Jezebel

Is it just me, or did I just look at the same picture 7 times in a row?

You can also tell how prevalent it has become to airbrush people to the point of making them unrecognizable. That top photo looks like a bunch of uniformly colored, uncontoured, plastic dolls.

I totally had that 2003 spread hung up in my dorm room.

I can't believe that she's not commenting on this shit. Everyone is up-in-arms about Miley, but this is so much worse. I'm waiting for an explanation, Annie.

At least Benicio is in the middle of that 1996 one. Where he should be.

Is Angela Bassett the only one who is visibly happy to be photographed? Does Annie ban smiles or is Hollywood just now that fun?

@Sophie: now =not

@SVreader: that's nice, but I like Leo in the 1996 one. Remember when he was a skinny adolescent? I like it (almost) as much as his current, muscle-y and dark, phase.

@sonofabiscuit: Yeah, The Hollywood Issue always has sorta the same layout. I thought I saw somewhere else on the web a retrospective on all her covers for Vanity Fair. Off to research..er, I mean I guess I'll go back to working.

comments......grr.

All those spreads run together in my brain: Pretty people in classy clothes posing on different levels while staring at the camera with knowing looks.

@sonofabiscuit: you read my mind. I was like "hmm... people lounging with a look of ennui, "artfully" arranged."

yawn.

Why was ONTD not this good when I was a member?

Also, why am i not surprised?

@dotcomdork: I agree- Oh Bennie...

Dang, that is fairly damning.

Also, I like how in the last one, Gwyneth is the only one no in lingerie.

so does this make Annie a racist or just true to her "artistic" vision? this is not the first time this old horse has been hitched to the cart.

either way, i'm O-V-E-R it. where's terry richardson? 'cause if i have to hear about "sexualized teenagers" being "manipulated" for art, well, I want REAL sexualized exploitation.

On top of Elisabeth Hasselcrack this just makes me sad.
What a fucking racist country we live in.

I can't fault Annie 100% for this... at least 20% is Vanity Fair's call. ;-)

And I like how Will kicks the class of '96s ass!

And... I spy no Omar Epps or Lucy Lui...

Also, My uncle (RIP) used to collect the Hollywood Issue so now I have to buy it even though I already know the women/men of color will usually be displayed on the inside flap. It's fun to look back on issues and be like, "Hey, Fariuza Balk needs to be in something, like, now"

@Lola del Rio:So her artistic vision is to shove all people of color to the far right?
You realize that she knows exactly how the cover will be laid out and is shooting the photograph to suit the cover.
Thats what they do.

I can't help but think, at least with the first picture, it makes sense to have Zoe Saldana in the middle of the picture. Yes, it pushes her to inside flap, but when looking at the picture as a whole, she is the most striking figure and looks great as the centerpiece. Just saying.

These are such a funny time capsule, though, both to remember what people looked like 10 years ago and who people were predicting to be "hot" who we never heard of again. Sarah Wynter? Fairuza Balk?

Annie Leibovitz' best days are far behind her. Repetitive, dull and overrated.

@Sophie: Nah- she was like, bitch is shoving me in a corner- well lemme show her. I am going to OWN this shit. And its clear- she does.

@ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!): I just clicked the link...

Wait Jez... Djimon's on the cover! Or is that because he's African and therefore, exotic?

Kate Winslet looks fierce! I love her.

Also notice the bitches don't get to wear much in the way of clothing but the dudes are always fully clothed.

Wow, I never noticed this. I also never saw these covers before right now, and you have to admit they are all interesting. Not only are people of color off to the right, theres only one or two of them in big ole groups of white actors/actresses. Weird.

There's a gallery in Santa Fe which stocks a lot of Annie Leibovitz's work and though she may or may not have certain sensibilities (shoot the messenger, anyone), when you're walking down the street and when her photos come into view, you sort of have to give it to her because she's clearly an artist.

Of course, what always strikes me on my trips to that gallery is the $290,000 photo from Ansel Adams because I've always admired his work, but damn...

@ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!): That is exactly it.

Eww, who told Hugh Grant to do that pose? Yikes!

@mipsy6: That always bothered me. It's inconsistent with the rest, although, I like how Sandra Bullock is the only one barefoot, so.....why am I still posting? I need to work!!

*Back in 5 minutes. Oh, who am I kidding, I am totally refreshing.

@Philthyist is annoyed:

sorry if my read-between-my-lines approach didn't reach you... this should have been my statement about the piece... ahem...

NO DUH!

@JessicaLovejoy: More business juice, please!: I love it because it makes the whole shot look sort of like a camp photo, or something, except with movie stars(!)

