Jess Mauboy comments on the Sapphires racism controversy

Anchor Bay Entertainment, the American distributor of the Australian film The Sapphires, has been hit with widespread condemnation for the DVD cover of the film, which has been labelled both racist and sexist. We asked Jessica Mauboy about this during an interview with her yesterday, below are her comments on the matter.

How do you feel about the controversy around the American artwork? How is it watching that unfold? 

I’d [initially] only seen the articles, I hadn’t seen the visual artwork and it shocked me a little bit, because I had been reading all these little comments about, “Why are these women being whitewashed, bluewashed? Why are they background, and Chris O’Dowd’s in the front?” And it was crazy because I hadn’t seen the image, so I was quite shocked. But when I had seen the image, I understood where [the controversy] was coming from then.

You know, I think my first thought was, “Wow, I can’t believe it’s being released in America, physically”, that’s huge, so I celebrated that, in that sense. Then I’d seen the image and was like, “Owww, I know where you’re coming from” and then my first thought was about the original Sapphires and what they would think, so it was a little bit nervy and nailbiting around that point.

I’m sure there are going to be many people having their opinions on it, and wanting to have their say, so I mean it’s going to be a pretty long one [laughs]. Apparently there’s being a petition signed saying that they want it to be changed.

And what are your feelings on that? Would you like to see the artwork changed? 

I’m sure that to have a few options would be nice. I mean, our image here in Australia was incredible. I thought that was amazing, and that maybe they would have kept it the same. But obviously they have a selling point, and that’s what they think could sell, but whatever, you know.

They can do whatever they want with it, it’s obviously their project, and I guess they are going to have to deal with a lot more people saying what they want. So we’ll just see what happens. Better options would be nice.