Racism, Coincidence, Homage or Overthinking...
 

Hello.

http://blog.nj.com/entertainment_imp...arge_cover.jpg

This is the cover of a recent VOGUE issue. The big guy is LeBron James and the girl is Gisele Bundchen. The photographer is a celebrity at her craft: Annie Leibovitz. If you're a decent person, looking at this picture should provide you with little to no emotional reaction. I say that because I'm a decent person and this picture means nothing to me. And I'm a basketball fan.

Now, some people look at this picture and they think its racist. I don't know why, really. Maybe its because there is the big (obviously) black guy howling animalistically with a tiny white damsel in his grasp. Well, that's not really racist... actually, I think you're racist if thats your reasoning for thinking its racist. Big black athletes have every right to run around with smaller white athletes girlfriends in their grasp. If you don't got game, brother...

So, those were my thoughts. Until I saw this.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...S_version).jpg

This is a World War II propaganda poster. If you're a decent person, you can see the striking similarities between it at the VOGUE cover. You can also surmise that, given its vague reference, the subjects of the VOGUE cover were not privy to the artistic concept of the photo.

So, what we have is a photo that means nothing until you consider the inspiration. The theme of the magazine issue was to draw attention to shape and size, and using a huge ball player and a small (not really) model obviously does the trick. Then you have to consider the fact that they appear as symbolic figures referenced from a very derogatory image.

I'd like to think that this doesn't matter. The other part of me feels like there was an inside joke being played. It takes my mind to other places. I feel sort of cheated. Why couldn't Gisele's breasts be bare like in the original?

Coincidentally, this is the first time an African-American male has appeared on the cover of VOGUE.

It is consistent with the stereotypes for the ultra-masculine (aggressive, testosterone, dominant) and the ultra-feminine (soft, oestrogen, compliant). That one happens to be Brazilian and the other happens to be black doesn't figure into it for me at least.

I dunno. My first thought isn't that LeBron James is a monkey. It's that he's a celebrity who's in shape. If your first thought is that LeBron James is a monkey, that's kinda worrisome.

Snowy brings up a good point, too. This is actually progress.

Even the colors and lighting are symbolistic to the poster.
It makes me wonder - why? What's the message?
Why draw inspiration from this?
I don't get it.

I think the biggest stretch possible is to read connection as "black people are like the Germans"???

I don't think there's anything to worry about. I see it more as using the iconic composition as inspiration. Not the underlying propaganda of the original.

So has this image been confirmed as the inspiration for this photograph?

If not, then I certainly don't see anything racist about it.

And even if it is, I don't see it as necessarily racist, but curious. It is inherent in the design of propaganda to trigger subconscious reactions to what we are seeing.

Maybe Annie Liebovitz is testing us. :)

Thats a WW1 recruiting poster judging from the helmet and mustache style.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the poster was a German aggressor based on the helmut, mustache and spelling on the club.
I did not see a derogatory image. At least not towards black people.

I also find fault with the derogatory argument in that you are comparing an image that is almost 100 years old with modern sensitivities as well as taking it out of context. While certain images and phrases are strictly taboo today, such things were accepted at that time and in that particular culture. You can use it as an example of how it was different then, but thats about it.

i don't know how far i'd go with this, but there is visual rhetoric and it enables levels of resonance to be established--this resonance can be ironic or parodic as easily as it can be repetition. i think there's an allusion in the vogue cover--i think it is exploiting the name of the issue ("the shape issue") and is a kind of comment on it. personally, i harbor the vague hope that the photo is making fun of vogue itself through this...

I'm just irked about the breasts, really.

Though I do think that giving the photographer a pass on this is dodging the issue. We have a black person taking the place of a monkey. I don't think it has anything to do with Germans.

It being "art" though, they could give us anything and we would still argue.

"The idea is to show how women in the grasp of giant apes are no longer in distress."