It's also strange that in the latest one, the left hand side of the picture as a whole is whiter than the right - in terms of skin tone, background, and presumably lighting.

Also, Minnie Driver looks incredibly awkward, which could be due to the awkward use of the photo's frame cutting off her legs.

Wow. I was one of the people who didn't quite see the racism in the LeBron photo...but after this? Annie, you've got some splainin to do. Stat.

All I kept thinking was, "Holy Gwyneth Paltrow, Batman!" She was on almost every women's cover.

Once I got past that, it's really horrible how obvious that is once you look at them all lined up (it's even worse when you click on the ONTD link). This plus the Giselle/Lebron scandal make Annie look pretty bad.

Far too homogeneous -- does it take that much creativity to make them all very different? And I wonder if she put them there or she was subtly asked to put them there?

@laurasaurus: Actually, the progression of light to slightly darker is true for 2008, 2005, 2003 and 2001. Weird.

Also, this makes me feel so young because I have no idea who some of the people are in the 1995, 1996, and 1997. Yay, because I was just having an existential crisis relating to getting old. So, silver lining?

Yo, I don't think that's Lucy Liu, I think that's Ziyi Zhang (the 2005 pic, right?) Love the 1995 spread

I'm willing to assign more of the blame to Vanity Fair- or at least 50/50. Magazines in this country sell fewer copies when there is a black (or maybe nonwhite) face on the cover. I believe that either Vanity Fair communicated that message with a "suggestion" to Annie or, more likely, Annie knows that shit already because she's been around for a hundred years shooting bored naked white women with tousled hair for self-important rags.

Annie, I am over you.

i thought that the people that were behind the flap, because they weren't huge celebrities? but now i see what you guys mean. all this depresses me.

Wow. Hard to deny.

also, i am no photography expert, but to be completely honest, there is an over saturation of annie portraits in magazines these days. alright, we get it she is great! now give someone else a chance to do something a little different!

Did she also do the picture of the WB starlets? This had to be back in like 99 I think. But it had the girls from Buffy and Charmed. And they were nymph-like.

@Lola del Rio:I have been at work for 10 hours. I am very tired, and seriously over self-important white women today.

Makes it impossible for me to understand a lot of shit.

couldn't it also be argued that she purposely put the more famous people in the left side of the frame knowing they would make the cover, which would really just be proof of hollywood's inherent racism?

@theloudcorral:
yeah, but why do you think nobody ever lets them get to be the "bigger" stars?

I believe that VF typically places the A-listers on the front flap, but the comparsion of these photos does say something. But in all fairness, we can only speculate until Annie or the VF editors explain themselves. I miss the Annie of the 70's and 80's (my favorites are an exhausted-looking John Lennon and her wild-ass photo of Keith Haring at work).

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to play devil's advocate just a teensy bit...she has taken quite a few pictures of African Americans, and she did that whole V.F. Africa issue. Personally the images above are really damning; but after a quick google image...I'm not sure about blatant, hardcore racism inherent in her person.

Well if you want to feel better about the race thing, you can just take a look at Minnie Driver's desperate expression in 1997. I love Minnie but that is awful. Of course I'm sure she fell victim to some kind of "well, the OTHER women in the frame look good" asshattery.

Also, why does Gwyneth get to wear a dress when everyone else has to wear lingerie?

These pictures are eternally amusing, though obviously disappointing.

@JessicaLovejoy: More business juice, please!: I'll see your Hugh Grant and raise you a Matthew McConneghy (sp?)/Stephen Dorff combo.

These pictures will provide hours of laughs.

Ok, now where did that comment go about the people on the cover being more famous than the colored folk on the back of the flap? It got deleted by the TPTB, I guess? In any case, I have no idea who that chick is crouching on the ground like a frog on the 1995 cover, but I have a hard time believing that she's more famous than angela bassett.

Is it just me or do the actresses in the 1995 or 1997 shots look less emaciated than the ones from, say, 2002 on up?

Ok, somehow that comment I was referring to in my last post is there again? Wierd...

@mipsy6: Perhaps she had a cupping session that day.

@wordinedgewise: I see that, too.

Will Smith, J. Lo, etc. - they weren't big yet when these photos were shot.

@bisesnyc:Exactly! I spent 5 minute looking for Lucy Liu, and she's not there.

If you go to the ONTD page, though, you'll find that of the 13 photos that include people of color, 4 of them have someone of color on the far left/cover. So, isn't that about right? Purely randomly, statistically speaking?

@Scoithniamh:

yeah i think its 50/50 too, she would have been told who the magazine want on the cover, and the photographer has to comply with what the mag wants, sucks, but thats the way it goes...

Haha Leonardo DiCaprio. That's all I have.