting those captions made it even more obvious.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts: do you think Gomez’s video plagiarize Bahbah’s work? Or you see no resemblance?
[via Resource Magazine; lead image credits: Amanda Nobles/Wikimedia Commons]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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One response to “Selena Gomez accused of ripping off another artist’s aesthetics in her latest video”
You can’t copyright an aesthetic. If you could, Sarah Bahbah would likely get sued by Edo Bertoglio or one of the hundreds of other late 70’s early 80’s NYC photographers who pioneered her style (minus the captions).