I think that iconic images exist in many forms. If a viewer chooses to read one form of an iconic image into another, vastly different form then that is the result of the cross-fertilization inherent in using images which are transcendant in their composition.
http://www.2bnb4.com/american-gothic-large4.jpg
This image has some similarities - I don't see it as a stretch to find them.
http://newmedia.funnyjunk.com/pictures/hugeman.jpg
How about this one?

Personally I see nothing but coincidence. The images do not reference each other except in a most general fashion - male beside female. If you read more than that you are stretching. It means you don't have real issues to worry about so these small, puffed up nothings can fill your head.

my 2 cents

unless there is proof that the cover was based on the poster, this seems like much ado about nothing

Well, again I need to ask because it's not clear. Has Annie Liebovitz or anyone said that they used this image as a reference for the photograph? Or is it just a coincidence. I do see your point in that, if she did, she is using a black man to take the place of the gorilla in the image. But I find it highly unlikely that Annie Liebovitz would do so because she thinks it is acceptable to portray black men as gorillas. I would need to know more about the conceptualization of this photo shoot.

But one thing I did want to bring up is that, just because the gorilla in the artwork is being used to portray a German, doesn't mean the intent of the piece is as simple as that. Propaganda is intended to be interpreted subconsciously as more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, if there were racial tensions in this country that could be played on during WWI, which is highly likely, then the adaptation of an image already used to portray the threat of black men would have been more successful in perpetuating the same threat from German men than other images.

there's a long history that has spread in front of that ww1 poster--have a look at john dower's "war without mercy" on the american use of racist imagery to build support for the war against japan. of course, the americans have no monopoly on this, so there are many such histories. the point is that that poster is not isolated, nor should it be treated as isolated.

personally, i maintain my vague hope that the image is self-consciously fashioned and that it is ridiculing vogue itself in the process.

Wouldn't be the first time.

self-ridicule as a promotional tool is really hot right now

>>Racism, Coincidence, Homage or Overthinking...<<

Its Annie Leibowitz. I would suggest innocence or maybe homage in the back of her mind not to racism but to art and history, but even that I find rather unbelievable. Really I think its just what the editors of Vogue wanted to showcase their Shape Issue so I would tend to go with overthinking and coincidence.

i am deeply confused.
i started reading the posts here thinking "its just a f'en coincidence" in my head.

i come to the end, scroll back up the the photos, and stare for a good 5 minuets.

confusion ensues.

what i would like to think is that this is a coincidence. He's a big, mean b-ball player with a hot chick in his grasps. but what do i know? like said prior, the artist could have some reason behind doing this. that reason being racism or a creative message, who knows?

Yes, that's also my thought, being familiar with her body of work. I could see how people could rush to conclusions, however.

I don't see anything racist about it. I see Gisele smilng, therefore he's not attacking her.... I see Lebron seemingly screaming.....

I will say the sexist/ bad past relationship part of me comes out and I see a woman that flirted with another guy, got Lebron pissed and yelling at the other guy because of jealousy and she's smiling because she got the reaction from him she wanted. If I were forced to find some form of meaning that would be it.....

BTW did I ever mention how much I hate Leboob even though he is a Cav?

Wear a fucking Yankees cap during the playoffs in the Jake last year.... fucking jerk.

As a single image I don't think it's problematic. Athletes are often expected to portray a hypermasculine image, and looking like you want to bite off the face of whomever is viewing a photo of you is one way of doing that. The issue would arise if this portrayal were limited primarily to black athletes (or blathletes, as I like to call them), or if it was the only way in which black athletes are generally portrayed (akin to the tendency for black female fashion models to be portrayed in an animalistic sense).

But no, I sure as fuck don't look at that and go "DATS RACIST". And the similarities it bears to the WWII poster are likely entirely circumstantial.

I'd say this is more about hypermasculinity and the beauty myth.

Celebrity culture has been exacerbating both of these via photography for years.

I agree with this observation.

Hypermasculinity:
http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com/P.../50%20cent.jpg

The Beauty Myth:
http://talks.blogs.com/phototalk/images/FashionMode.jpg


There are many examples.

