Hollywood’s It Girls
I’ve been reading lots of entries across the blogosphere about VF’s “it girl” issue and here are a bunch of interesting ones:
Putting the “Fair” in Vanity Fair “Pretty Young White Girls On OUR Covers:” Racists Come Out In Support Of Magazine Segregation Vanity Fair’s “Hollywood It Girls” lacking some color Young Hollywood is white, thin Vanity Fair’s “New Hollywood” issue completely lacks diversity
I don’t think Vanity Fair editors set out with the goal, “Hmm, let’s see, who are the prettiest white girls we can feature on the cover of this issue?” I think that there actually is the issue of not having enough representation in Hollywood from girls of color. (Zoe Saldana and Frieda Pinto should’ve made this cover, though.) I think the problem here is less about VF editors wanting to sell whiteness over coloredness, and more that there is a severe lack of girls of color who make up the Hollywood circle (although the former is still a pretty prominent problem — just not relevant in this case).
And the thing is that Vanity Fair apologists shouldn’t be defensive about the backlash that VF gets from this issue, because it’s not fair to have to give an answer to, “Well which colored person would you put on the cover?” You’re right, there aren’t as many girls of color, but why aren’t there? There has to be a reason, and that reason absolutely is not that there are just no good colored actresses.
