More racially-charged images starring Gisele

55 thoughts on More racially-charged images starring Gisele

1. Nonetheless, I can’t help seeing the black bodies used as props — faceless in the majority of cases — and as background to make Gisele stand out.

   Normal models (male and female) typically are props in shoots involving supermodels (or otherwise famous people).

2. Yes, schism, but those aren’t “normal models (male and female). They are, specifically, black male models posed in most of the shots to look aggressive. The pictures are visually stunning but also sickening.

3. Yes, schism, but those aren’t “normal models (male and female).

   They’re normal in the sense that they aren’t the focus of the shoot. Bundchen is. That the photographer acted on that doesn’t seem worthy of complaint.

4. I agree for the most part. I do have trouble, though, with the issue of race and power dynamics in erotica. Is it ever okay for race to be a focus in erotica? I find myself wondering what we should go for in this context – in other words, should we strip out any desires for a particular race, or is it okay to recognize these desires as long as we also recognize all the power dynamics and other issues that go into them? If part of what we see as beauty is difference, and thus are attracted to a different race, where does the line lie in terms of inappropriate fetishizing? I’m really not sure.

5. It is like there wasn’t a gigantic mess regarding the King Lebron King Kong photo- this is just insane. How clueless and insular is the fashion photography world? The answer is very.

6. schism, it’s not just the “prop” element – it’s that the black male model is posed as if abducting the white female model, which plays into a load of racist stereotypes.

7. As far as I’m concerned, I’m much more piqued by the vague allusions to “Teh Nativs: In Ur Kuntry, Stealin’ Ur Wimminz!!1!ELEVEN!” than I am worried about whether the black model’s face is shown or anything like that. And, nope, sorry, Europeans don’t get a pass there.

8. The photos definitely fall into the ‘could be interpreted’ bracket, but I don’t think their expressions and body language are expressing a specific power imbalance or victimisation. I guess it depends to what extent you feel racial (and gender) differences have to inevitably be a factor in this kind of equation. I agree it’s important to examine these kinds of shoots but I find the assumption that the men involved must have been conceived as either slaves or rapists just by virtue of their colour quite distressing.

   Is there no way it could have been a purely aesthetic thing, and if it was, would that have been morally wrong in itself? Should black models be excluded from certain shoot concepts because of how others COULD interpret it? Not trying to stir up an argument, just genuinely interested in where some of the posters would choose to draw the line.

9. Is there no way it could have been a purely aesthetic thing, and if it was, would that have been morally wrong in itself?

   It’s always kind of amazing how these “purely aesthetic things” end up having all kinds of fucked up cultural baggage wrapped up in there. I will buy that this or something like it (the same tired dialogue of Is X Cultural Product Racist?!) is “just a picture” or “just an aesthetic choice” or whatever when I actually see one of these things which doesn’t play directly into racist tropes.

   I find it hard to see how anyone who is culturally literate in even the most basic way could see these photos and think, “oh, come on, what’s racist about that?” This is like looking at a picture of Aunt Jemima or a minstrel show and wondering what’s racist about it.

10. I really like them, to be honest. I’m seeing more of a consensual interracial-love thing going on. He’s carrying her over his shoulders, but she’s completely into it.. look at her face. That’s a look of “yes! finally!” not “OMG help me!”

    The last picture of the set is amazing. They both look equally strong and into it, which is nice. (rather than having a passive person & an aggressive person).

11. Having met and worked with a number of photographers, I am more than willing to give the photographer of these images the benefit of the doubt. It seems that most of the photographers whom I worked with did not see the color of someone’s skin as anything more than just that; a color. Obviously, white on black or black on white create a visual contrast. In this set, the supermodel who was being, “showcased,” possessed pale skin. The dark skinned models were chosen to play off of that.

    Would people be as scandalized and offended if the genders were swapped? If Iman or Jourdan Dunn were depicted with pale male models as their, “background?” I doubt it.

