Nicole Richie is reportedly seeking treatment to find out "why she can't gain weight". While we're happy she's finally taking care of her health, we wonder if she'll still make headlines once she returns to a less shocking size. If she's not a walking skeleton in a baggy size 0 bikini, will she still appear on the glossy covers of tabloids? If she's at a healthy weight, will the paparazzi still stalk her for the elusive money shot of Nicole consuming food? Will fervent speculation and scandal continue with sordid tales of drug use, eating disorders and collapsing in night clubs? Oh well, whether Nicole is skinny or not, she'll always look like a pygmy marmoset. That's not such a bad thing. Medium: Ink and acrylic on paper. This illustration appeared in the Animal magazine feature "Celebimals". Concept and Latin name by dlisted's Michael K.
No one ever compared a marmoset to a black person, they did so with apes and gorillas. So.... I don't really see how this is a racist drawing.
Posted by: squirrel | September 13, 2008 at 04:09 PM
i hate all the nicole haterz..
becoz i luv nicole.
she'll gain her weight..
trust me!!
Posted by: chrisna | April 18, 2007 at 06:59 AM
you made me laugh and wake up....that a good photo their...i like it,really
Posted by: Mosaic Patterns | April 11, 2007 at 07:40 PM
damn... it's just a piece of art, posted on the blog belonging TO THE ARTIST. And a fine and representative piece of art I must say!
Posted by: hey | March 05, 2007 at 06:02 PM
FUCK YOU ALLLLLLLLLLL
Posted by: samantha | January 22, 2007 at 08:48 AM
Good for you 14 for defending your art, and it's a shame you have to. People can be such morons.
Once I innocently commented in an ER forum that I thought Thandie Newton looked like a capucin monkey and I got the beat-down of my life. I never knew that commenting on people who look like little monkeys was forbidden. I only think a few celebs meet this criteria: Olsen twins, Richie and Thandie Newton. It's because they are tiny and thin and have big heads that make their eyes look bigger. Race never entered into it. I can't name a single other black person or white person who I think has the same characteristics, but these three four have always seemed very much capuchin-monkeylike to me.
I also did not know Nicole Richie was biracial. I'd always heard she was adopted.
Posted by: rotozaza | December 03, 2006 at 06:36 AM
Also, 14 has painted the Olson twins as little monkeys, since everyone seems to have their panties in a bunch about this one...
Man, 14, the expression on her face is PRICELESS. Love the Latin, too...
Posted by: theidlereceptionist | November 26, 2006 at 08:35 PM
OH MY GOD. You hurt my feelings!!!
I'd cry, but I seem to be low on fluids right now.
Posted by: Bed Wetter | November 12, 2006 at 05:34 PM
Hell I'm black and that lil monkey pic was right on and so damn funny! Rock on 14!
Posted by: Julia_Claudine_Deveraux | November 12, 2006 at 05:34 PM
To the PC-crowd spouting the "images-have-power" foolishness:
1. Get a quarter.
2. Call your bank.
3. Take out a loan.
4. Buy a thicker skin and some backbone, both of which are *essential* for living in a free country.
I wore a uniform for several years, in order to protect free expression like this. I didn't do it to watch talented people censor themselves just to protect some bed-wetter's feelings.
Posted by: Karl | November 11, 2006 at 05:50 PM
Hm. Interesting. This is getting to be quite a fight. I would just like to say as a minority that we have a better sense of humor and don't get as offended as easily about things like this than the PC nuts judging everything. Meh, and judging and caring about Nicole's blackness seems a little weird. I don't know if she is part black, but if she is, she doesn't identify herself that way, so why do we care?
And by the way, the people accusing 14 of being racist, would you be this way if you didn't think she was white? Think about it...
Posted by: Kai | November 11, 2006 at 11:25 AM
"But this is America and we have the right to speak, write, and act with the outmost liberty..."
Psst to the anonymous person who wrote this. Actually, "this" is the internet, which is world-wide, sweets. I know Americans think it's all about Americans, and Americans have been fed the "we are the land of the free and we have soooooo much liberty/greatest country in the world" crap from the cradle, but please take a good long look at the current president before you get too self-congratulatory about "freedoms", 'K? Cuz seriously? It's getting scary down there.
Posted by: An American in Canada | November 11, 2006 at 10:52 AM
You know, normal & other race-baiting haters, if certain symbols such as "monkey" have power, it's because people like you keep the issue alive, because NO ONE BUT YOU thought there was a racist intent in that illustration. White celebrities aren't any more ridiculous than non-white celebrities, thus they are all fair game in public domain. You need to get over it. What is lampooned here is the inanity of celebrity culture - we're taking a moment from our 24/7/365 star-worshipping culture to giggle at the prom queen with the dried booger on her cheek, or the high school BMOC with the glob of toilet paper trailing his expensive shoe. You need to grow an irony chip, darlings.
