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July 25, 2008 12:23:17 PM CDT

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I See Sex, Not Racism

Posted Apr 2, 08 10:40 AM CDT in Arts & Living 

(Newser) – Last week's Vogue cover had "a lot of people, smart and dumb, losing their minds," writes Wesley Morris in Slate. Sure, Annie Leibovitz's shot may pander to the "ugliest racist tropes: black male as ape," with LeBron James as King Kong and Gisele Bundchen as the silky-gowned Fay Wray. (She even has her very own "dashing white adventurer," boyfriend Tom Brady.) But that subtext is a stretch.

The image is hot, plain and simple, and its sexiness "is more a matter of celebrity than race." Bundchen doesn't look scared, James doesn't look like a sinister ape. The controversy is overblown, and between the Jeremiah Wright hullabaloo and Bill Clinton's "mutation into Karl Rove," Morris isn't up for fighting editor Anna Wintour. "Racial hysteria is the old black. Maybe it's so old it's avant garde—very Vogue."

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  • Vogue Cover Stirs Up Race Controversy

    Mar 26, 08 4:01 PM CDT
    Vogue Cover Stirs Up Race Controversy A Vogue cover featuring NBA star LeBron James and supermodel Gisele Bundchen is stirring up a fuss, Dan Fleschner writes on an MSNBC blog. Some say the shot, by the legendary Annie Leibovitz, perpetuates racial stereotypes by portraying James in an aggressive "King Kong-like" pose, with Bundchen as the willowy white woman in distress. More »

A version of the promotional poster for the 1933 film classic King Kong.   (Archive Photos)
The cover that caused a scandal. Some say it's sexy, other say it mimics a scene from the 1933 flim classic King Kong, perpetuating racial stereotypes.   (Vogue.com)
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LeBron James  • racism  • Gisele Bundchen  • Annie Leibovitz  • Vogue  • stereotypes  • King Kong  • Anna Wintour


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