    Truly, I find it highly unlikely that the ethnicities of the models chosen for Giselle’s shoot were picked for any reason aside from pure aesthetics.

12. My very first thought upon seeing that picture was that it was supposed to be an image of a primitive black man carrying away a beautiful white women. It is disgusting, technical merits aside. I don’t see how that could *not* have been on purpose, the imagery is so obvious.

13. I don’t think fashion photography is being clueless and insular here, these pictures are a cynical ploy for attention. The industry groks trolling. These pictures deliberately flirt with controversy. They want people to debate whether they are racist or not. It’s like they know what buttons to press and contrive to push exactly half of them. Big black faceless dude carrying nubile maiden. But she looks so happy slung over his shoulder. etc., etc.

14. I have to agree with the “OMG SCARY SEXUAL ANIMALISTIC BLACK MAN TAKIN OWR WIMMIN!” tone. Its glaringly obvious, and is not just an American stereotype. I also concur with Lindsay, I think it was done on purpose, trying to be “edgy.”

15. I was convinced of the racial element (not that I needed much) by imagining if white dudes had been used instead, even in the same basic poses.

    First of all, I suspect we would have ended up with much more typical skinny models here, not the intensely muscled, brute-sized models shown here (and don’t we always admire the physical strength of the savages? you can debate the centrality of the savage idea to the spread, but it definitely informs it.)

    Secondly, the whole message/impression of these photos would be entirely different, and not just because the color contrast would be less intense. It would look more like a self-conscious, reversal of power, woman enjoying getting to be a playgirl type thing with white men. This set of images, on the other hand, lets the woman have the power only because the group she’s set against doesn’t have power.

16. Of course I imagine there’s some resistance to condemning them because they are visually pleasing in a lot of ways, but we can’t only dislike popular ads and stuff when they play on racist, but also works that might have some other virtues. it’s important to recognize flaws even in things that we (want to) admire for other (valid) reasons.

17. I’m aware of the baggage involved, and looking at the pictures again what probably does tip it over to wrongness is the models’ nakedness, which does obviously carry uncomfortable connotations of black men as chattel.

    It was just on seeing the pictures in conjunction with each other, my first impression was that it was meant to be depicting a fantasy Gisele (or the Gisele ‘character’ in the shoot) was having, as opposed to anything non-consensual on either side. People seem to be saying that the photos were intended as a metaphor for racial sexual violence which, looking at the playful tone of the pictures, didn’t even occur to me. But I don’t reflexively think of black men in those terms to start with.

18. my first impression was that it was meant to be depicting a fantasy Gisele (or the Gisele ‘character’ in the shoot) was having, as opposed to anything non-consensual on either side.

    Yes, exactly. The “White Woman Fantasizes About Teh Big Black Menz” and/or “White Women Secretly WANT To Be Carried Away By Teh Natives” narrative is exactly the narrative this plays into. The consensuality is one of the flashpoints of this particular trope.

19. Ditto Oppo above- even if you want to discard the racism angle, you have the extreme sexism angle of the rape fetish. Even if one wants to look at the image as non-violent, there are still a lot of issues- more that they keep doing this and claiming that it doesn’t reinforce a ton of bad stuff because it is all consensual. Even sadder I think is the fact that to those who are able to consider the picture without personal investment, it seems visually striking and the bodies are beautiful. That is of course beside the point. Blech.

20. Sooo, it’s late (where I am) and I’m on my second beer, but I feel like throwing in my lot as a fasion major.
    To clarify, I’ve studied – and graduated – fashion design but never worked in the field because I had lost my illusions about changing anything from within.

