MAGCULTURE.COM / BLOG

16 Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post. Trackback URL

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Hurrell, ojaggregator. ojaggregator said: French Vogue: In an issue apparently featuring not a single ‘real’ black model, French Vogue have published thi.. http://bit.ly/N97fd [...]

So, what are you supposed to do if you want to photograph a white model covered in dark brown paint? Hire a black model? They’re two completely different visually. Painting a white woman brown is not inherently racist and dressing her in “‘ethnic’ clothing” isn’t either.

Racially motivated hate-crimes are on the rise in much of Scandinavia, Australian Indigenous people are still falling through the cracks with alacrity and instead of those against racism making some effort to establish sustainable programs which will teach tolerance and racial equality to the next generation, we’re sitting here worried about Lara Stone blacked up.

I think we’re only seeing controversy here because the last twenty years have seen the development of a mentality that seems to actively encourage blaming fashion publications for the social problems that they should not be held accountable for.

Jeremy, do you really think this is racist?

I think it’s an issue that the one dark-skinned person in the entire magazine is a white model painted black. Does that make the creative team behind the shoot open-minded and taboo-breaking or blinkered and naive?

I say blinkered and naive, demonstrating how far removed from real life the fashion world is. Once upon a time this type of image might have been acceptable. But not today. What does the lack of real black faces in a high-profile magazine say about tolerance and equality to the next gerenation?

Racist? The shoot alone isn’t, but in the context of the issue, yes it is.

N – I think it’s naive to think that blacking up a model isn’t a political statement. Certain visual symbols have unpleasant cultural associations in the western world, and ‘blacking up’ is clearly one of them.

I agree that it is not up to the fashion publications to be held responsible for racism, nor is it their stated responsibility to create sustainable tolerance programs. However, for a fashion magazine to knowingly use the visual language of racism, for no other stated aim than to showcase clothes, I find offensive, and I’m clearly not alone.

They may not actively work for a better world, but I think that all media, including fashion magazines, should be trying not to make it a worse one, which means avoiding getting people upset and angry for no clear reason other than to get people talking about their brand or to sell some clothes.

There is an argument that the only way to try and free certain visual symbols from unpleasant associations is to show them in another, non-charged context – however, I think that for such a non-charged context to even exist, society has to change first. If we truly feel that discrimination against people of darker skin has been completely eradicated from our society, then maybe we can start trying to re-appropriate outdated visual language to new ends. But you can’t do it the other way around.

As Jeremy says, in the context of only itself, the shoot isn’t racist. But nothing exists in the context of only itself, especially not a magazine, and particularly not something deliberately aimed at a visually sophisticated public.

Klein isn’t stupid, and he likes to be controversial – see his recent Arena Hommes photoshoot with models posing with freshly slaughtered animals. However, the danger with skirting the fine line between acceptable and offensive is that sometimes you will go too far, offend people, and be criticised for generating ugliness and bitterness for its own sake. Offending people isn’t clever, or even difficult, and it reflects badly on everyone involved. And that shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone.

Coming right after Karl Lagerfeld defended the use of anorexic models by saying “men don’t want to look at round women” you have to wonder what planet these people live on.

@N – ‘So, what are you supposed to do if you want to photograph a white model covered in dark brown paint? ‘

Err, how about – don’t.

I don’t know what to say.
Andrew says it all really.

And yes, how about – don’t!

I think its moronic to even try to concieve this as anything else but art. Some women in the CNN story modestly suggested that a black model could have been used for the shoot just as welll… And of course (its me talking now), why paint when you can just take a picture?

I will find blackface offensive for two reasons: firstly, as a method of exaggerating archetypes of (what was initially) American racism through the behaviour of those blacked up; and secondly, as a measure against ever having to use African Americans on stage/screen/print.

And so, I personally don’t find this shoot offensive because it was not used to those ends: I don’t believe any stereotypes (like the happy-go-lucky plantation woman, for example) are being propagated and I don’t believe this was an attempt to avoid using a black model because there have been models of many providences featured in French Vogue for the last twenty-five.

