The Above magazine arrived at my home as so many things do, and I remarked to my wife as I surreptitiously shifted it from the coffee table to the magazine rack “That is a terrible cover. Looks like King Kong.” Which indeed it does.
This thing is, aesthetically, a disaster. The photographer should be drawn and quartered, and the editor summarily sacked. And predictably, it has stirred up a bit of controversy over “racial stereotypes” and whatnot. Now I wouldn’t normally give this sort of thing a second thought, but that cover has stuck in my head over the last few days. Couldn’t figure out why, until Buddha connected the dots for me:
The cover also closely resembles this bit of United States recruitment propaganda from the Great War which I had shown to my ninth grade European history class just two weeks ago.
5 responses so far ↓
Remy // March 29, 2008 at 3:27 pm |
Aesthetically a disaster? What’s not to like about it aside from the fact that he’s in shorts and sneakers on the cover of a fashion magazine? It was a sly bit of cultural invocation on the part of the photographer and I can’t believe that there was any intent of xenophobia. The key difference in is Gisele is happy in the arms of LeBron. I would rather argue that this is a supplanting of racism.
bennettcarnahan // March 29, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
actually, i agree that the racism discussions are much ado about not much. however, i still maintain that this is one ugly cover. and not chic ugly. just ugly. the balance of the thing looks all off to me, and you are right: couldn’t they find something else to dress the dude in? those shoes alone warrant somebody’s being fired. the comparison to king kong and the enlistment poster are more fun, than anything (honestly, i find both of those posters more aesthetically pleasing than this cover).
however, as my wife astutely observed to me mid-rant: “You are still talking about it. The cover caught your attention, yes? Then it did what it was supposed to do.” which is fair enough, i suppose.
liliana // June 23, 2008 at 11:37 am |
this is a very interesting film !!!!!!! :)
In Which We Must Ask… « gilgal // July 7, 2008 at 3:33 pm |
[...] traffic long after its relevance has faded, so I have to ask: Why the renewed interest in the LeBron and Gisele Vogue Cover? Explore posts in the same categories: [...]
bennettcarnahan // July 7, 2008 at 3:34 pm |
OK, I’m getting a lot of traffic on this post all of a sudden: What’s going on? Did someone assign a paper on the topic? If so, what’s the assignment?