    I just remembered a statement by Karl Lagerfeld in an interview in which he said that there was no racism in the fashion business.
    It took me several minutes to process that when I first heard it, but I think what he mean was: models of all colors – and yea, still mostly white models – get to stand in the spotlight and thrive on their according assets.
    In his mind, he actually managed to turn it into something positive that there’s an exploitable stereotype for every race.
    And I’ve run into this attitude on different occasions, in different versions among my fellow students, teachers, established fashion people and whatnot: we’re not racist because we’re creating “ethno” fashion. We’re not racist because we’re into big black hunks. We’re not racist, we love to hire little Asian girls for our fashion shoots. And so on and so forth.

    So I’m not even too sure these pictures are meant to be controversial and sensationalist. I can just imagine the photographer who pats himself on the shoulder for bringing out the noble in the savage so well, or whatever their rationale may be.

21. Maybe my American racial baggage is informing my reaction to these photos, which were shot by a Norwegian photographer.

    Thank you for saying that. Everyone seems to keep forgetting that there are places where the tension isn’t so high, and that we can’t fight our own tension with more tension about something that may not be so tense in the first place.

    That may not have been what you were initially getting at, but I think we should also try to remember that. This is something that one can be justifiably angry at if it originated in the US, but elsewhere, is it really as bad as you think it is/is it any of your business?

22. FWIW, I’m an American man, and the first thing I thought of when I saw the photo with the four strategically shadowed guys at the link was of a painting of the deposition of Christ. (See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_the_Cross). This isn’t to say that the other interpretations discussed here seem odd to me.

    Also, when this post showed up in my RSS reader, the body of the post and image was not “below the fold.”

23. I have to say that I would be a little surprised if “dark-skinned savages carrying off the fair-skinned women” is not a trope that’s fairly common in many parts of the world. I know it’s understood in Japan, for instance. I would be surprised if it was unheard of in Norway, and I do think that if you want to have your work seen and understood on an international stage, it’s your responsibility to understand these kinds of common, cross-cultural tropes. That isn’t to say that Jill is wrong; I definitely agree that the “charge” of this particular imagery may be strongest in the US and in other countries with histories of racial slavery and segregation and demonization. That’s why you end up hearing about it from here, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Colonialism and its cultural baggage, however, is an extremely international phenomenon.

    I don’t have much patience for arguments about “but someone else might interpret it this way” and “well, the photographer might have been seeing it that way.” For one thing, as UnFit says, a lot of this stuff is quite deliberately exploited by the fashion industry, and justified as just being a “reflection” of something going on in society, which is about as irresponsible and dilettantish as you can get with regards to a political act — which doing this on purpose certainly is.

    As for the whole idea of artists (including photographers) who simply have no idea what they’re doing, it’s also a terrible excuse. These interpretations are trans-personal; they exist as historical, cultural currents. You don’t have to be aware of them to play into them. They may exist in your subconscious, and coming from there, they still are your inherited ideas, your responsibility when you put them on paper. Even if you’re totally pure of racist, stereotyped baggage — maybe because you were raised by wolves, wolves who taught you how to use a camera — it’s still your responsibility as an artist, putting work into the public eye, to understand WHAT the public eye sees, understand what the interpretive context of your work is going to be. Anything else is just expression in ignorance; even if it’s beautiful, it deserves some degree of scorn for being art weighed down by crappy politics. (And believe me, all art has politics; you can’t escape that, even through naivete.) In other words, if you’re going to play around with race? You better be damn sure you know what you’re doing. If you want to play around with skin color? You better be damn sure you know how to subtract race. Having a black man throw a white woman over his shoulder is not a skillful way to do that. So… I don’t really buy that this was innocent.

    You also can’t just “whitewash” a scene like this by having the woman smile. The scene of a black male figure carrying off a white female figure is laden with centuries and centuries of baggage. Just putting on a smile doesn’t break that. There’s no story here, no complexity, just an image. And a positive expression just confuses things, doesn’t resolve them. (plus yeah, what belledame and snowdropexplodes said. of course.)

24. also, the idea of her being into the ravishment is in no way incongruent with the traditional racist/sexist fantasies.

    “…you’ll never go back.” it’s all part of the same trope.