Whilst I don’t find the imagery itself of a white person covered in black paint to be inherently racist, I recognise completely that blackface can have negative connotations because of its previous uses and, as you said, Andrew, nothing exists in the context of only itself.

@Andrew – I really appreciate your response. I’m torn as I understand that your point that all vestiges of discrimination would need to be eradicated before we can use something like this in a non-charged way, but I’m also inclined to believe that this same reaction will be illicited by blackface until it is repeatedly decontexualised from its former uses.

@LondonLee I don’t agree with Karl Lagerfeld.

@Jeremy – Thanks for your response – I’m an avid reader of this blog and it’s not my intention to be difficult or impolite.

The whole thing just feels like a really lame attempt to stoke up some controversy. It’s more embarrassing than offensive.

I don’t presume to know whether anyone else involved in this stream (which has been rewarding to read) is also black, but I am. Full disclosure, if that’s the right way to put it. I say as much because being sensitive by virtue of personal experience to the undercurrents of histories that have been marginalised or long misrepresented is as crucial to understanding racism as it is sexism.

In any event, there’s a huge gulf of difference between making up a model of any skin tone in paint of some sort, and making up a white model to look like a black person. Given that, I think that the spread posted by Jeremy accurately depicts the problem. On one image from the spread we have a woman with rather gothic eye make-up lounging on a chair, in the opposite image we clearly have a white woman made up to appear to have black skin (note the lips, always a giveaway with gollywog imagery) with an implausible mop of peroxide blonde hair.

Since it is plainly evident that Lara is a white woman, the image condones blacking-up, whatever the aesthetic intention or success of the photograph. It condones it by publishing it thus (Jeremy is very right to point out context, and I agree). And in simplest terms blacking-up is a practice that obliterates the right to individuality as a concept for any and all black people, it is a practice that legitimates and has since its inception encouraged a “they all look the same” attitude toward people of colour, and a practice that incites mockery and ridicule simply on the basis of skin colour. The mockery is provoked by the patently ridiculous nature of the gesture – these people do not and have never appeared to be black, thus the joke at all black folks’ expense.

I wonder would we truthfully be debating the racist connotations if Lara had been made to appear Chinese or Japanese? Come to think of it, can we talk of browning-up or Sinoing-up?

The most beneficial result of the publication of images like those posted today are in my view discussions like these that result from them. However for those of you who aren’t black, when considering French Vogue’s images bear in mind France’s colonial history and the race riots that Paris witnessed in recent history, it’s policy of ignoring any ethnic data relating to its citizenry and thus disappearing the concept of ethnic minorities. France has a virulent history of racism, and to encourage black people to view the propagation of black-face images as art is to suggest that art cannot be racist. When you consider the photographic record of lynchings (see: http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/movie1.html), the holocaust of African slaves, the economic benefits of colonialism, and Jean Marie Le Pen, it should be apparent that dismissing the racist overtones attendant upon these these images goes hand in hand with an argument that favours ignoring the historic crimes of colonial slavery.

No matter the context blackface is appalling and ALWAYS offensive, there are several beautiful women of color that could have easily graced these pages. If French Vogue used black models on a regular basis this story would STILL be offensive. It’s even more offensive that they don’t and yet still chose to run this ridiculous photography. Shame on the editors, shame on the photographer, shame on the stylist and shame on the make-up artist…what could they have possibly been thinking? To use blackface as a tool to stir up controversy is irresponsible and ignorant at best. It’s a hurtful symbol of a very difficult past and for it to be revisited in 2009 is inexcusable. Maybe it’s easy to claim that it’s not offensive when you’re not close to it, but for me, being a person of color, it makes my stomach turn.

@ Jeremy—thank you for posting, it’s healthy to have this kind of open dialog. I’m a big fan of your blog.

For a magazine like French Vogue, this seems disappointing and rather un-edgy of the magazine itself. I wouldn’t have thought they’d go too far to push the hot button.

Really enjoying keeping up with this. As @Arem said, this kind of open dialogue is great.

Add your comment