Marina Hyde 

Kanye West – scourge of upskirt snappers everywhere

The singer is taking issue with one serial snapper – and in the process drawing attention to the whole issue of the paparazzi's interest in gynaecological shots
  
  

Kanye West
Kanye West: watch out, paps, he's coming for you! Photograph: Brad Barket/AP Photograph: Brad Barket/AP

To LA, where the paparazzo attempting to sue Kanye West for taking his camera off him is revealed to have previous. It turns out that Dano – first names only, apparently – was the chap who drove Britney Spears to bash his car with an umbrella after issuing an anguished plea for privacy. This was the time poor Britney was at her lowest and most photographically tormented: Now magazine headlined one upskirt shot of her period-stained knickers, "Britney Spears proves she's not pregnant".

All of which reminds Lost in Showbiz that it keeps meaning to say something about the continuing paradox of upskirt shots. You'll be familiar with the genre, which is almost without exception obtained by snappers literally getting down in the gutter so they can poke the camera somewhere that would simply never be visible or accessible to the lens otherwise.

Now look, it goes without saying that sticking your camera up young women's skirts is not "weird" or "shameful". The thing is, if you or I wandered down the high street doing it, you can be sure the activity would be misunderstood in a manner that might lead to an encounter with a judge. And it does often strike this column that we need equality in the law.

So couldn't one of the American celebrity lawyers keen to get themselves on the telly – all of them, basically – mount some kind of test case against a paparazzo for attempting to access someone's crotch in this manner? I don't mean to go out on a limb here, but if unsolicited gynaecological examinations aren't something we can all do with impunity, then perhaps no one should be allowed to do them – not even responsible painters-with-light such as the LA paparazzi.

 

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