25. I have mixed feelings on this one. I can totally see the first three as problematic, but I am in love with the last. I guess it is because I’m white and my partner is Black so I can easily relate to the last photo especially because that is my personality as well. When I watch movies and tv I see that people go out of their way to cast so there will not be any interracial couples and it is refreshing to see in mainstream once in awhile. My lived experience is that it is still taboo which is bullshit.

26. Um, Lirpa, I’ve lived in Europe, and from what I’ve seen, it’s just as bad as North America when it comes to racism. Europeans are not special snowflakes.

27. In particular, I’ve encountered a lot of Northern Europeans (Germans and Scandinavians) who are obsessed with very dark-skinned people. It doesn’t function in exactly the same way as American racism, and they often think of their own obsession in “positive” terms of beauty, strength, etc., but it is a very essentializing, exoticizing type of view that has a lot of the noble savage in it as well. When you said the photographer was Norwegian, that was the first thing that came to mind. With that in mind, I don’t think the idea that the photographer was aiming for a particular aesthetic effect of the very dark skin and the very pale skin and the idea that the photographer was playing into racist tropes are mutually exclusive in the least.

28. From a purely artistic point of view, I completely understand the reason for choosing a contrast of light skin backed by dark skin, and it is a part of what makes the photos so visually stunning.

    However, all of western Europe has a long history with respect to Africa that is far from neutral, and such an image cannot ever have been understood without that charged nature being there – unless the photographer and whoever set up the shoot were completely oblivious to history. The casual demonisation of other races by western Europeans cannot help but add overtones that the other commenters have already pointed out.

    One other trope into which these image tie is the more modern phenomenon of “white slavery”, which term now covers any sexual slave trade but whose usage implies that it was originally used to denote the enslavement of white women by swarthy, or black, men. It most definitely does call to mind the perception of Africa as a land of lawlessness and savagery.

    I see that my other thought, about this being a set of images depicting a sexual fantasy, has already been mentioned in comments. I am unsure how far I am willing to let that be an excuse. Sexual fantasies often do play with tropes about power, and that can be very enjoyable, even an intrinsic part of the arousal. On the other hand, again, using the specifically racial baggage to produce that power dynamic causes problems. I’m not willing to accept a universalist “White Women Secretly Want To Be Carried Away By The Natives narrative” reading, but it still raises questions about what this specific white woman who does have that fantasy, sees in actual (as opposed to fantasy) black men, on account of their race. Even race-as-kink is hugely problematic.

    I am extremely leery of any attempt to police the subconscious or the libido, but I feel that when race and sexual politics overlap people have to be very careful about what they say and how they say it. If these photos are about kinking off power, then there needs to be a story with the photos explaining how that works; there isn’t, so we are left with the cultural baggage to inform us, and that ain’t pretty. If they’re kinking off race, then that’s just as problematic. And if they’re just kinking off the colour contrast then it’s hugely ignorant by the photographer about all the cultural baggage again.

    Shorter version: if you work really hard at it, you can find a way to make these seem okay. But that work needed to be done by the photographer; most people won’t work hard and will just take the not-okay messages instead.

29. It seems that most of the photographers whom I worked with did not see the color of someone’s skin as anything more than just that; a color.

    *falls out of chair laughing*

    Right.

    Yeah, I remember that day in art history, when we talked about how photographers are magically exempt from racism. Totally.

30. K.H. asks if we would be as offended/upset if black female models were used with pale male models as their background. I say most certainly yes, if those hypothetical pictures were set up similarly to these, showing the white man carrying the black woman away over his shoulder. Because that would be referencing how black women slaves were often subjected to sexual abuse by their white “masters”. There are ways to photograph interracial groups that don’t automatically show one race’s dominance or reference stereotypes, but this isn’t one of them.

