I remember the day I had my senior picture taken. Pulling on the standard-issue drape, being grateful that my braces had finally been removed, and hoping that I’d look pretty and stand out from the 75 other senior girls in the yearbook who were wearing the exact same thing. It was a tradition at my school. We all looked the same, the only indication of our personalities being how high we teased our bangs.
Now (or maybe back then, just not in my hometown), senior pictures are meant to reflect personality, and you’ll often see students posing in their sports uniforms, with band instruments, or scantily clad in provocative poses.
Wait…what?
By now you’ve probably seen the stories about Sydney Spies, a Colorado senior whose pick for senior photo was denied by the yearbook editors for being “too racy” and “unprofessional.” Spies and her parents have mentioned, across various news platforms, plans to talk to a civil attorney because her first amendment rights have been violated.
Perhaps Spies (and her parents!) should think less about first amendment rights and more about the fact that, given an opportunity to best represent her personality…her high school legacy…a provocative pose was all she could come up with.
Spies was given the option to re-submit a photo, and the second photo she submitted was perhaps even less “professional” than the first.
Is being hot the only way she can think of to be remembered?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to look good and taking pride in ourselves. But, I do think there’s something wrong with having that be your only focus. Especially when you’re still in high school.
What are her parents teaching her in this case? Is the lesson here really to stand up for yourself?
Maybe the more important lesson for her to learn is about professionalism. Right now, her job is high school. Even at that age, we should be teaching kids what “professional” looks like. They need to be prepared to be versatile for the world that lies ahead, whatever that may be.
Save the sexy pictures for Facebook, Twitter, or your modeling portfolio, but don’t let this be the only thing by which people remember you.
Looks fade over time, and what you develop on the inside is what you’ll be left with in the end.
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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
A million times yes!
Unfortunately, I suspect daughter and parents knew the kind of backlash this would get and hoped it would be PR for daughter’s future acting/modeling career. That people everywhere would see the picture, and she’d “be discovered.” Stories have reported she was very interested in drama club and theatre, after all. And you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t work. We’re a funny society that way.
This girl, and her family, just kill me. I think my eyes will roll out of my head if I have to listen to anymore of their ridiculous “It’s our Constitutional right!” stupidity.
All I can think is, Oh, boo-hoo, you can’t dress like a whore in your yearbook.
The high school where I used to teach had very strict guidelines about what was and was not allowed in senior pictures. Each year, there were at least 10 girls who were filled with righteous indignation (snort) that their pictures had been returned to them with the notice that they needed to provide a different one, but to the best of my knowledge, they all resubmitted a different, appropriate picture, in order to be included in the yearbook. I’d be surprised if this school didn’t have those sorts of guidelines in place. I’m betting that they do, and as Patty said above, this is a publicity move. That being said, I completely agree with the article: what are these parents teaching their child(ren)?
First of all, if I had even ATTEMPTED to leave my house like that when I was a senior in high school, my mom would have slapped me into next week and told me to go change my clothes because no child of hers was going to leave the house looking like a street walker! I just can’t even imagine any parent letting their daughter use that photo for their senior portrait in the yearbook. A portfolio for an agency, maybe, but not a high school yearbook. Sorry little girl, I don’t feel sorry for you. AND I do give a standing ovation to your PEERS who decided that this was inappropriate for the year book!! B-R-A-V-O!!!
My mother would have done the same!!
I totally agree with you. Let’s teach our kids that looks aren’t everything. My favorite quote is ” It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
Kelli, very well said! I couldn’t agree more. I have four boys and now an 8 month old baby girl. I am terrified to raise a girl & can only hope to do my very best to teach her to respect herself and her differences! Thanks for your words.
i think she’s absolutely stupid to want either of those photos to be her legacy. i think they’re ugly, trashy, and completely inappropriate for a high school photo.
that said, the school has caused much of this mess. unlike most schools, they don’t have a set of guidelines for what is acceptable and what is not for the yearbook. the yearbook board determined it was unacceptable, yet never communicated that students would need to conform to the student handbook. further, and a much larger issue, is that this photo was deemed acceptable for the student ads section–she could (and ultimately did) pay $300 to have the photo appear in the yearbook. that makes the school lose all legitimacy on the issue.
ultimately, this is not at all how i would choose to be remembered. i think it’s in poor taste and pretty gross. but the school messed up here and in that regard, she makes a solid point.
