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[d_aulnoy]

Now, I'm a geeky politically conscious critic who's pretty sensitive to visual imagery, but I have to say, my first reaction to [Poll #1155636]

Comments

[dhole.livejournal.com]

My instincts say it was trying to say something along the lines of "Huge muscular guy is huge and muscular. Glamorous model is glamorous."

That said, I don't think the comparison is out of bounds; the huge muscular guy, is, in fact, huge and muscular, and he's making an angry face. And he's got a pretty woman draped across his arm. Race aside, I don't think movie monster comparisons are coming entirely out of left field, just given that. I don't think that it was intentional: If they were going for a monster movie feel, they'd have used a smaller fashion model, and he'd probably be carrying her.

But the thing is, in the US, now, there are plenty of people who aren't going to be leaving race aside. And I don't think that we're at the point where you can have a black man and white woman cover shot without thinking about how people expecting racism are going to look at it. The "more civilized" picture is a lot worse than the one they used; it doesn't have any movement, and the thing huge guy is bringing to the table is athleticism . But they certainly could have tried harder.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

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.