‘Women’s Magazines Break the Mould with Black and Asian Cover Stars’
Article from the Media Guardian, Monday 16th January 2012: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/jan/16/womens-magazines-black-asian-covers
Main points from the article:
· The writer stated that the current issue of ‘Psychologies’ had attracted a great deal of attention from readers and tweeters for including an Indian cover star, actress Archie Panjabi
· It was discussed how in the past publishers were reluctant to put ethnic faces on magazine covers because they were concerned it might ‘affect sales’ and that it is ‘encouraging’ that more black and Asian women are being included on mainstream magazine covers
· The article also noted that more ethnic models are given coverage in the media: ‘The latest face of Lancôme is Hanaa Ben Abdesslem, a Muslim model of Tunisian origin, while Estée Lauder's "Every Woman Can Be Beautiful" campaign features Chinese supermodel Liu Wen and Puerto Rican-born Joan Smalls’
My comments:
I find it bizarre that ‘race’ is still debated about and continues to provoke such attention within the media; this article makes it seem like the usage of ethnical stars on magazine covers is still deemed controversial. I found this quite unusual as many magazines now include a diverse range of cover stars of ethnic backgrounds (such as Rihanna and Kelly Rowland), so it was interesting to see this topic being highlighted on a Media Guardian article at this time.
Interestingly, several comments on the article picked upon the fact that the ethnical cover stars discussed in this feature look quite fair-skinned at first glance. Indeed, this goes against the idea of ethnical women ‘breaking the mould’ if their images have been edited to make them look more ‘white’.
Personally, I feel race should not be a factor when selecting cover stars for magazines- I would have thought that some of the most important factors are choosing an icon who is popular, well-liked and current.