31. K.H. asks if we would be as offended/upset if black female models were used with pale male models as their background. I say most certainly yes,

    See, the thing to me isn’t so much the races of the people in the photographs. I’m sure whatever magazine this is for could have done a spread with these same models wherein they didn’t play into the racist stereotypes we’re talking about here. The last photo in the spread is a great example. Taken on its own, it’s a lovely shot with no particular racist overtones at all (it might even be seen as anti-racist). Taken with the other images, it becomes part of that narrative.

    I personally can’t see an exact racial switcheroo in these photos adding up to the same takeaway, though of course you’re right that it could easily play into other racist memes. Just as this shoot could have been fine if it had been done differently, a hypothetical black woman/white men shoot could have either been done offensively or not.

32. I don’t have time at the second to read all the previous comments (at work), but am curious if anyone has seen this sort of tone-contrast photography done well in terms of being sensitive about racism and perhaps even intentionally combatting it? How would, say, a non-white/non-European photographer approach a shoot like this; what would there perspective be and how would that translate visually? Can anyone think of examples?

33. Pingback: race, racism, fashion « you’re reading too much into it

34. Annajcook–something like this comes to mind: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Jungle-Fever.jpg

    The Giselle images play on ideas of physical and cultural power; the models could just as well act out an embrace that connotes affection and equality. Of course, that might be difficult when the other models are always supposed to be faceless props for the “star,” which in itself transmits all kinds of messages about celebrity privilege.

35. On the European thing (I’m half Japanese half German, grown up in Germany and still living there): No, Europe doesn’t have the exact same history of slavery.
    What we do have is a history of colonialism. In part due to that difference, when you run into black people here, chances are they actually are *from* Africa. Not in the sense that their ancestors in the xth generation came from there, but actual first generation immigrants.
    I don’t know what it’s like for each single European country; I do know that people from the former French colonies have a default French citizenship and can therefor imigrate very easily.
    As far as I’m aware, in Scandinavia African immigrants are political refugees more often than anything else.

    So hell yea, we do have racially charged histories, and I feel the noble savage trope is actually stronger over here than in the US.
    After all, Africa (and no, Sarah Palin isn’t the only one who thinks that’s a country) is perceived as backwards and deeply uncivilized.

    Also, someone mentioned “positive racism”, a certain fetishization of race. That absolutely sums up my experience, and with slightly different undertones my brother’s. It’s different and more of a mixed bag for black people, but there are few openly negative stereotypes of Asian people in Europe. Both of us get hit on in the most disgusting ways, though. With him, it’s mostly girls who find him cute and seem to be after a pet more than a boyfriend, with me it’s sleazy dudes who think all Asian women are quiet, submissive and somehow very skillful/willing to do anything in bed. Yuck.
    And they would never ever make any openly racist slurs. After all, they *love* it that we’re different, right?

    Absolute highlights by the way: some random dude at a concert who asked my brother if his squinty eyes impair his vision (just curious, really!), and a frat boy at a club who tried to get up close with me on the basis that his country and my country used to be allies.

36. Also, someone mentioned “positive racism”, a certain fetishization of race. That absolutely sums up my experience, and with slightly different undertones my brother’s.

    I used to live with this whole posse of French guys who all had Asian Girl fetishes. It was really gross.

37. On the European thing (I’m half Japanese half German, grown up in Germany and still living there): No, Europe doesn’t have the exact same history of slavery.
    What we do have is a history of colonialism.

    no, not the exact same history of slavery, but a history of slavery nonetheless. european participation in the slave trade may have ended sooner than in the united states, but don’t kid yourself that european nations have clean hands on that score.

38. @sophiefair: yea, no, I wasn’t denying that. But as far as I’m aware, African/black slaves weren’t set to work *in Europe* so it wasn’t a point of contact for most Europeans.
    What we had was zoo exhibitions of reenacted *savage* villages, which isn’t one bit better. As far as public perception goes, maybe even worse.

39. But as far as I’m aware, African/black slaves weren’t set to work *in Europe* so it wasn’t a point of contact for most Europeans.

