French Vogue Blackface Photos Cause Racism Uproar

ABC's Kelly Belknap reports from London:

This month’s edition of French Vogue has stepped into even edgier territory and sparked international outrage. The fashion bible is accused of racism after using pictures of a white model ‘blacked up’ for the photo spread.

Dutch model Lara Stone is shown in the fashion magazine painted head to toe in dark make-up. Fuelling the controversy the photos appear alongside the same model in her own pale-white skin.

Since the pictures surfaced on the internet they have been received with outrage. The lifestyle website Jezebel condemned the 14 page photo shoot styled by editor-and-chief Carine Roitfeld and shot by photographer Steven Klein as insensitive.  "What Klein and Roitfeld should know … is that painting white people black for the entertainment of other white people is offensive in ways that stand entirely apart from cultural context," Jezebel said.

According to the Daily Mail, French anti-racism group SOS Racism also condemned the photo-spread spread.  “If the aim was artistic, and not to pass off the model as a black girl, the fact that it produces such reactions shows that the world of images is now paying for its long tradition of not allowing black people to show their bodies in public,” said the organization’s president Dominique Sopo to the Daily Mail.

The magazine’s text does not give any reasoning for photographing Stone in blackface. French Vogue told the Daily Mail “it was unaware it had caused offence, but said it could not give any further comment.”
This is the second blackface controversy in recent weeks. On Australian TV talent show Hey Hey Its Saturday an act insulted audiences after painting their faces black and wore afro wigs to imitate the Jackson Five.

Harry Connick Jr, a guest judge on the show, was appalled by the bizarre ode to Michael Jackson.
“If I knew that was going to be part of the show I definitely wouldn’t have done it,” Connick said on air after awarding the performers a zero score.

He added, “I just want to say, on behalf of my country, I know it was done humorously, but we’ve spent so much time trying to not make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we take it really to heart.”