Posted by: phlegmfatale | November 11, 2006 at 08:44 AM
Oh to hell with all this PC crap, for all you motherfuckers know, she is probably ARYAN in every sense of the word!!! You bitches and your sanctimonious SHIT!!! Your fucking dogma and your self righteous crap from hell!!! Shove it, goddamn it!
Posted by: Demon Kitty | November 11, 2006 at 06:03 AM
"It might not fit your definition of art, so I suggest you look elsewhere for your art needs. Judging from your IP address, I can tell you visit my site quite often. I must be doing something right, heh?"
Um, wow. Why do you even have a comments section if you get so defensive when people criticize a piece of work? I think it's kind of absurd that if you're posting your work in public on the internet, and choosing to post my (not mean-spirited) comments, that you're then suggesting I leave since I offered one criticism, couched in praise.
For heaven's sake. You are making your living making art that makes fun of people. You may not want to be so sensitive.
But at your suggestion, I'll find art elsewhere, and you won't see this IP address again. xxoo, or whatever.
Posted by: normal | November 10, 2006 at 05:46 PM
Ali, Ali, Ali...
I know nothing at all about any of the celebrities I paint. I speculate that most of them are nice people, but I wouldn't know since I've never met any of them. What I do know about is the gossip and rumor spread about them via gossip bloggers and tabloids. I see this gossip as a form of folktales and my interest is in observing and recording it. One day my focus will change, but for now this is the subject matter I have chosen for MY career. If you disapprove, so be it.
No, I've not spent time researching the racial makeup of Nicole Richie or any other person I've painted. Maybe I ought to look into that. What is the percentage of "black" a person may have before I'm not allowed to draw them as a marmoset? I need a threshold, please advise.
No, I refuse to embrace the tired memes defining "certain artistic images and symbols". Since you demand that I "need to be aware of and respect the power of certain artistic images/symbols", why don't you post a nice long list of all the symbols I'm not allowed to use in my work.
I enjoy poking fun at our pop culture and I enjoy making art from it. It might not fit your definition of art, so I suggest you look elsewhere for your art needs. Judging from your IP address, I can tell you visit my site quite often. I must be doing something right, heh?
xxoo
14
Posted by: 14 | November 10, 2006 at 04:46 PM
14, this is the comment section and i am glad everyone has a chance to voice their concerns and opinions. I am also glad you defended yourself on the racism issue and stated your "facts" or as i would say your opinion (you sure know your monkey facts). I am surprised, though, with as much as you know about all the other celebrities that you depict, you did not know that Nicole, the adopted child of Lionel Richie, was mixed/biracial. I also think that this is not a laughing matter, like a poster said; we still need to be sensitive to it. I also think that your drawings are creative but you are still poking fun at people and how does this make you any better than a racist. You say that you LOVE the celebs you paint, man, i am scarred to see how you would paint a celeb you HATE. But this is America and we have the right to speak, write, and act with the outmost liberty and I wish celebrities would unite and create a website that would give them the opportunity to critique sites (and works) like yours, dlisted, jossip, x17, perezhilton, and so on, this would be so good and it may put an end to sites like the ones I listed above. Your no different than those other sites, you just know how to paint/draw....can't wait to see real creative art coming from you that doesn't rely on poking fun at others and continuing the maddening frenzy our culture is attracted to now of celebrity stalking!
Posted by: | November 10, 2006 at 01:34 PM
LOL! I love her fingers. Right on target. She does look healthier as a Marmoset. Nice job, 14.
Posted by: Chansmom | November 10, 2006 at 11:56 AM
Defenders of Simian Similarities--all of whom get served their mochachinos in the AM by men named Dave--are species-ist and sadly self limiting. Where is the love for the Piscine People?
That's right, I went there. The bug eyes, the blubbery lips...Justine Bateman, Harry Connick, Jr., Angelina Jolie, Isabelle Adjani, Ronald Lacey, and of course the King of Fish Folk, Don Knotts.
Sure, just because the monkeys evolved the thumbs and the keyboards, it's all about the monkeys.
Posted by: Dave Hater | November 10, 2006 at 08:54 AM
I for one wasn't calling you a racist, 14, and I'm sorry if it came across that way.
However, I do think you need to be aware of and respect the power of certain artistic images/symbols. Shamefully, "monkey" is still a racial slur for people of color. Yes, it's moronic; I mean, if anyone looks monkey-like it's the blonde-haired blue-eyed Olsen twins. And yes, we're all related to monkeys.
But "monkey" is still a slur. So if you paint Clooney as a monkey and don't get an outcry, but paint someone of color as a monkey and get some mild concern, I don't think you should be surprised. Like I said, it's a sensitive place to go.
I do think those talking about empowering racism have very good points. If nobody took the monkey thing seriously, maybe it would disappear. Nevertheless in 2006 it's still a sensitive image.
