| There is growing criticism on Vogue's latest cover starring NBA superstar Lebron James and model Gisele Bundchen.
The cover has Lebron dressed in bball gear, in a gorilla-like pose , mouth open showing his teeth with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around Bundchen tiny waist.
Its an image that reminds of King Kong holding actress Fay Wray. ( Judge for yourself.)
Lebron is the 1st Black man in the magazine's history to be on it's cover ( in 2008?) and the 3rd male to make appearance. Brett Favre, Steve Nash or David Beckham wasn't asked to wear there sports attire and strike there best beast pose.
A Black athlete image being reduced to a savage is , sadly nothing new and too often Black athletes CONTINUE TO ALLOW themselves to be presented as angry, overly agressive and overly sexual, which reinforces the idea tha Black athletes were blessed (only) with physical characteristics, not MENTAL ones.
Samir Hanir (magazine analyst) said because covers are not somthing magazines do in a rush, he beleives the photo was DELIBERATELY PROVOCATIVE and was not innocent.
To be fair, blame should go to Lebron and other millionaire Black athletes . They need to have better control of their image and pick up a history book and educate themselves.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page...20&sportCat=nba  | |
