I'm not so sure how I personally feel about this... It seems like a win-win for vanity fair... on one side the magazine targets it's core audience, and the zine is bought for reg. entertainment/news reasons. On the other, if a big deal is made out of it then people might pick it up for that and possibly like it... and then the already obscenely popular mag will have even more buyers...

I don't really care much about Vanity Fair... I guess I'm just uncool. I do, however get why it could be such a big thing... There are plenty of Magazines that opt out of diversity, either because it barely exists in it's genre or because the mag is more homogeneous and it's core audience didn't pick up the magazine for any other reason...

...I like (...)'s ...

I especially found it interesting after reading the article and being reminded of some of the women of color who belonged there--honestly, a list like this that doesn't include Gabourey Sidibe, who took the world by storm in her first film ever, or Zoe Saldana, who was in two of the biggest films of the year, is just ridiculous. I adore some of the actresses on this list, but some of them just don't fit the premise as well as Gabby or Zoe (Evan Rachel Wood, for instance, is fabulous, but she's been A-list since 2003 with Thirteen). I don't think it's the worst idea in the world to give the benefit of the doubt in situations like these (sometimes things just happen how they happen--sometimes you have all men, or all white people, or no white people, or whatever ) but a list with such obvious exclusions, well, I think it's only fair to call shenanigans.

By the same token, ethnic rainbows for the sake of them drive me nuts. Like at FIU the banners rotate from white, black, asian, hispanic, and repeats over. Yeah guys. Whatever.

Giovanna wrote:

By the same token, ethnic rainbows for the sake of them drive me nuts. Like at FIU the banners rotate from white, black, asian, hispanic, and repeats over. Yeah guys. Whatever.

I will second this.

Honestly, I would have never noticed. I would notice that the women ARE freakishly white though, and the shoots probably wouldn't be as OMG MAGICAL if they weren't all white, but it would never occur to me that its racist, because, seriously, I don't think I've ever seen that many white people together at once. (I know ONE person that white, and I live with her.) Nor do I keep a checklist on how many people of ___ ethnicity appear in everything.

But I do come from a land where everyone wants to be Eva Longoria.
In fact, I should open a tanning studio.



Who exactly is this magazine catered to? I don't think I've ever seen anyone reading it...

allegoriest wrote:

Who exactly is this magazine catered to? I don't think I've ever seen anyone reading it...

I think its target audience is generally wealthy, older, and white. My house has a subscription because of one of those credit-card points things. There are a lot of articles about wall street, American culture (from, IMO, a very elitist point of view), monthly "vanities" about up-and-coming actors/actresses, etc.

Whence "The Last Airbender", directed by M. Night Shamalamadingdong

lazypirates wrote:

or Zoe Saldana

Zoe was on their Young Hollywood Cover in 2008, though I don't remember reading about her in the article. It was an odd cover, making some of my favorites look gorgeous and some of them completely ill at ease (poor Emily Blount looks drugged), but I can't imagine getting all those people to be perfect at once is easy. If they even shot them all at once.

Ellen Page is also on there.

ETA: not finished! What lex said

even with the women they picked, it was a certain look

seems absolutely true. The women on the cover of the recent issue aren't just white, they're uniformly pale. The leftmost blond looks slightly less like a vampire than everyone else. All the long hair is wavy, and they've made a triangle of the dark haired actresses.

Last edited by moroschino (02-10-2010 10:34:43 AM)

That site is fantastic!! I love it there.

As for the racial issue in Vanity Fair... I'm completely apathetic. It's not like fashion is a proper reflection of what the real world is like. It's always been a fantasy, and a fickle one at that.

i'd first like to note that even though twilight helps women let out their inner-teen... it isn't the best book ever written and the same goes for the movie... it wasn't the best thing since sliced bread. SO:

classifying Kirsten stewart as some wonderful actress begs for something more.... in twilight she was a life-less character who showed no emotion; granted her character isn't the extreme emotional type... but i'm sorry if my life-long-sparkly-vampire-lover told me he was going to leave... i would probably be a little more aggressive then she was.

I'm not gonna bash her completely; she looks similar to how i envisioned bella; but i'd like to see a better performance from her before i see her classified as a hit actress.

Secondly; the racial issue...

I've never liked vanity fair; so call me bias... but i've never really ...... cared....... about them.... but since this has been brought to my attention.... i feel that there are plenty of other actresses that deserve to be on the front of that magazine; black, white, green, brown or otherwise...

I'd have to ask though if the cover was intentional or just a promotional kind of thing? I'm not sure...

Magazine covers, articles, jobs, anything should never be based on color only on quality of performance and moral character. So, if they are goin to say they are all great new actresses.... i'd disagree and feel others should be placed up there..


/long winded discussion notes

Syora wrote:

Does anyone know if there has been any backlash to the issue and how many copies have been sold?

The story has obviously made its rounds in the independent blogger circles, but I know it got some coverage in "mainstream" media as well.  I saw something about it on Yahoo!'s main page, a few days ago.

If this was intentional, I wonder what the intention was. Somehow I don't think the editor, or art director, or whomever, is a white supremacist. And I find it hard to believe that they'd see a dip in sales if the cover featured a black or asian or hispanic woman. Fashion magazines feature non-Europeans on their covers all the time: Alek Wek, Kim Kardashian, Halle Berry, Iman, and so on.

I've heard, through people who work(ed) in advertising, that what people say they want and what they'll buy are two different things. E.g., people might say they want more diversity in advertisements, but when they see an ad that features a minority, they'll look at it for far less time than if it featured a white woman. It's not a conscious thing (babies do it too) but it does happen. If your firm is getting paid $X Million to come up with a stellar ad campaign, the client isn't paying you to express your creative side or advance the civil rights movement.

Do people whine and complain when there are no white people on the cover of Ebony or magazine?

Inquiring minds want to know!