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February 8, 2010

Why Vanity Fair DOESN'T Need To Diversify It's Hollywood Cover

I've been reading a few articles from different blogs about why Vanity Fair should have included  black women on their cover.  An to be honest they don't have too.  I personally have bought a few issues of Vanity Fair but I am not a regular reader nor am I a subscriber to the magazine.  

1. The main reason why they don't is simple black women are not Vanity Fair's target audience, I'm very sure that the majority of black women who are complaining about this don't even "own" an issue of VF or have never purchased and issue of VF.  If you have purchased past issues of Vanity Fair why would you suddenly be mad about who is on the cover when the previous issues had white women on the cover.?  I thought so. !


Monique, Lee Daniel, Gabourey Sidibe photogaphed by Anne Leibovitz for Vanity Fair

2.  "But what about Zoe Saldana and Gabourey Sidibe" ahh hello Zoe and Gabourey Sidibe have been covering countless magazine covers for the past few months.  If anyone actually went to the Vanity Fair website (which im sure most haven't because the same people complaining don't visit their site either) They would have seen that Monique and Gabourey along with director Lee Daniels are "inside" the issue.

Essence doesn't include non black actresses in their Hollywood issues .

3.  Black magazines who's target audience are black women, or black people usually DON'T put non blacks on the cover.  Essence Magazine puts the same people on their covers over and over and over again, Essence hasn't even put  any of the current top black models and I don't recall ever seeing Zoe Saldana on the cover of Essence magazine, prior to her rise in Hollywood (Now isn't that interesting).


At the end of the day black women need to stop looking to others to validate who they are and stop getting mad anytime you don't see someone who looks like you on a magazine cover that isn't geared towards you.  Also keep in mind that every magazine, every business, has a target audience even blogs have a target audience.  


There are lots of blogs and magazines that do cater to black women I've showcased many of them at this blog and as most of you know I have a 2nd blog called Beauty Is Diverse with daily updates of fashion images of various ethnicities.


Please note: This is my personal opinion.

6 comments:

Lisa said...

Thank you for posting this, I couldn't agree more. I'm not saying that there aren't any valid issues with black women in the film industry, but there tends to be some oversensitivity when it comes to issues with magazine covers. (Think of the LeBron James and Giselle cover of Vogue)

- O. Rose

Anonymous said...

Great Points!

Anonymous said...

You made some great points. Vainty Fair is more of culture mag were as Essence is geared toward women. I just find it hard to believe that they couldn't find one black, hispanic, or asian actress to feature.

I stopped reading magazines years ago. I find most are out of touch.

thwany said...

i totally agree with you. however, some sort of diversity on (besides hair color) would have been nice.

Beauty Is Diverse said...

Even if Vanity was to place a non white actress on the cover the only candidate would really be Zoe Saladana , Gabourey has only been in 1 film and doesn't have the body of work like the other actress on the cover. And I watch movies every weekend, I don't see Asian, Indian women etc in top box offices hits in "North America". So who else would they really place on the cover.? Any suggestions.?

Anonymous said...

Good Point. Vanity Fair? Exactly. People are you serious. I am not surprise by their Hollywood cover;the same 'dead horse is being beaten".LoL
Seriously, if the cover of Vanity Fair magazine bothers you that much, then create your own.

I learn this "small" lesson a long time ago.."you damn if you do, you damn if you don't". Keep it moving people. Geesh :)

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