French Vogue’s Blackface Model: Racism or High Fashion?

The October issue of French Vogue features a thirteen page spread of Dutch model Lara Stone painted in blackface. Lara is modeling high fashion ethnic looking clothing while painted entirely in dark make up. This issue of the magazine has caused quite a stir of controversy over the past few weeks, especially in North America. Fashion bloggers have received thousands of outraged and offended posts. In this article I will address the issue of blackface: is blackface OK?

After both some careful thought and internet research, I have come to the conclusion that no, blackface in any situation is not okay. Not only does this particular incident of blackface show cultural insensitivity, but it also objectifies women of colour. For those people who embody the Neo-Liberal belief that North America has achieved equality, think again. This issue of Vogue aims to portray a new trend in high fashion, a trend that is apparently best represented using dark skin. The photographs of Lara indicate that Vogue is using exotic stereotypes to sell and promote “ethnic” fashion trends. The image of a black woman (not even a real black woman!) is used as means of selling and promoting. Thus women of colour are understood as objects and commodities and, in this particular incident of blackface, as the exotic and beautiful “Other.”

Furthermore, blackface also views people of colour as a form of mockery and entertainment. This issue of French Vogue uses the image of dark skin to entertain its presumably trendy and white middle class female readers. However, the media also uses blackface in other ways as a form of entertainment. Recently in an Australian talent show, a group of white men attempted to imitate the Jackson 5. Four men painted themselves black while one painted himself white. The audience cheered and hoorayed but Harry Connick Jr., one of the judges, was outraged. And Harry’s outrage was certainly called for; this group thought it would be funny to make a joke out of black men. By mocking black people, the media is further alienating them from Western society. The media is also portraying black people as buffoons and uncivilized savages for the purpose of entertaining us “civilized” and white middle class folk. During the colonization process, Western society attempted to “civilize” black people. Colonization may not occur today, but clearly its strategies are still embedded in our culture. Blackface is another colonial attempt to dehumanize black people. It is evident that by using black people as commodities as well as a form of entertainment, they remain outside of Western “humanity” as “Other.” However, today it seems that the “Other” cannot even be “helped” by civilization. By being made into jokes, people of colour are now beginning to exist outside the binary of civilized versus uncivilized because they are only seen in an arena of mockery.

For many of you, the question of why Vogue France did not just use a black model may arise. This issue of the magazine featured models like Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, and Yasmin Le Bon in order to celebrate supermodels.

However, no black supermodels made the magazine’s cut. And there is the answer to that question: it is not the black woman herself that Vogue was interested in but rather, it was the image of her as an exotic “Other” that they were concerned with. Using a black model would have meant accepting that black women are just as capable of modeling as white women. I would also argue that women are capable of much more than modeling because modeling suggests that women are merely commodities and objects to be consumed. But I will save that issue for another article…

However, blackface can also been seen in a positive light. In Cycle Thirteen of America’s Next Top Model, Tyra Banks used blackface as a way to value notions of hybridity. By painting the six finalists according to two different races other than their own, she challenged the stigma that many people of mixed races are subject to. They are often considered impure and “half-breeds” in Western society. But Tyra seems to be valuing these dual identities. However, this is not the case with French Vogue. This magazine may have also used blackface as a way to cause controversy in order to sell and promote their magazine. However, there has been talk on the internet that France does not have the same cultural sensitivity that many (but certainly not all) North Americans have. This could be because France and many other countries may not have experienced civil rights movements and national discourses on race in the same way that North America has. If this is the case, then we are definitely not nearly as close to an equal society as many people think we are.