Oh, agreed on the first point: I don't think Vogue is either stupid or malevolent enough to aim for a consciously racist cover. The subtext, on the other hand ....
I think the second "civilized" shot is actually pretty bad, too, but not solely because it's stilted: James may be bringing athleticism to the table, but that doesn't make him into a, well, bench (nor Giselle into a trophy, for that matter, and with both of them completely ignoring one another except for the almost casual physical contact that neither one acknowledges, that's the effect I see). Interaction between the two of them would have been nice. Would it be possible to do shots of random racially representative folk that weren't read as racist in this time and place? I think so, but I don't think these are the shots we're looking for ....
* ETA: by "randomly racially representative folk," I mean any two people of different races standing in synechdoche for their people, and not two people who have an established and familiar relationship outside of the shot.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-03-17 06:09 pm (UTC)I think the second "civilized" shot is actually pretty bad, too, but not solely because it's stilted: James may be bringing athleticism to the table, but that doesn't make him into a, well, bench (nor Giselle into a trophy, for that matter, and with both of them completely ignoring one another except for the almost casual physical contact that neither one acknowledges, that's the effect I see). Interaction between the two of them would have been nice. Would it be possible to do shots of random racially representative folk that weren't read as racist in this time and place? I think so, but I don't think these are the shots we're looking for ....
* ETA: by "randomly racially representative folk," I mean any two people of different races standing in synechdoche for their people, and not two people who have an established and familiar relationship outside of the shot.