I bet LeBron James was thinking what NOW when he read the column by ESPN writer Jemele Hill. Hill, like others, found his most recent cover on Vogue magazine to be stereotypical. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's the one to the left, and it's of James and supermodel Gisele Bundchen. The goal of Vogue in having James, the FIRST black man to grace the cover, was to show the contrast between super-athletes and super-models. Some people, however, had contrary feelings to the resulting visual image. Below is what Hill from ESPN.com had to say:
"Now, maybe the point was to show the contrast between brawn and beauty, masculinity versus femininity, strength versus grace. But Vogue's quest to highlight the differences between superstar athletes and supermodels only successfully reinforces the animalistic stereotypes frequently associated with black athletes. A black athlete being reduced to a savage is, sadly, nothing new. But this cover gave you the double-bonus of having LeBron and Gisele strike poses that others in the blogosphere have noted draw a striking resemblance to the racially charged image of King Kong enveloping his very fair-skinned lady love interest."
~Now, that's called really thinking about the situation...is the picture really that bad?~
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