Jezebel 
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New York, 7:00 PM
Tue Dec 1
74 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/30/09
10/30/09
Well they might try to call it art, but I don't see how they'd get away with calling it fashion. These women are naked. They're not even wearing accessories. Where's the fashion, again?
Whatever. Fuck you, thoughtless, lazy, played-out, uncreative photographers and whatever other "artistic geniuses" insist on keeping this trend going. Just because you pissed people off doesn't mean you're a Misunderstood Artiste.
#enoughalready
10/30/09
I have one question though: are the two women in the picture the same model? It looks like it to me. If so, I take this photoshoot as a commentary on the light/dark inside of every woman. Sort of like a yin and yang type of shoot. Can someone find out if this is the same model because that is how I interpret this photo. I'm open to being proven wrong, however. #blackface
10/30/09
11/02/09
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10/30/09
I'm over this "trend". #blackface
10/30/09
10/30/09
So yeah, it absolutely bothers me. #blackface
10/30/09
10/30/09
Is that supposed to be a joke? Instead of taking the powerbrokers to task for racism, you think that the answer to widespread discrimination in an industry is to tell the people being discriminated against, "oh well, all the people handing out jobs are jerks, so you're probably better off"? This is ridiculous. #blackface
11/02/09
11/02/09
Of course The choice to hire someone doesn't always depend on the color of their skin just like not hiring someone isn't always because the color of their skin either. But models are paid to look a certain way, so passing over a black model for a white one that you then paint black isn't exactly the same as the time that I wasn't sure if my lack of experience or my lackluster interview did me in. There is an obvious problem here, and that's independent of the fact that blackface should never be viewed as an artistic option (without some kind of important subtext or actual thought behind the photograph). The fact that you don't see it doesn't make it speculation. #blackface
11/02/09
I seriously am not trying to be a horse's ass but I just can't seem to grasp what exactly is so upsetting.
PS...perhaps the use of blue skin was silly, my apologies for such a child-like example. #blackface
11/02/09
1. Blackface. This has a very long, very ugly history. Dressing white people up as black people for entertainment purposes "others" black people, is grossly offensive, and taps into the worst part of our history and culture. (This is why it would not be the same if a black model was painted white, the context is different.)
2a. Lack of representation of black models in mainstream media (Consumer perspective). Very few black women are represented in the media, so if one of the few occasions is actually a white woman painted black (perhaps because the painter was enamored of her European features), it skews the already small sample from which other black women (and especially girls) draw role models, aspirational ideals, and positive reinforcement. (The famous doll experiment deals with some of the fallout from this white=pretty message that gets reinforced every day in a billion ways.)
2b. Lack of representation of black models in mainstream media (Model perspective). Models of color are routinely excluded from photo shoots (sometimes specifically, with notes like "No ethnic models" at casting, and more often de facto). When a photographer is looking for contrasting skin tones for artistic purposes (and it almost hurts to give that much benefit of the doubt to this twit) and chooses to go to the trouble to paint a white woman's entire body rather than hire a model who comes ready-made with that skin tone, it not only takes away an opportunity for that model (in an already hypercompetitve world where her opportunities are artificially restricted because of her race), but it also feeds the problems mentioned above. And if his reason actually is "I want black skin but white features", that is an excellent example of furthering the idea that white=pretty. Which is a destructive problem in the first place, but potentially even moreso for women whose jobs center around their looks. If regular women are getting boob jobs by the score because the media tells us it's hawt, how much worse must be the pressure for black models to get nose jobs or Asian models to get that horrifying eyelid surgery or what-have-you when their entire job is reliant on photographers finding their faces worth filming? (Also this is not the same as asking a white model to tan, for the simple reason that a white model can tan. A black model cannot show up white one day.)
These are my top 3, at least.
10/30/09
Not all instances of blackface require the performer to look like a golliwog. Blackface is essentially a White person made up to appear as a Black person for entertainment purposes. This fits the bill. The bottom line is that a White model is getting paid to look like a Black model. In the ANTM shoot they actually wanted them to embody the spirit of a biracial person, as though that is something that one can just take on and off like a costume. Arguing over whether it can officially be defined as Blackface only serves to derail an important conversation. #blackface
10/30/09
10/30/09
When I look at this image, I don't see the malicious intent that made blackface performances so disgusting. I just see a painted person. #blackface
10/30/09
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10/30/09
We get it. You don't mind offending large groups of people.
Love/hate,
World. #blackface
10/30/09
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10/30/09
Maybe V magazine is the in flight magazine for the visitors.
That's the only way to explain this. #blackface
10/30/09
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10/30/09
@Mary McCarthyite: #blackface
10/30/09
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10/30/09
blackface [ˈblækˌfeɪs]
n
1. (Performing Arts / Theatre)
a. a performer made up to imitate a Black person
b. the make-up used by such a performer, usually consisting of burnt cork #blackface