In class, we discussed the issue of Italian Vogue that featured all black models. The magazine’s editors were clearly not filling the pages with black women because of their beauty. Rather, for the purpose of political correctness that was discussed in bell hooks’ chapter from her book, Black Looks, black woman are represented so that “readers will notice that the magazine is racially inclusive” (71). This desire for Vogue to appear politically correct was evidenced by the fact that the first half of the magazine was filled with ads featuring all white models. If the magazine was actually trying to glorify the beauty of the black female, chances are she would have appeared in at least some of the advertisements.
Here is one of the images from the “All Black” issue of Italian Vogue.
This photo was taken by Dusan Reljin and is one of a series that he shot.
What is so interesting about this image is the fact that it melds perfectly with hooks’ assertions about black female sexuality and about black women in contrast with white women. hooks says that black female bodies and “features are often distorted, their bodies contorted into strange and bizarre postures that make the images appear monstrous or grotesque”, that black women “seem to represent an anti-aesthetic, one that mocks the very notion of beauty” (71). In this picture, the model looks hardly human. She is filthy and looks like she is covered in some sort of paint or oil, making her body look positively deformed. Her hair stands straight on end, making her appear to be almost some kind of futuristic woman, perhaps a robot, an automaton with no feelings or expression, which certainly meshes with hooks’ assertions about black women as objects, void of feelings or thoughts or personhood. Yet while appearing futuristic, she has the savagery and the wild look that hooks also cites as conventions of black female sexuality. The look in her distorted, almost frightening, eyes is fairly blank, yet still communicates some kind of sexuality. Her eyes, combined with one hand delicately clutching a lit cigarette and her other resting upon her half bare, dirty torso communicate a sense of savagery, freedom, and sexuality. Also, over her jumpsuit she is wearing some sort of shiny, plastic-looking overlay. My first reaction to this was that she looks like she is in a plastic bag, like something you would purchase, an object, a thing, not a person.
In fact, the only facet of this image that strays from hooks’ theory is the fact that the woman is painted darker than her actual skin tone, as can be seen from the few exposed patches of skin that are not covered in black paint. hooks says that black women are constantly portrayed so as to appear to be as close to “whiteness” as possible, that “darker-skinned models are most likely to appear in photographs where their features are distorted.” However, this model has lighter skin that is being made darker instead of being characterized as lighter and whiter. However, the fact that she is made to look a hue darker than her actual skin still proves hooks’ points, as the model is being presented as dirty, savage, and objectified.
What is really important here is that it seems much easier for an editor or publisher to use a beautiful black model and make her look like a dark, dirty mess than it would be for such a person to similarly use a white model. It seems much easier to mask the features of the black model so that image becomes about everything but who she is. If society had really overcome these racist notions of black female identity, then a specifically black issue of a fashion magazine would not need to published; black women would be displayed just as prominently, favorably, and frequently and considered as high-fashion and beautiful as most white models are. There would be no reason to specify that this issue is compiled of specifically black images, for specifying this only causes the women to have a greater chance of being subjected to the stilted and racist gaze and “myth of black female sexuality created by men in a white supremacist patriarchy” (69). Clearly, the undesirable conventions and stereotypes have not been overcome if we can not even recognize black as beautiful and fashionable unless it is labeled and sold to us by a big-name magazine.
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