    Ummm… yes, they were. Not to the extent or as long as in America, but there were plenty of African slaves/servants in Europe, particularly in the eighteenth century.

40. actually, they were. in spain, france and portugual. not sure about the rest of europe.

41. It’s really somewhere in between. There were never as many African slaves in Europe as there were in the US, and in terms of those who were there, they were a much smaller part of the population and the demographics weren’t the same as that of US triangle-trade slavery. Also, considering the very long history of European countries, participation in the triangle trade was a teensy drop in the bucket of national consciousness, whereas we had slavery here in the US for more than half of our total history, which isn’t really that much history in general when compared to the Old World.

    Which is not at all to whitewash the history of African slavery in Europe. It’s just different from the situation in the US. We fought a frakking civil war over it, remember.

    African slaves were heavily used in plantation colonies, which is no less significant and heavily informs racial attitudes in countries which had such colonies.

42. Fashion photography is a repulsive waste of film. It’s not ‘about’ anything. There is only vapidity where the meaning should be. Or, if it is about anything, then it’s about this, about publicity.

43. but am curious if anyone has seen this sort of tone-contrast photography done well in terms of being sensitive about racism and perhaps even intentionally combatting it?

    This is a little different, but when I was in (3rd grade? 4th grade?) my class had one of those group photos where we’re all on bleachers and they’re trying to wrangle 20-something kids into smiling at the same time. Most of the class was pretty light skinned (white or Asian) with one boy who was black and quite dark skinned. Anyways, I don’t know if it was intentional or just accidentally awesome but the photographer developed all the photos so that everyone except that one boy was just a faceless white blur while he stood out clearly and looked fabulous. So regarding using skin colors for contrast, I think that just switching up who’s front-and-center and who’s the background would help a lot.

44. I always thought the LeBron James = King Kong thing was way overblown, but these photos tap unashamedly into racial/sexual dynamics. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad (or if conventional notions of “good” and “bad” even apply here), but it sure is interesting.

45. I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but for the UK as I understand my history there are really 3 major immigration waves of black folks; the first (as already mentioned) was during the slave trade; there definitely were Africans bought as slaves to work in England, although (again as noted above) not on the industrial scale that is associated with US slavery. The second was the ‘Windrush” immigration (named after the first ship to arrive with Black immigrants) which took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s; Britain’s workforce was still depleted by WW2 and workers from the West Indies colonies were hired to come and work in British factories. Finally, many West Africans (typically Nigerians, but from several other countries as well) began to arrive around the 1980s (I’m not sure of the exact dates); there was (maybe still is, I don’t know for sure) a lot of tension between the Caribbean immigrants and the later West African immigrants, because the latter viewed the former as tainted by slavery and therefore of lesser status (the West Africans also tended to come to do relatively high-status jobs, having already obtained university degrees – whereas the Windrush immigrants were brought in to do menial labour). Of course, most white folks don’t know about this cultural difference (and don’t care) – I only know because I saw a history documentary about the different immigration waves. The racist ideas that exist in European society still make all black folks as tribal, uncivilised, savages (for example, in too many European countries, at soccer matches there will be overt taunts from the crowd suggesting that a black player of the other team is just a trained monkey).

    Oh, and one other thing: although the photographer was Scandinavian, I noticed that the text said he lives in London; that means he would have to be extremely dense not to be aware of the racial issues that exist in the former colonial powers, so he can’t get a pass on those grounds either.

46. And they would never ever make any openly racist slurs. After all, they *love* it that we’re different, right?

    Oh, absolutely. Which is totally why as recently as at least last decade (could still be true for all I know), you could buy a (rather delicious, but still) round chocolate and meringue confection in a Parisian bakery with the moniker “tete de negre.”

47. Stunning, yes. Creepy, yes. Not to derail, but whatever PhotoMagic they did to make his right quad the size of Kentucky- distracts from the other conflicting reactions to the photo.

