Thelife- 26-year-old Sher Arar posted a viral
TikTok that showsQuentin Tarantino signing herfeet . - She's now auctioning off artwork incorporating her feet bearing Tarantino's signature.
- Arar has made other artwork with feet that she says is a "tribute to 'normalise' liking feet."
Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker known for movies like "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood," "Pulp Fiction" and "Inglourious Basterds," signed Sher Arar's foot in a TikTok that now has over 4.5 million views. Now, Arar is auctioning a piece of art featuring an image of her signed feet on eBay, and told Insider that she incorporates feet into her artwork with the goal of "normalizing" liking feet.
Arar is a writer, actor, and DJ also known online by her handle @dezertflake, posted the video on Wednesday after she met Tarantino outside "The Jimmy Kimmel Show," where he made an appearance earlier this week to promote the novel adaptation of his film "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood."
In the video, which has over 4.5 million views on TikTok, Arar asks Tarantino if he would sign her foot. "Yeah, sure, okay, cool," the director replies, laughing slightly and kneeling with a pen in hand.
"What do you think of it by the way, can you rate it?" Arar asks as Tarantino signs her foot.
"Oh, no, I wouldn't rate it, I wouldn't rate it, but it would be at the top," he replies.
@dezertflake ♬ Emotional Piano Instrumental In E Minor - Tom Bailey Backing Tracks
The moment was a perfect confluence between Tarantino, an artist well-known for featuring women's feet in his work (and who has sustained criticism for the way he, and his films, treat women), and Arar, a woman who has incorporated feet in artwork that she's selling in NFT form as a "tribute to 'normalise' liking feet," as she told Insider.
"I asked Tarantino to sign my foot out of respect for his liking and appreciation to his films," Arar told Insider. "He puts feet in his movies, so a true fan would understand the symbolism."
Now, Arar has turned the director's signature - and, of course, her feet - into its own piece of art that superimposes her Tarantino-emblazoned feet onto a poster that features sunset tones, palm trees, and the iconic "written and directed by Quentin Tarantino" text.
The artwork is currently up for auction on eBay and is set to close on Wednesday. The highest bidder will receive a digital print, physical print, and phone call from Arar, she told Insider. As of Friday afternoon, the bidding had reached $520.
@dezertflake STILL MORE TIME TO BID ##tarantino ##art
♬ Classical Music - Classical Music
For Arar, the desire to focus these art pieces on feet ties back to her personal experience and encounters with people who like feet.
"Being a Muslim woman who wears hijab- which in short is the modest covering of the entire body except face, hands, and feet, I've gotten lots of compliments on my feet throughout my life," Arar told Insider over email. She said that after a video with her feet in it went viral in 2020, she began to receive DMs from people who liked feet and explained how they felt shameful because of it.
While there isn't definitive data to indicate how prevalent foot fetishes are, New York-based psychotherapist Dulcinea Pitagora told Vice in 2017 that foot, shoe, and boot fetishes were among some of the most common she heard about. Still, as Men's Health reported in 2020, attraction to feet bears a stigma as well as misconceptions that it's tied to a mental disorder.
Arar said that after speaking with people, she began to question why people felt shame for liking feet, eventually leading to her art series.
"A woman's body is a work of art and should be respected, so long as it's done in a respectful way," she told Insider. "I don't think people should feel bad for something they like."
To read more stories like this, check out Insider's digital culture coverage here.