French Vogue and the blackface controversy

You’ve probably read about it everywhere else, but there’s more pictures of the blacked-up model from this month’s French Vogue here and on the photographer Steven Klein’s own website here.

Does the fact that it’s a French magazine make it less offensive? Not really – can anyone at French Vogue really claim surprise that the internet would be interested in this? Let alone the magazine’s appearance on newsstands around the world. Or the fact that the same issue doesn’t have a single black model in its pages. Nah, it’s just another giggle to go along with the devil worship spread and the baby-throwing one.

The photographer is American, and so surely aware of the history of blackface’s iconography. The model, Lara Stone, is Dutch, where controversy over blackface is hardly unknown. Blackface may not have been as culturally prevalent in France, but it did make it to Paris in the 1920s (see particularly p86-7), showcased in touring American variety shows that were talked about in the press at the time. And today in France, crass, insensitive depictions of black people still seem to be pretty commonplace.

Apparently editor-in-chief Carine Roitfield styled this one herself. Good thing she never wanted the American Vogue job anyway.

Enough already. We’ve been here before, when Kate Moss blacked up for The Independent‘s “African women” issue, guest-edited by Giorgio Armani, which was wrongheaded in all kinds of other ways.

If you’re still interested, I’ve posted a few more thoughts about media responsibility over here. And on we go.