I don't see anything racist about the picture. Actually most people don't understand racism and confuse it with ignorance. If more people understood the underpinnings of ignorance and dealt with it, there would be little use for words like racism. But that doesn't grab the headlines and it's easier to paint large swaths with a brush than confront the actual issues.

When I saw the cover, I thought: "Wow, that's a striking image of a man in top physical condition who is good at what he does, and there's a woman who eats right." I never even thought about white or black, but it does bare a resemblance to the WWII poster. I'm sure it's not intended.

I just... can't agree with you.

Well, are you saying that the editors at Vogue used this portrait instead of this one:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...edia/img02.jpg

...because they wanted to portray this black man in a stereotypical way?

Or because they were subconsciously motivated by stereotypes to do so?

Here's a link to more shots from this project (where I found the portrait above):

http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/0...lideshow1.html

Also, there is one more to thing to consider, purely from an esthetic sensibility, putting the race and gender of the subjects completely aside, the shot they used is a really great portrait. It's a great shot the way it has captured action and character and from an appreciative standpoint, I like it better than any of the other studio shots in the slideshow above.

So again, I would need to hear something from Anna Wintour at Vogue or Annie Liebovitz saying that they used this image in a political way to make a statement either way about racial stereotypes. I cannot bring myself to believe that they would willingly want to promote the negative stereotype of a black man they were putting on their cover.

If its instended the kinda shit artists do, and it gets them more attention because it gets people talking about it that normally wouldn't care about a magazine cover.

Clever or coincidence, and the fact that someone found that WWII poster to compare it to makes me think its part of a clever game, doesn't really matter to me.

Based on the link to the rejected covers, I can see why what made the cover was chosen. In every other one, including the one MM posted, there are technical "nopes"; the one above, her knee is dead center and quite bony-draws the eye right to it and that means their faces get lost. Some are too wide, others are too bland or awkward. In the first skating one, she looks like she's sticking her hand up his ass, for instance.
While it's possible the pose itself was inspired by that poster, I really think that if we look at things enough, we'll find "inspiration" in everything. I was told my work looks inspired by George Tice and I didn't even know who he was.

All this talk does do one thing...... provides controversy and people talking about a magazine that is ranked #67 in sales in 2004, ranked #72 in 2005, can't find any later results.

Because of all this, people are talking about the mag, which in turn may mean an increase in sales, if only for this one month.

I read the OP, and all of the posts, and then I read this:
http://www.ourchart.com/content/sex-...nd-same-ol-sht

...and some of the five pages of posts in reaction to it.

Now, I have a headache, and I'm thinking that the advice given in the financial world, before you make the decision to buy the stock of a company, probably works in this instance..."Do your own DD".

Interesting site...I may have to browse around there. :)

All I'm saying is that the cover photo was taken in direct reference to the poster. That's all. I'm letting everyone else get worked up over it. I just really think she shoulda gone the extra mile and pulled the dress down further.

oh, agreed!

Well, naked breasts are quite common in Vogue, just not on the cover. ;)

Well, Men never open vogue so we wouldn't really know that would we? :)

Annie Leibovitz is a great photographer. I wouldn't really put it past her that the poster was in fact the influence of the shot, I just think the meaning is a little deeper than "big beast captures helpless white lady."

I tend to agree, if she used the poster as a reference at all, it was meant to be a positive (at the very least, in her mind) statement.

Perhaps if they advertised this fact a little more, Vogue would have more male readers. Y'know, for the articles.

Also, I agree with ngdawg. Given the subjects and the medium, the photographer's options were fairly limited from a compositional standpoint. I don't know who Annie Liebovitz is, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that part of her motivation behind the shot stems simply from the fact that it's difficult to find a shot that catches the disparate personalities of her two subjects effectively.

Well, Annie Liebovitz took this picture of Whoopi Goldberg:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...dia/whoopi.jpg

...what do you take from this about:
1. her feelings about black culture, in regards to Whoopi's image
and
2. her sense of humor
:)