LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen are on the April cover of Vogue magazine, and many are calling this a racial issue. LeBron is the first African American male to be on the cover of the magazine, but people are arguing that the two are acting out racial sterotypes. On the cover LeBron is standing with he arm around Gisele with his mouth open and tongue out while dribbling a basketball. Some are saying that he is displaying a "gorillla-like" pose and the way they are standing makes them look like King-Kong and Fay Wray.
Vogue spokesman says that the two are, "sought to celebrate two superstars at the top of their game." James has commented on the photo and has no problem with it. He says that he is just, "showing a little emotion."
Others however are saying that this is not the first time a black athlete has been portrayed at "beastly." They have brought up past issues of Sports Illustrated where Charles Barkley
was on the cover breaking free of neck and wrist shackles. Or when Dennis Rodman was on the cover of Rolling Stone with horns poking out of his head. They believe that these images show black male athletes as being aggressive and threatening and that they need to stop.
I'm not really sure what to think about this story. Personally, everytime I've seen a cover of a magazine I didn't really look that far into it. However, if this continues to be an issue for some, magazines might have to rethink their future covers.
Do we know if the editor of Vogue has made a response to the discussion? It would be interesting to see what the photographer's vision was as the purpose of photography is to tell a story.
I think anyone who looks at April's cover of Vogue and points out racial issues just has too much time on their hands. I thought it was an awesome photograph, from a photographer's point of view. And I'm not sure if anyone here as seen LeBron in action, but on the court he IS a beast. That pose on the cover of Vogue is not exaggerating his facial and body expression when he's on the court and fired up! We don't call him King James for nothing in Cleveland. He's intense.
People need to find better things to do than make racial issues out of nothing. I'm sure if I tried I could fabricated a racial issue out of any other magazine cover.
Go Cavs.
I guess it vaguely has a King Kong aspect to it, but only if you're really looking for it. If the two pictured don't have any issues with it, why should anyone else really? Racism obviously still exists in our world, but it seems like this might be a bit of a stretch.
If you look for a certain angle on things, you'll find it. If all you're doing is trying to whine and complain at every opportunity, then go for it. Lebron James has no problem with the picture. I don't hear any other black athletes about to march on Washington because of it. Sure it's easy to pull out three instances in history where black athletes have been put in a questionable pose for a magazine cover, but they all did it willingly and knowing what they looked like. This isn't an example of someone tricking Lebron (or Charles, or Dennis) into a pose that he didn't want to be in. As long as we're naming instances of magazine covers with black athletes on them, let's name the thousands and thousands of covers they have been portrayed in an uncontroversial way. Tiger Woods is standing normally on the cover of Golf Digest this month, I don't think that makes him a "beast." Mario Chalmers is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this month, winning the game. Hardly a "beastly" portrayal. Instead, he is made out to be the most important player in the most important game of the year. Sadly, this isn't worth bringing up when all some people want to do is complain.
PS Who are these people? The blog never attributes these complaints to anyone , or any group, in specific.
The article never really said specifically who was criticizing the cover. It just said that it was stirring up controversy with some commentators and some magazine analysts. A spokesperson from Vogue did say that the cover was meant to portray all shapes and sizes, which is why they put a big athlete with a little model. On the cover LeBron is wearing his own clothing line to advertise it, but apparently others are making this into a much bigger issue than it should be.