Anyway, that's the last from me on this. I love your art 14 and didn't mean to offend.
Posted by: normal | November 10, 2006 at 08:08 AM
To those of you who have accused me of being a racist because I've chosen to paint Nicole Richie as a pymgy marmoset.... thanks for making me laugh! Here are the facts:
1. Not once while I was painting this did Nicole Richie's "race" ever cross my mind. I don't know what her race is, nor do I care. She is what she is.
2. The reason we chose to compare Nicole to a Pygmy Marmoset is because she's small, cute and has big eyes. PERIOD.
3. I've painted two caucasians as monkeys. George Clooney as a gorilla and Paris Hilton as a proboscis monkey. Where is the outcry there?
Don't all human beings, regardless of race, look a little like monkeys?
A comparison between the genomes of the common chimpanzee and the human shows that 98.77% of DNA base pairs of humans and chimpanzees are the same. A primate is any member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all the species commonly related to the lemurs, monkeys, and apes, with the latter category including HUMANS.
If I want to paint someone looking like a monkey, then I will do so.
Thanks for your comments everyone.
xoxox
14
Posted by: 14 | November 09, 2006 at 05:08 PM
Now Nicole sweety dumkins, you gain weight by a process called 'eating', 'eeee tiiiing'.
Hey its cool to have Nicole as a monkey, people just read into things a little to deeply to have fun.
Posted by: Damien | November 09, 2006 at 03:22 PM
I agree with those who posted the "monkey" concern. It initially struck me as odd, too, that 14 chose to portray a multiracial person as monkey-like. Just a sensitive place to go.
Posted by: normal | November 09, 2006 at 02:56 PM
I don't know if it's a sorta of signature, but the 14 in roman's number is XIV and not XIIII.
Posted by: Haukky | November 09, 2006 at 02:44 PM
What a ridiculous suggestion that 14 is a racist for painting Nicole as a monkey! If I wanted to comment on Nicole being bi-racial, I'd paint her as a zebra wearing big sunglasses and a dew rag, with a sidekick in one hand and a crack pipe in the other.
But Nicole isn't bi-racial, she's adopted. So that wouldn't make sense.
Posted by: Bea | November 09, 2006 at 01:35 PM
She looks like one of those sponge monkeys from the old Quiznos commercials!
Posted by: BDK | November 09, 2006 at 10:09 AM
I feel slightly guilty for posting again, but, I want to agree with Jenn F., especially the whole "empowering racism" thing. I mean, if I want to save money and I like bagels, people could call me a sterotypical Jew, but by not doing those things, I'm giving in to the sterotypes. The way to avoid racism is for people to do what they do and ignore labels. Anyone can eat a bagel, and anyone can be drawn as a monkey, but it's only when you start attaching labels like "Jew" or "black" do these actions become significant.
Sorry for taking over your comments, it's just I couldn't resist... I love how a pop culture satire pic is turned into a whole racism debate. You need to go back to pictures where the only interpretation is a filthy one. Kidding. Don't worry about the critics. Carry on, 14, carry on.
Posted by: Kai | November 08, 2006 at 08:39 PM
Maybe she meant something, but I really doubt it. 14 did not make her look black at all. And she's just drawing her as an animal she resembles, and she does look a bit like a monkey. I didn't know she was biracial... Anyhow, I'm mixed race (Asian and European), people make stupid comments sometimes, I just brush it off. I don't think it's anything serious and I personally don't think Nicole Richie would get offended by this, she'd probably see it as either a) attention or b) something connected to her eating disorder, not her race. Maybe I spoke too much, but I think there is such a thing as being too PC. 14's a wonderful artist and would never stoop to something as low as making fun of race. Keep at it 14.
Posted by: Kai | November 08, 2006 at 03:52 PM
Oh my God. Enough with the "that's racist cause Nicole's biracial" complaints.
You know, the black/monkey racist idea hadn't even crossed my mind until those two posts were put up by Ali and anonymous whoever. Thanks for taking a fantastic, funny piece of art and slapping racist suggestions all over it. Don't you think it's pretty racist to consider such a thing?
There's one thing you have to understand about racism: don't empower it. If you begin to avoid drawing a monkey because you think it'll be associated with a black person, you're just feeding the association between the two.
Besides, if you're even slightly familiar with the artist's work, you'd realize the suggestion is ludicrous. Don't try to read into it so hard. Just enjoy it.
Posted by: Jenn F. | November 08, 2006 at 03:29 PM
Ok now! If everything in your pictures symbolizes some aspect of the celebrity you are "making fun of," for instance in this picture; having the monkey perched on the coca bush and her tail "hooked" on/around the "fruit" of the coca bush does that mean you are a racist? You have her as a monkey and she is biracial, half white, half black, and racists like to call blacks, MONKEYS. I hope your choice of animal for Nicole was harmless but since you are so clever and witty, you really should have stayed away from the monkey image!
