I’m sure all of us can think of a time when the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” has come in handy. When we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations, we tend to blend in with those around us to try and look “cool” or “not weird”. Some are better than others at this, naturally, and I think we’ve found our pro-of-the-year (2015, that is)!
When singer and actress Selena Gomez and friends were visiting the?Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, they were doing what the average tourist would probably do – enjoying the beautiful architecture, atmosphere, and culture of it all. They?all appear to be wearing?abayas,?which is a cloak that covers up most of the female body. While striking a pose for a picture, Selena decided it would be in her best interest to innocently show off some leg. Cute, right? Yeah, not so much.
As you can see in the photo above (now deleted from her Instagram account), Gomez is shown flashing her ankle in a distasteful attempt at being cute for Instagram. In this next photo, she’s pictured with other famous friends including?Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, and Cody Simpson, openly laughing and smiling. This, and other displays of character, are forbidden by the mosque.
According to Gossip Cop, officials from the mosque have deemed their behavior as “disrespectful” and condemn such acts of behavior.
This seems kind of like a no-brainer. It seems as though that if you had to wear an abaya to enter the mosque, then pulling it up so that your ankle is showing would probably be a not so good idea. This is pretty much one of the most ideal examples of celebrity privilege. A lot of very terrible things could have happened to Selena and friends had they not had the whole teenage population of a good amount of the world’s countries seeing them (and possibly willing to defend them) on Instagram. This really displays why culture awareness is so important?(but so incredibly lacking) in the American thought process.
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Kellyn Smith is a 17-year-old aspiring poet from Atlanta, Georgia. She likes hiking, writing, reading, and loving others. She wants to live in Washington state after college and wishes to study political science and journalism at the University of Oregon.