48. You also can’t just “whitewash” a scene like this by having the woman smile. The scene of a black male figure carrying off a white female figure is laden with centuries and centuries of baggage. Just putting on a smile doesn’t break that. There’s no story here, no complexity, just an image. And a positive expression just confuses things, doesn’t resolve them. (plus yeah, what belledame and snowdropexplodes said. of course.)

    What Holly said in all, but to add on to the quoted bit:

    We also have to remember that “rape” is not always defined as injury of a woman–in fact, the traditional definition of rape was theft or vandalism of male property. Rape was often depicted with the kind of terror and horror that you’d expect from any victim of assault, but I think this had as much to do with virtuous womanhood than with acknowledging female subjectivity.

    Alongside that, though, there was a lot of male paranoia about what women might get up to if they weren’t properly controlled. They didn’t own their bodies, so they didn’t have independent interest in chastity. Maintaining the purity of the white woman also meant regulating white women–and constructing female sexuality as permanently selfless and virginal. And a culture that sees female sexuality as fulfilled only in passive submission to men will have complicated suspicions about what women might want.

    In other words, a happy expression on the face of Gisele doesn’t necessarily release this image from the history of white male paranoia about black men and black male sexuality. It might latch onto an even more pernicious set of fears.

49. I don’t think fashion photography is being clueless and insular here, these pictures are a cynical ploy for attention. The industry groks trolling. These pictures deliberately flirt with controversy.

    Yes, this. Bundchen is famously married to The Star ( White of Course ) Quarterback™ so nobody will worry that the sexuality depicted is to be taken seriously. Phew, she’s safe.

    I’ll always wonder how it can be a fashion photograph when there aren’t any, you know, clothes?

50. Okay, thanks for the little history lesson.
    Partly, I’ve been blinded by my own fixation on Europe as Northern Europe (well, okay, we *are* talking about a Norwegian photographer) and as someone pointed out, African slavery is not as much part of our cultural/delivere history.

    Actually, the only reason I know that Germany even had colonies in Africa is tha a friend mof mine married a woman from Kamerun, and they were both heavily into post colonial politics. It’s not something that is generally talked about here – definitely not in History class.

    But yes, all that said: the photographer being European doesn’t make the whole thing one bit better, no matter if he lives in London or wherever.

    Oh, and Belledame: we have those sweets too. Some time in the early 90’s, they were renamed from “negro kisses” to “chocolate kisses”, but some people still use the old name.

51. Hahaha, so true!

52. Doh! Quote thingy didn’t work. What I was laughing at was summo’s puzzlement at the lack of clothing in a fashion photograph.

53. As for the absence of clothes – I think the “fashion” is swimsuits, and maybe more importantly jewelry? If you look at the last picture shown at Racialicious, there’s a lot of emphasis on the jewelry.

    In the context created by the other images, it made me think of the line from Romeo and Juliet: “she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.”

    I wonder if that was part of the inspiration for the shoot? I don’t mean that to excuse it in any way – it’s dehumanizing to the men, and it’s obviously unacceptable to take your idea of race relations from the 16th century. But I think that image captures two competing points here – yes, it’s about visual contrast, but yes, it’s also racist.

54. Art is nothing without context. I’ve been discussing this concept with several other artists online lately in regard to whether our illustrations or art or not. I’ve been insisting that my illustrations are not art, because in their context, they say nothing new or interesting and are purely self indulgent. Which is fine with me. I’ve created art, I make art. There’s not need for me to insist that everything I make is ART.

    And I mention all that just to make it clear to those who don’t want to hear it that context isn’t only important when race is concerned. It’s always important (how else do you know the difference between your right hand and the right thing to do?).

    In our society, you can’t ignore the context of these images. I know the photographers didn’t.

55. The question of the “social responsibility” of art, in response to your question of dialogue versus indulgence, is a big one in the postmodern era.

    Personally, I think art is that which is made to be seen.

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