Professional/Unprofessional/Appropriate/Inappropriate – whatever. My issue is that she and her parents HAD to have known that an outfit that doesn’t even come close to passing the dress code wouldn’t have been deemed appropriate by the yearbook committee. This is just her trying to get attention. And we’re all giving it to her.
Yeah, I’m with Keri on this one. Any photo that goes in a school publication would obviously have to conform to school dress code. There is no way this is violating any rights unless they are trying to argue that dress codes in general are a rights violation.
This is what she wants to be thought of forever? And when she shows her kids someday what will they think, “Oh look Mama you look like a pretty prostitute.”
I would never let my daughter dress like that, let alone get her pictures taken like that. Furthermore, high school is four years of a (hopefully) long life. Her parents should be teaching her that life is more than looks and being sexy. No one that she goes to high school with will care about her pictures in a few years. They will have careers, and families, and a LIFE. She should work on doing the same.
Her picture is ridiculous. And so is she and her parents. It’s obvious, from the picture, and now the lawsuit that this girl is craving attention. Sad.
Wow. Sad, for sure.
As a photographer, I am appalled. And as a mother.
I took my senior portrait in a cap, gown and National Honor Society collar. I…yeah.
Could not agree more. Obviously, I don’t know this girl or her parents, but finding a lawyer to argue that she should be able to look risque in the yearbook is pretty indicative of their values and guidance. I agree wholeheartedly with the school’s decision not to publish the photo, and I’m no prude by any stretch of the imagination. School is a professional environment, whether students want to recognize that or not. You wouldn’t show up to the office dressed like this (depending, I suppose, on where the “office” is), so it’s only logical you wouldn’t go down in history wearing it either.
It is shocking. It is very disturbing to me as a mother.
Wow. I’m apparently the lone dissenter. Not having gone to her high school, I don’t know the rules about “senior photo dress code” and won’t presume they exist. I don’t recall having such rules when submitting my senior photo a billion years ago.
I’ve read a few articles about this girl and her choice and have seen a lot of unnecessary name calling and assumptions. A picture, and a mother’s support for her daughter, doesn’t mean the daughter is slutty, skanky, raised without morals, shallow, sad, or without goals. I’d like to get to a point where the issue at hand can be discussed without resorting to such editorial comments. (Not necessarily meaning this article, just saying.)
Hmm. Personally, I’m more on her side than not. I do think it’s unfortunate that she seems fixated on having an objectifying photo, but I don’t think the photos are particularly inappropriate. In the first one, I can see why they may have rejected it based on the fact that she seems to just be wearing a scarf wrapped around her breasts, although in other respects I think it’s quite a tasteful photo. In the second one, the pose may be a bit sexualized, but the dress looks like something a girl would wear to prom. It could easily have been snapped at a school dance, and I don’t see why they would reject that one.
Looking through my own senior yearbook, there is at least one girl (#1) whose is wearing careful makeup, coiffed hair, a coy expression, and the lighting looks professionally done. She’s not wearing a scarf as a shirt, but clearly what went most into her photo is “make me look pretty”. Three years before (I didn’t buy yearbooks in between), there’s a girl (#2) who would probably be rejected by Spies’ yearbook committee, who appears to be wearing a black lacy bra (although it could be a tank top because the photo cuts off), drastic makeup including bright red lipstick, possibly color contacts, and blond curls. My own senior photo (#3) is not “sexy” at all – I am leaning against a bike rack and laughing – but because it was taken on a warm day, I’m wearing a spaghetti strap tank and am showing about as much skin in the same areas as #2. My point is, if you go by actual body exposure, photos 2 and 3 are potentially “inappropriate”, while if you go by feminine self-objectification, photos 1 and 2 get cut, and yet all three of these photos were accepted by my high school and I suspect only photo 2 would be rejected by Spies’ school. People have all kinds of ideas about what they want to look like in their photos, and some may be regrettable, but unless there are specific guidelines for what is acceptable and not, I think they’re fighting a losing battle trying to argue from the slippery idea of “inappropriate.”
Bet you anything that she’s plastered all spraggle-butt nekkid in a hootch magazine a month after she graduates. (Look at all the publicity she’s generating for it already…bet the Playboy photogs are already planning the shoot. Can you imagine the pre-publication publicity possibilities?)
If she wants to sleaze it up for her graduation picture, fine…have at it. But if she makes any guy in her class horny because of it, she should have to give them a ride on that old snap.