Have you picked up the latest issue of Vogue? Even if you haven't, you've likely come across the firestorm of controversy created by the April issue's "Shape issue" cover featuring basketball star LeBron James and supermodel Gisele. Some critics say the cover perpetuates racial stereotypes by picturing James as a scary, beast-like figure, along the lines of a King Kong, grasping onto the white-woman heroine (Gisele). I have to say that I was neither offended nor entirely jazzed when I first saw the cover: I thought it just another boring and somewhat uninspired pictorial. But then I started to see the comparisons to images of King Kong and even this one at Jossip of a World War 1 enlistment poster, and I couldn't deny the similarities. For a magazine that deals with image on a daily basis, it's hard to believe that Vogue editors had never come across these iconic images either. But while I think they were trying to be deliberately provocative in order to stir up controversy, I'm not sure they were doing so with racist intentions. Naive though it may be, they likely thought were turning yet another iconic image on its ear (as magazine editorials so often do) in order to be taken seriously as "art".
So what do you think? Was Vogue off base with this cover? Let me know in the comments.
6 comments:
OMG People need to stop making a big deal out of NOTHING!
I am sorry, but it did not enter my mind that this could be racist. Moreover, James is known to be a _very_ playful and funny man.
This to me is just looking for racism in all the wrong places.
I think the cover looks quite interesting, and it really doesn't seem racist. I mean, just look at Gisele - she looks strong, feminine and happy. If anything, the cover depicts male vs. female beauty in an exaggerated way.
this is the first time that i have seen this. i dont like gisele in general. but i definitely do see this as stereotypical and offensivve
Sorry, but I don't understand. What is there not to like about Giselle? She is naturally beautiful not to mention it was a relief to finally see curvaceous women represented on the runway when she first came on the scene.
Ink - sorry for my late response to your comment, but I think you've summed this you perfectly. they are definitely playing with ideas of masculine versus feminine here. But I still can't shake the similarity between Lebron and those King Kong images - it's ruined for me now!
Post a Comment