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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Horrors / ??!! / Media / Celeb / Film / Fashion Do They Actually Never Learn?

Posted by Anna Minard on Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 12:12 PM

Or are they pretty much cool with being annually called out on their racism? Or do they just do it for the free publicity? (If that's the case, sorry for contributing.)

Once again, Vanity Fair's big ol' "The Newest/Coolest/Freshest/Hottest People You Should Look At Right Now" cover, which is almost always a fold-out, puts all the people of color on the folded part that you can't see on newsstands. AGAIN. Jezebel breaks down their history of it, with photographic evidence:

In 2008, it was Zoë Saldana and America Ferrera.
...
2005: Rosario Dawson, Ziyi Zhang and Kerry Washington, on the right and not the left.
2004: Salma Hayek and Lucy Liu, on the right and not the left power panel.
...
In 2001, no black ladies were pushed aside because no black ladies were photographed!

But it's so, so worth the outrage to see those 1995 and 1996 covers, right? (No, seriously, go look.)

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Comments (13) RSS

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Jennifer Lopez is a people of color?

Posted by Unregistered User on January 31, 2012 at 12:17 PM

If James Franco isn't on the cover, I don't care who is.

Posted by Vince on January 31, 2012 at 12:20 PM

I'm outraged that Ebony doesn't feature more white people! Outraged!

Posted by catsnbanjos on January 31, 2012 at 12:46 PM

Is it naive to suggest that perhaps the photographers were more concerned with the overall composition of the single photo?

(I'm actually being sincere -- I wonder if the photogs considered the folds as they were framing their shots? I have no idea at all of how these things are executed.)

Posted by Anti-m on January 31, 2012 at 12:48 PM

@4 - It is a bit naive, yes. So much consideration went into who was placed where, and where those people would end up on the page. This process involved the photographer, but also several layers of direction above him all the way up to the King of Vanity Fair, or whatever their leader is called.

I don't think there's a deliberate bias against black people going on here, but it would do them a lot of good to look at this pattern and reconsider whom they think to be cover material.

Posted by MacCrocodile

on January 31, 2012 at 12:55 PM

They always do that.

It's an Eastcoast subtle elitist racist thing.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on January 31, 2012 at 1:17 PM

VF's cover is a symptom, not the problem. With few exceptions, the most notable roles for black actresses in the past few years have been as maids (The Help) or abuse victims (Precious), Tyler Perry's self-financed mini-empire notwithstanding. Hollywood doesn't fund projects that aren't white-centric, so why should its trade publications be expected to pretend otherwise? The problem still exists regardless of who falls behind the fold.

Posted by blip on January 31, 2012 at 1:20 PM

There probably aren't a whole lot of brown-skinned people buying Vanity Fair - especially in the northeast (which is all these people know or care about).

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on January 31, 2012 at 1:21 PM

I expect there is deliberate bias, not about the photographers/designers/publishers working on the cover, but about what sales/marketing wants. Brown skin apparently equals fewer newsstand sales for magazines--whether that brown skin is on a celebrity or on a model. This is widely quoted about fashion mags at any rate--while Vanity Fair isn't quite in that category, I bet a lot of the demographics are similar.
It's really dramatic seeing it on the fold-out covers. Normally, the closest is just seeing the all-white faces on the covers, then paging through to spot an occasional brown face in an ad or editorial spread.

Posted by alight on January 31, 2012 at 1:25 PM

@4/5: It's also likely the case that rather than trying to coordinate all the schedules to get one photo shoot, they did several photo shoots and composited in post-production. Anyone doing a cover shoot for a magazine like Vanity Fair's best selling/most heavily advertised issue of the year knows to make the photo subservient to type and fold placement.

Posted by LMcGuff