Gawker
I had thought this was a fuss about nothing. But when you look at the images side-by-side, it's pretty obvious that Vogue's latest cover featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen is indeed a sly homage by Annie Leibovitz to King Kong. In fact, the references by photographer Annie Leibowitz to one image in particular, identified earlier this week by a tipster to Jezebel, are unmistakeable. This First World War army recruitment poster—urging loyal Americans to destroy a "mad brute"—features a Kong-like gorilla with a right arm holding a weapon and a left gripping a virginal white beauty. It's much like the position basketball star LeBron assumes on the Vogue cover.
Veteran Leibovitz, the go-to photographer at Conde Nast titles such as Vanity Fair and Vogue, has still not acknowledged her inspiration. (Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici, in an inspired journalistic move, actually thinks to put in a call.) But Leibowitz is known for borrowing iconic imagery from old movies.
Let's assume the Vogue cover was indeed an homage to the xenophobic wartime poster. There's nothing so reprehensible about that: it's a photographic commentary on the ancestral American fear of black men, an interesting and provocative idea.
But here's the real question. Had the magazine knowingly intended to begin a debate about racial imagery, it would have at least devoted some text to the issue, and demonstrated awareness of the controversy it was inviting. Instead, Vogue seems to have been caught unawares. Did Annie Leibovitz gloss over her cover concept in order to get it past the generally conservative Vogue editors? If so, they're going to blame her for the mess in which the Conde Nast magazine finds itself.
Comments
I smell a coincidence!
If this was really based on the poster shouldn't we be able to Gisele's breasts? I think a re-shoot is in order if Annie really wants to get it right... for art's sake.
So, you're saying Lebron is an agent of the Kaiser? That bastard will pay for the Lusitania.
You know what, Nick. It's really childish that someone there changed my avatar to the Busted Spitzer Whore. See ya later.
@BullfightsOnAcid: I second the motion. Here here.
Maybe, since race isn't really the Vogue purview, they'd prefer the commentariat to dialogue for them? Are they paying you?
Oh man Denton - you bloody well called it. Can't wait for the explanation.
Twas beauty killed the Bundchen Gisele.
This is nonsense, it doesn't take the US Army to stop LeBron... just a little bit of pressure outside the key and he will settle for a crappy fadeway jumpshot.
Methinks that had the magazine indeed, "devoted some text to the issue, and demonstrated awareness of the controversy it was inviting" it would have generated a case of the Omegas the likes of which we've never before seen!
Um, yeah, the WW 1 poster does depict a big ole gorilla, but it is supposed to represent GERMANY. Pre-Nazi Germany, sure, but nevertheless, GERMANY, people. Land of large, lederhosen clad white folks. It is definitely war propaganda, trying to depict the evils of those kaiser-loving warmongers, but the idea that it is racist is pretty laughable.
Um, it's LeBron James. Not James LeBron. Just so you know.
I hope next month's cover shows Tom Brady with a pith helmet and rifle standing over the corpse of LeBron. That will teach him not to touch white women.
Are we sure this isn't just white people having the reaction of "Golly, that Black Man sure looks like a Gorilla!"
Which is followed by the guilty thought of "Well, that was racist. Somebody else must be responsible for my thinking. To Google Image search! Hopefully there's an 80-year old poster that'll make me feel better"
Stupid Germans don't even know how to spell "culture." See the baseball bat in the monkey's hand in the poster on the left...
@In Other News...: No, Denton didn't call it. He jumped on at the train's last stop.
It's been in the news ever since it came out (not to mention on Jezebel days ago - or last week).
On second thought - King Kong was released in 1933. World War I was fought from 1914-1918. So the "gorilla" in the poster is not King Kong. Perhaps Denton, this was not an homage to King Kong, but rather just to the WWI poster itself? The Kong reference has no place here, and either way Leibowitz has some splainin' to do.
Gisele seems to be having a much better time than the gal in the war poster.
@zivah: Noted. This is the first I read of the matter; credit where credit is due.
James LeBron? Yeah, that's pretty gay, Denton.
