Sexist and racist, that’s how the U.S. DVD cover of the Australian film The Sapphires has been described. Anchor Bay, the American distributor of the award-winning musical film, released the image for its DVD box set, in which Irish actor Chris O’Dowd is featured predominantly, while his Aboriginal female co-stars are blue-washed in the background.

The film is about four indigenous women who are discovered by an alcoholic white man, and form a music group called The Sapphires. The group faces racial prejudice while they travel to Vietnam in 1968 to sing for the troops during the war. It stars Deborah Mailman, Shari Sebbens, Miranda Tapsell, and Jessica Mauboy, with O’Dowd playing their manager.

It was the highest-earning Australian film on its opening weekend when it was released in 2012, grossing $2.32 million. It also received a standing ovation during its world premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

And now it’s been primed for a DVD release in the U.S., but fans aren’t happy with how the film is being presented to the U.S. audience.

On the image cover, instead of the four women taking the limelight, it’s their white manager who’s basking in fame. O’Dowd’s character is the main feature, while The Sapphires are presented in a blue-faded background.

The Sapphires U.S. DVD cover art

Fans and critics are calling the image as not only racist, but sexist as well.

“The women are Aborigines. They are black black black black balackety-black black. Not blue. Oh, and they’re women. And this is their story. It’s even a true story,” blogger MaryAnn Johanson wrote on her Web site flickfilosopher.com.

“Movies about women are rare enough. Movies about black women are even rarer. And now we’re gonna pretend the movies about women, whatever their colour, aren’t even about them at all?”

Journalist Mia Freedman also added, “The negative implications of making a film about black women look like it’s about a white man should outweigh any marketing concerns. The film is not only about women, it’s about indigenous women. That fact deserves to be celebrated.”

“This is atrocious. A film about Australian aboriginal women gets THIS as it’s [sic] cover in the US,” Twitter user Sean Bryan added.

Even O’Dowd himself agrees. The 33-year-old actor spoke out on Twitter to his followers, saying he agrees with the sentiment surrounding the issue.

“That’s pretty vile. Certainly not my choice,” he wrote, adding “it’s ridiculous, it’s misleading, it’s ill-judged, insensitive and everything the film wasn’t.”

He has since deleted both tweets.

A petition has been started by a reader named Lucy Mann on Change.org, asking Anchor Bay to change the cover art.

“It’s about to be released on DVD in the US, which is great. Not so great is the sexist, racist cover for the DVD that’s been chosen by the distributor, Anchor Bay – which features a huge photo of a male supporting character, with the female stars of the show relegated to the background (in a weird blue monotone effect that disguises their skin colour, just to add insult to injury),” the petition reads.

The petition has 2,033 supporters as of the time of writing.

Anchor Bay has not yet released a statement.

The trailer for The Sapphires:

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