Vanity Fair's Chromatophobia.

[kali921]

Oooooh, Vanity Fair, why, why, why?

Vanity Fair whitewashes actress Freida Pinto.

From the article:

"Somebody needs to tell Vanity Fair that brown is the new black. Despite the extraordinary success of the Oscar-nominated flick Slumdog Millionaire, the magazine took the liberty of minimizing the ethnic appearance of leading lady Freida Pinto...

Comments

[langenoire]

Are they sure that there was digital altering involved? I have photos of myself that were taken by my family before the days of PS that make me look shockingly pale. I was actually a little horrified. But I was wearing a creamy white outfit and against a white wall. I think it was the combination of flash and reflection. To this day I dislike that photo because I think it looks so unlike me.

I'm not a child, but I so want a velociraptor of my own. We could take walks together while wearing matching sweaters and I'd let it chase birds in the yard. And I'd make him his own bed in the backyard where he could nap when not chasing the possums that come out at night here. They don't make predators like they used to!

[kali921]

Given that it's a glam photo shoot for Vanity Fair, and given the standards for today's fashion and vanity industry, I'd say that it's nigh impossible that it isn't 'shopped in some way or another. So even if she hasn't been whitewashed, there's no way that that's an unaltered photograph. To me, after sitting for an hour and looking at various photos of Fredia in different kinds of lighting, her skin tone looks deliberately altered in the VF photo.

[outlawpoet]

I think it's immaterial anyway, a professional photographer would have to try to change her skin tone that much. So whether it was photoshop or somebody putting some 9k degree lights four inches out of frame, it bears noting as a deliberate choice.

[kali921]

Good point about the lighting.

[lurkerwithout]

Freida looks like she's made out of plastic white-washed. Thats not right...

[descant]

This.

Vanity Fair is a great publication but sadly still succumbs to Photoshop pitfalls like this one.

[kali921]

VF is SUCH a weird collection of things. They do what in other magazines would be called puff pieces, but in VF they wind up being fifty thousand words long. They do crime journalism and often VERY good investigative reporting, but you turn the page and there's a fawning piece on Carla Bruni with Photoshopped-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives photos, but you turn the page AGAIN and there's a rather incisive analysis of Bruni's love life. Then you throw in the odd piece from Christopher Hitchens AND Georg Wayne asking Billie Jean King about oral sex, and...cognitive whiplash.

[avariel_wings]

Exactly! They've turned a really pretty girl into a Barbie doll.

[kali921]

I wonder if Vanity Fair would try to whitewash Alek Wek. I'm pretty sure that I've seen her in VF before; now I'll have to do a search and see if I can find the photos and see if they did anything discernible to her gorgeous, gorgeous skin.

[jmatonak]

That does bleed over into personal relationships and the notion that it doesn't -- that politics either exists discrete and isolated from all other facets of a person's social relationships or should exist discrete and isolated from all other facets of a person's social relationships -- is patently absurd.I think a case can be made for inviting one's neighbors to a barbecue, even if they are (pardon my bias) weird fundamentalist baby-machines who believe poor people are poor because they aren't right with Jesus. You don't talk politics with them, of course- you invite them and, by unspoken mutual agreement, stay away from subjects that will ruin the afternoon

[kali921]

I think a case can be made for inviting one's neighbors to a barbecue, even if they are (pardon my bias) weird fundamentalist baby-machines who believe poor people are poor because they aren't right with Jesus. You don't talk politics with them, of course- you invite them and, by unspoken mutual agreement, stay away from subjects that will ruin the afternoon.

Oh, absolutely. I'm not arguing that all social relationships are black and white affairs where people either mesh comfortably in political alignment or have nothing to talk about. I've got one co-worker who's a staunch conservative on a lot of issues, but we get along fabulously because we align on enough issues and agree on enough basic moral axes that we can talk to each other. (He's not CRAZY conservative; he believes in global warming, hates greed, hates untrammeled capitalism, hates sports hunters, and loves animals, so we've got stuff to talk about.) So there are obviously shades of gray, and finding common ground and practicing tolerance are both positive things.

[jmatonak]

But really? I don't want or need right wing nutjobs in my personal social space.

The key word here being "nutjob", right? I wouldn't invite the Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons to my barbecue.

Actually, I would, but only to watch her throw cats at people randomly.

"So, hey, did you catch the game last night?"
"ROWR MEOWWR FFT ROWWWR..."

[frankie23]

That Vanity Fair image makes me so damn pissed off. Why, oh why would you do that to such a beautiful woman? My gods, I thought it was a CG render at first...

[kali921]

They did something weird to her cheeks, too. Do a Google image search of her, come back, look at the above VF photo, and tell me something's not weird.

[frankie23]

It looks to me like they straightened out her cheekbones. The whole thing just looks wrong. Someone else said it, and I agree, Uncanny Valley.