@friend_of_a_friend: I think you mean ELI "SUPER BOWL CHAMPION" MANNING. Right?
Hmmm, maybe they should cancel that Gemma Ward in blackface cover they were planning.
@Pesquyist: James LaBron is his less talented doppleganger. He plays for the Heat.
@Pesquyist: Beautiful.
@BettyCrocker: That's because the big appendage behind her is actually not LeBron's leg...
@BalknChain: What happened???
Nick, we transcended race about a week and a half ago in this country.
@Pesquyist: @jaded: This is what happens when your last name sounds like a first name and your first name sounds French.
@cardboardbelt: Completely. Neither Liebowitz nor Vogue has anything to explain, and lots of PR to soak up.
@bjonston: That's culture. In german.
@mcgeorge: @cardboardbelt: I don't think the issue is so much whether the WW I propaganda poster or King Kong are racist, but whether alluding to recognizable cultural signifiers to play with the idea of a black athlete as animalistic is racist.
@lemmeout: I knew that. I was just testing you. Good one!
It is so funny how a vapid magazine like this - or any magazine, really - can cause so much controversy. Before I became a reporter, I was in awe of those mysterious people who put out the news. Once I became a reporter, I found that they are just as smart or dumb as everyone else. The people who are wringing their hands over it can do something about it - don't buy it! The editors at Vogue probably didn't think a thing about the picture - it looks kind of fun, right? - and really, who gives a damn about the cover of Vogue, or any magazine.
@mcgeorge:
Logic time!
Germany is being equated to a brutal destroyer and ravager of women. LeBron is acquiring the characterization of Germany by assuming its position in this photograph. Due to the obvious historic nature, I would argue that it becomes a referendum on the characterization of the entire race, not LeBron, and therefore LeBron is posing for Blacks as Germany which is being equated to a brutal destroyer/ravager of women.
To summarize, a proof:
Germany = brutal destroyer and ravager of women
LeBron = Germany
LeBron = Blacks
Blacks = brutal destroyers and ravagers of women
models do shots where they are pretending to be animals all the time. no one calls thoes racist.
Jezebel already ran this story. Is Gawker just repeating itself?Is Gawker just repeating itself?
For a second there I wondered if I had walked right into it-@In Other News...: Um yes, more please.?
Mostly because I'm tired of mine, and intrigued by the fact that another could be chosen for me by gawker staff.
@katastic: Jezebel is Gawker.
Wow. Jezebel has some of the worst commenters ever.
It's like the members of BooJooMooJoo and ChildFree on Livejournal suddenly immigrated over there.
Yikes.
@friend_of_a_friend: Or Brady Tom.
@ADismalScience: Yes but you are forgetting the subsequent rule:
Lebron - Blacks = Germany - brutal destoyer of women
therefore
Germany + Blacks = Lebron + brutal destroy of woman
It's called the Vogue Theorem.
@ADismalScience: You forgot a critical element of the equation, my friend:
Gisele Bundchen = 1 hot momma!
Still trying to decide if I'd rather see him dunk her or fire her from behind the arc.
@Bell County: That's intresting. My point is that it's a coincidence, and that Leibovitz was not alluding to any cultural signifiers.
There's nothing virginal about Gisele Bundchen.
Giant black guy (LeBron is HUGE!) poses with slender white supermodel and it mutates into some kind of bizarre indcitment of Annie Leibovitz, with ugly racial overtones and fatuous undertones of plagiarism and such?
OK. Play on, player.
The metaphor of a basketball instead of a stick is truly powerful. And round.
I think Vogue would have more likely knowingly left any explanatory, or 'softening', textual element out. The image is compelling because it bears a heavy historic inference with a playful irreverence -- and therefore might even be considered a little bit progressive, in its own backwards kind of way?
@McCheeburger: How can undertones be flatulant?
@McCheeburger:
I humbly direct you to my proof, sir, and challenge you to address its logic.
@Pesquyist:
James LeBrown, perhaps?
@Chaim Gnadelstein:
By the way, I wrote essays in college.
@BadUncle: Well play'd, sir! Shame Giselle doesn't look more like Augusta Viktoria?