We have to take a moment for this Vanity Fair: Hollywood Issue’s 20th Anniversary cover because it is incredible. The cover features: Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Idris Elba, George Clooney, Michael B. Jordan, Jared Leto, Lupita Nyong’o, Naomie Harris, Brie Larson, Chadwick Bosman, Margot Robbie, and Lea Seydoux. No—you don’t get it! Just as many women as men! Just as many Black actors as White ones.
Yes, there are still Asian American, Latino Actors and LGBTQ completely missing from this scenario but given Vanity Fair’s history of “whitewashing” this is their most groundbreaking cover yet. It should be applauded and celebrated so that it pushes them to include even more diversity in the future.
For example their 2010 Young Hollywood issue only featured young, thin White women. These women no doubt were incredibly talented and deserved the hype but so did, let’s say, Gabourey Sidibe at the time.
In 2012 they included women of color (Adepero Oduye and Paula Patton) in their Hollywood Issue but put them all on the cover insert. They were “a part of” the cover but folded into the magazine.
In 2008 Zoe Saldana and America Ferrera were shifted to the cover fold.
In 2005 the same thing was done to Rosario Dawson, Ziyi Zhang and Kerry Washington.
There are at least 10 more examples of Vanity Fair just pushing people of color off to the side because “White people” covers sell better. It’s a huge statement when you put a person of color on the magazine because not only does it mean that the magazine has faith in diversity but that it also has faith that general public will accept that diversity. While magazines probably aren’t inherently racist or sexist or queerphobic they do have to meet the bottom line: they have to sell magazines. In doing so they maintain the status quo or the notion that people of color aren’t sellable, so when you see someone like Idris Elba on the cover along side Julia Roberts, we know that there is a cultural shift in how diversity is received by the masses and how it is considered by marketers. This cover is incredibly meaningful and while yes, there are more men on the main cover than women, and while yes, it is lacking in representing other groups of people, it is not just a step but a leap in the right direction.
[Via. Vanity Fair/Jezebel]
