The March 2010 issue of Vanity Fair is causing quite a controversy. The cover and its corresponding article features nine starlets dubbed “the fresh faces of 2010”. Not controversial in and of itself unless you notice the lack of diversity on the cover, which it would be hard not to. It snaps the waif Caucasian nicely and the accompanying article has Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz stating what she considers some of the best attributes of those featured: “downy-soft cheeks,” “button nose,” “patrician looks and celebrated pedigree,” “dewy, wide-eyed loveliness,” “Ivory-soap-girl features”. How very Victorian.
Ah Hollywood, it manages to continuously operate under the idyllic, somewhat delusional stance that art imitates life. It also spends a good deal of time giving itself congratulatory pats-on-the-back for exposing its version of societal ills while simultaneously marginalizing and capitalizing on them.
The lack of diversity on this particular cover is a superficial representation of a larger underlying issue. If this is truly an “up and coming” snapshot, are we to assume there aren’t any women of color currently fitting that description in Hollywood? Sadly it’s not necessarily a far off assumption. Will Smith once stated that Hollywood favors the color green over black or white. Yet in the documentary “America Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” one studio executive revealed the following; a studio-backed film with a black-on-black romance receives a smaller budget than a studio-backed film with a black male in a romantic relationship with another race. Studio-backed films portraying white-on-white romances gain the highest budgets. Another screen writer tells of a meeting with industry big-wigs in which she was told they would buy her autobiographical script but they were changing her to “white”. She didn’t sell.
As the nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards were announced this week there’s already the prediction that Mo’Nique will win for best supporting actress in Precious. She will win for playing an abusive, dysfunctional mother to an illiterate, obese Black girl. She will win for a movie that, although hailed by critics, sets forth deep-seeded stereotypes that don’t challenge the way audiences have become comfortable viewing Black actors on the big screen.
The Oscars 81 year history is a dismal reflection of progressiveness as only 27 Black actors have won the award. This year does break both the gender and racial barrier in the best director category with nominations for Lee Daniels and Kathyrn Bigelow. Daniels is only the second African-American filmmaker to be nominated while Bigelow is only the fourth woman. Unfortunately, their odds of winning are drastically impaired as they don’t possess the common characteristics of each of the previous winners; they are neither white nor male.
For a self-important industry running rampant with “limousine liberals” (a term coined by Stephen Spielberg actually) most do nothing to provide solutions or work to change the systemic racism in their own multi-billion dollar industry. One might hope the editors of Vanity Fair would take responsibility for their shortsighted view but they are just a tiny component of an overwhelming injustice.
Ironically, Mr. Smith is quite right in his assessment but not in a way that works in his favor. If the positioning of racial images is about money than how are racial stereotypes to be overcome? Hollywood with its undeniable influence and vast power becomes one of, if not the largest, purveyors of racism – all while operating under the guise of enlightenment and diversity.