Where’s the Diversity?
Photograph by: Annie Leibovitz
Photograph by: Annie Leibovitz
The year has just recently started and the folks at Vanity Fair already have sparked up controversy over their latest issue. Every year Vanity Fair comes out with their annual “New Hollywood” issue, which features young, up and coming actresses, who are pre-destined to be the next generation’s Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Halle Berry. This year’s issue features nine breakout actresses (some familiar and some who are not so familiar) that starred in some of the most successful movies last year and are going to star in some of this year’s most anticipated films. The actresses that appear on the cover are (starting left to right) Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Evan Rachel Wood, and Anna Kendrik.
Writer Evgenia Perez describes the women with “ivory-soap features”, “cupid’s-bow lips” and “downy-soft cheeks”. In one of the pictures within the issue, there’s a picture of all the women and if you look closely at it, they all look the same way: same complexion and body figure. The only difference between them is the color of their hair.
Another problem is that two of the women featured on the cover (Stewart and Seyfried) were featured on the 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. Which means that Vanity Fair were having problems trying to come up fresh faces to fill up the slot. However, what happen to Oscar-nominated actress Gabourney Sidibe, who stars in one of the most successful films of the year, Precious or Zoe Saldana, who starred two of this years most successful movies, Star Trek and Avatar (which is a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars)? Or even Frieda Pinto from 2009′s sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire? Instead of using past actresses, VF could have use any of these actresses to grace their covers.
Nevertheless, if you look at some of these actresses backgrounds, the only actresses that really have upcoming projects are Carey Mulligan, Rebecca Hall, Anna Kendrick, Abbie Cornish and Mia Wasikowska. Evan Rachel Wood’s next project is starring in the Broadway adaptation of Spiderman. Who cares about that? I know I don’t and I doubt a lot of people would.
Nonetheless, VF has a certain demographic of readers who are predominately Caucasian. And looking at past covers, the magazine usually have (in terms of women) women who fit a certain stereotype like the actresses featured on the cover of the issue. Which means, a woman like Gabourey Sidibe wouldn’t be featured on their cover because of here body type and possibly her dark skin complexion.
Unfortunately, that’s the business of being in Hollywood. You won’t be featured on every magazine because of how you look. My advice for the Editor-in-chief of VF is to do some more research on who they think the next “rising star”, instead of basing it off of looks. Because the only thing that matters is talent and not what they look like. Also, surprisingly African-American women do read VF, however more African-Americans would pick it up if they see someone like themselves gracing the covers of this prominent magazine.
Gabourney doesn’t belong on the cover of Vanity Fair. No offense, I don’t think I would pick up the magazine if she was on it. This is a cut throat industry that caters to all Americans, and “many Americans” would have reservations about seeing a big black cloud on the cover of a high-end magazine. To be fair, I am not going to discriminate; I wouldn’t even want to see a big white cloud on the magazine. Although, many of them probably wouldn’t want to admit it. It is that thought that pops into your head, when you ask yourself, “should I really be picking up this paper?” The first thing I thought when I saw her on the cover of the NY Times Magazine was, “what were they thinking?” Who ever says that looks don’t matter, cannot be serious. I am an African American woman, and I would love to see more black woman on covers to increase diversity, but I think that we should not loose common sense in the process. I understand that everyone wants to be sympathetic to those who may be looked down upon in society, but lets not mess up our magazine covers in the process. I still want something glamorous to look at!
Keep it up!
Keep writing!
Get people angry!
Write on!
I don’t agree with that at all. Opinions like that is why many young girls who are probably the same size as Gabby become insecure. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter how you look to be featured on the cover of a magazine. It should be their work and their talent.