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I feel like I should first begin with telling you all that I love Vanity Fair, and I love Annie Leibovitz's photos, in general. I find the articles interesting and pictures beautiful. Alright, that's enough of a disclaimer.
I'm pretty unhappy with Vanity Fair, and the "choice" of ladies they've put on their cover this month. I'm sure the moment you see it, you'll see what's irking me.
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Really, Vanity Fair? This is Young Hollywood? These are the It Girls? These pale, bony girls? That's all we have going for us? If that's the case, we've basically been watching the same film over and over, because save for the hair colors, I can barely tell the difference! All dressed and made up the same in muted colors, all with the same vapid expressions. Where's the variety? Do we not have any in Hollywood nowadays?
Oh, that's right -- we DO.
This year was pretty great for young women of color, and two in particular. With the breakout roles of Gabourey Sidibe of Precious (who happens to also have something none of them except Carey Mulligan have: an Oscar nomination for Best Actress) and Zoe Saldana of Avatar and Star Trek, women of color starred in two of the most talked-about films of the past year. Their performances garnered more attention than any of the girls on this cover, which supposedly highlights the best and brightest of our new talent. Other than Kristin Stewart, who blends in so well that you barely notice her -- and whom if it weren't for Twilight, you wouldn't know either -- can you name any of these new stars? I wouldn't think so. I couldn't, and I've seen almost every single film they've acted in this year.
I'm usually not so quick to play the race card, to point out the lack of brown skin, but it's just slapping me right on in the face here. It's almost like Vanity Fair did it on purpose, like they want to piss us off. I don't consider this an oversight, or a blatant slight necessarily, just a conscious decision by the editors of Vanity Fair to send us a message that what is pictured is what they feel is worth celebrating, and nothing else. It's not just in the photos, but in the descriptions of the ladies, such as this one:
The Cupid’s-bow lips, the downy-soft cheeks, the button nose: 27-year-old Abbie Cornish has those Ivory-soap-girl features we’re so familiar with..."
You're damn right we're familiar with it, so we don't need you showcasing it nine times over on the same magazine cover! It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to toss in some fuller lips, rounder cheeks and wider noses to me, and I'm just flabbergasted. When are these magazines going to start treating us all equally? When are they going to stop force-feeding our young women the "pale and thin is best" agenda? I for one am sick and tired of it.
