Gabby Sidibe: Cover Girl?
A wonderful actress—sure. But putting her on the cover of Elle magazine sends a different, and disturbing, message.
Let me make this point from the very top: Gabourey Sidibe is a wonderful actress. She was pitch-perfect as the abused and ultimately triumphant teenager in Precious and rightly deserved her Oscar nomination for best actress. Watching a smart and talented African-American woman get her due in these racially tense times is something that always makes me cheer.
All of which makes my next observation disturbing, even to me. I hate, hate, hate her new Elle magazine cover, and for many, many reasons. First let’s start with the most important fact of all: Sidibe has done just one movie, yet she’s received beyond her share of press, photo shoots, show-hosting assignments, and magazine articles. Yes, she was nominated for an Oscar, but so was Taraji Henson just two years ago for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The petite, real-life single mother of a teenage son who also appeared in films such as the critically acclaimed Hustle and Flow received her share of love from traditional black magazines such as Ebony and Essence, but white magazines didn’t seem to find her particular beauty or story coverworthy. Viola Davis was nominated for an Oscar the same year as Henson, for Doubt. The veteran performer (who recently won her second Tony, playing opposite Denzel Washington in Broadway’s Fences) received even less mainstream press than Henson did.
So the complicated question is, why Sidibe? What does Elle see in her that it (or any other beauty magazine) didn’t see in the others? There are actually four Elle covers out this month, and it’s hard to argue that Sidibe’s beauty, however you define it, is of the same type as the three other cover girls: Lauren Conrad, Megan Fox, and Amanda Seyfried. Readers of African-American blogs such as Young, Black and Fabulous and Media Takeout.com, seem to think there’s some kind of conspiracy behind it all—a conspiracy to influence what black beauty is and what it means. Some people on the blogs have even suggested the magazine was making fun of Sidibe, whose styling on the cover leaves much to be desired. Just this week, the magazine released a statement defending Sidibe’s cover and described the actress as an exuberant young lady changing the world. Really? And exactly how is she doing that, with just one film under her belt?
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