Darkschunt 
Monday, June 25, 2007
Out of Africa Controversy
I bought the June issue of Vogue because of Keira Knightley on the front cover (and also the Best Dressed Girls of Summer thing but that didn't live up so much to my expectations). But love Keira! She's just so gorgeous I can't get tired of looking at her. She really lights up the screen. And there's not so much media overkill on her so I don't get tired of her the way I got tired of Mischa Barton.
I did think though, while flipping through Vogue on the bus home, that the whole African photo spread was, well, how do I put it? I was a little disturbed by the photoshoot, not to mention that photo of the poor baby elephant that had to endure getting a Louis Vuitton blanket on its back! (cry of a million fashionistas going "I envy that baby elephant getting an LV blanket on its back!" Yes, very well, but from what I read of Keira's account of everyone having to run to catch the poor thing to tie a blanket around it, the baby elephant wasn't very enthusiastic about its brush with designer fashion). I soon found out on the Internet that quite a few people weren't very happy about the whole Africa shoot either. I got the picture above from Ghanaian designer G. Kofi Annan of the Annansi Chronicles website and I think he puts it into words best the way I felt about the photospread. To read his opinion on the spread go to his website and just scroll down and click on fashion, then you'll see it further down the page. His blog is pretty interesting in itself - I might put up a link to it in my sidebar when I have the time.
Are we being too harsh on Anna Wintour (the editor of Vogue in America, for those of you who don't know)and Keira Knightley? I doubt very much Keira had a lot of say on how the photo shoot was planned, we can look to Anna and her fashion editors for that. And when you look at the way they got the Maasai herdsmen to stand around Keira for an "Out of Africa" type photo shoot, it kind of reminded me of the way they did a Vogue bikini on the beach photo shoot a few years back where leggy models (I think Karolina Kurkova was one of the them) in bikinis were surrounded by a lot of surfer-type boys who basically did the same thing the Maasai herdsmen did - stand around the models like live props. I do agree very much with what G. Kofi Annan said in his post on this shoot - "...you’d think that with all the resources they have the editors can find a creative way to tie in the Africa theme ... But it just goes to prove how the perspective of Africa in popular culture is so limited."
I bought the June issue of Vogue because of Keira Knightley on the front cover (and also the Best Dressed Girls of Summer thing but that didn't live up so much to my expectations). But love Keira! She's just so gorgeous I can't get tired of looking at her. She really lights up the screen. And there's not so much media overkill on her so I don't get tired of her the way I got tired of Mischa Barton.
I did think though, while flipping through Vogue on the bus home, that the whole African photo spread was, well, how do I put it? I was a little disturbed by the photoshoot, not to mention that photo of the poor baby elephant that had to endure getting a Louis Vuitton blanket on its back! (cry of a million fashionistas going "I envy that baby elephant getting an LV blanket on its back!" Yes, very well, but from what I read of Keira's account of everyone having to run to catch the poor thing to tie a blanket around it, the baby elephant wasn't very enthusiastic about its brush with designer fashion). I soon found out on the Internet that quite a few people weren't very happy about the whole Africa shoot either. I got the picture above from Ghanaian designer G. Kofi Annan of the Annansi Chronicles website and I think he puts it into words best the way I felt about the photospread. To read his opinion on the spread go to his website and just scroll down and click on fashion, then you'll see it further down the page. His blog is pretty interesting in itself - I might put up a link to it in my sidebar when I have the time.
Are we being too harsh on Anna Wintour (the editor of Vogue in America, for those of you who don't know)and Keira Knightley? I doubt very much Keira had a lot of say on how the photo shoot was planned, we can look to Anna and her fashion editors for that. And when you look at the way they got the Maasai herdsmen to stand around Keira for an "Out of Africa" type photo shoot, it kind of reminded me of the way they did a Vogue bikini on the beach photo shoot a few years back where leggy models (I think Karolina Kurkova was one of the them) in bikinis were surrounded by a lot of surfer-type boys who basically did the same thing the Maasai herdsmen did - stand around the models like live props. I do agree very much with what G. Kofi Annan said in his post on this shoot - "...you’d think that with all the resources they have the editors can find a creative way to tie in the Africa theme ... But it just goes to prove how the perspective of Africa in popular culture is so limited."
Comments:
Post a Comment