Posted by: ali | November 08, 2006 at 02:32 PM
hi, i am wondering why you choose to make her a monkey? she really does not look like one and some may think you are being a racist since she is a biracial (racist pigs like to call blacks monkeys). But since you are so open minded and apparently not a racist, I am sure your picturing her as a monkey was totally harmless!
Posted by: | November 08, 2006 at 02:22 PM
Haha, she looks like my friend's mom as a pygmy marmoset, and she has an eating disorder too! Small world....
Great job 14, can't wait to see what the Spederline split will cause you to create!
Posted by: Bella | November 08, 2006 at 11:49 AM
She looks a bit like Candy Spelling there.
That flip! Yeah, the odds that a girl who was quite a bit heavier a few years ago now "can't gain weight" are even slimmer than she is. baw haw. sorry for the pun.
XO
Posted by: Andrea | November 08, 2006 at 11:23 AM
I think Nicole Richie and Starr Jones would make great twin bobble-head nodders, with their eerily bulbous eyes and heads too large for their bodies. Truly.
Posted by: phlegmfatale | November 07, 2006 at 07:51 PM
Seriously, that last picture on the linked page looks exactly like a long-lost Olsen triplet.
Posted by: CMTG5555 | November 07, 2006 at 03:42 PM
Incidentally, I'm sure I'm not the only member of your cult foaming at the mouth over what the announced Britney/KFed split will spawn from your poison pens and paints...
Posted by: Viper Tetsu | November 07, 2006 at 02:42 PM
Somewhere in South America, there's an explorer who's left his laptop behind while fleeing from a tribe of especially pissed indigenous peoples.
A pack of pygmy marmosets have wandered upon this computer and popped it open. Poking randomly at the laptop's buttons, they activate the device and happen upon your site (bookmarked, I'm sure, by scientists and explorers the world over). Staring at the screen, they shriek primordially to the heavens, offended to the core of their collective primate being by this lovingly detailed illustration.
You've just managed to insult an entirely different species. Let's see Borat top THAT shit.
Posted by: Viper Tetsu | November 07, 2006 at 02:39 PM
ha ha love those skeletal claws/hands and the ribs poking out. poor nicole-- no matter how skinny she is, she'll always have that face.
Posted by: Javelin | November 07, 2006 at 12:21 PM
Myself, I'm always amazed at the visigoth of celebrities. Never fails.
My only quibble is that pygmy marmosets are MUCH cuter than Nicole! But probably weigh about the same...
Posted by: Noelegy | November 07, 2006 at 06:38 AM
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sorry but you must know it,
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see it there www.google59.com
Posted by: jack59 | November 07, 2006 at 03:18 AM
We think the portrait flatters her too much.
The Schnoz and Goldilocks
Posted by: Heaven Nose | November 06, 2006 at 10:29 PM
Dear Nicole-
Pretending to eat for the paparazzi DOESN'T COUNT. Okay? Here's a tip to help you gain weight: To fully utilize the calories in a piece of pizza or a burrito, you have to actually SWALLOW the thing. Try it. It works!!!
P.S. Eerily and sadly accurate paws on that cute little marm. :)
Posted by: jerkygirl | November 06, 2006 at 09:27 PM
You evil evil evil sly little fox, Ms. 14. You chose a coca bush as the Nicole marmoset's perch. I like her blank expression as her tail harvests a branch of her future fix.
http://www.rain-tree.com/Plant-Images/erythroxylum-pic.htm
Posted by: KaTiE says gO! | November 06, 2006 at 07:44 PM
She looks better as a pygmy marmoset then she does as a human being. I am amazed at the gaul of these celebrities and their publicity flacks! How fucking stupid do they think we are? She doesn't have an eating disorder - she just has trouble gaining weight? Pu -leeeez. Living on a diet of cocaine and your own bile - she looks like my mother did during her last stages of liver cancer.
Posted by: Demon Kitty | November 06, 2006 at 03:27 PM
good as always..love Ur work!!
Posted by: Pablo Vazquez | November 06, 2006 at 01:48 PM
hi guys i love you see? http://raymitheminx.blogspot.com/2006/11/nicole-richie-sure-is-fat.html
Posted by: ra | November 06, 2006 at 12:58 PM
Can't gain weight? Riiiiight. Millions of Americans would kill for that problem.
I think this nut job stays thin just so she can stay in the tabloids.
Posted by: Hugh G. | November 06, 2006 at 12:35 PM
You definitely got her face right but the body's actually got some, well, body to it when we all know her skin's the only thing keeping her skeleton together. I see you got her skeletal hands perfectly though.
And I love her "latin" name. She could have also been Screamus Attentionus.
Posted by: Johnny | November 06, 2006 at 11:57 AM