This one is way too easy. I know it's a little late but who cares. This is my blog. I was sent this picture a few months ago and was appalled. But I'm not exactly sure who I should be disappointed in most. LeBron or Vogue? It's obvious to be upset Vogue for this picture for the obvious reason that it emulates King Kong-like images and signifies back to a day where Black men have been associated with animalistic like characteristics (i.e. the oversexualized, hypermasculine, hyperaggressive, buck that dominated media representations of Black men post Reconstruction). However, I feel as though a magazine company like Vogue would know this and thus consciously used this image to stir up publicity. Think to what has made major headlines lately (e.g. Don Imus, Michael Richards, Jenna 6, Golf magazine and the noose, etc.). I'm also dissapointed in Vogue because LeBron is the first Black man to grace the cover of the magazine, which is known to dress all their cover models in very fashionable attire. However, they dressed LeBron up in a pretty weak looking basketball outfit. It isn't even one I would purchase and rock somewhere outside of a gym.
I'm also a little upset with LeBron for not being a little aware of what they were doing? Did he really think a picture of him flexing muscles, roaring at the camera while curling the dainty white female model in a flowing dress would be artistic? He didn't think for one second...hey, why do I have to be in basketball clothes and she gets to be dressed up? Why am I roaring at the camera...I'm not even hungry!
Either way, it's all kind of sad and it's one more image the reproduces the subconscious construction of Black masculine identity through racist representation, whether we admit it or not. I guess everything is for sale...even your soul.
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