That being said, I do find it (could think of another word but since it's the one I and then you used here) quite stupid to think fashion is really this light game where people don't mean to clap at stereotypes just to create commotion and sell.. it's probably that kind of convenient stupidity instead of genuine naivete.
Why must every single editorial be portraying exactly how the world should be? - I don't expect that much from editorials myself, what I expect is a bit of sensibility and conscious and if they can't handle that either, then just some 'stick to your own business' mentality, if you don't feel like you can tell how the world should be then why are you doing it by shoving us blatant promotions of archaic social and racial structures then? contradictory there.. or maybe not so much, considering fashion is probably the last industry that still has open difficulties with ethnicity.. which makes them a better target of criticism anyway.
You make an interesting point in the end, but fashion publications are more often than not a far from political outlet, I'm certainly not demanding that much from an industry that makes more profit out of oblivion... they seem to cultivate established ideas or social phenomenons, whether it's celebrity culture, internet culture, American culture, religious sentiments, they abstain from creating, they just push it through their pages and if anything, clap a little for certain spectacles, never go as far as condemning. In that aspect, fashion seems like a good refugee for people whose cowardliness is only surpassed by their wish to say something, anything out loud.
So I would assume most magazines know who their readers are and abstain from overestimating them by thinking a peculiar story picturing inequality might drive them to go as far as seeing it, processing it, understanding it, debating it and ultimately opposing them. That's really asking too much from them, the example in this thread is too clear, and I'm not saying they lack the intellectual capacity to do it, people just don't want to question fashion and I think magazines know it and that's what bothers me, that they're irresponsible about that and considering how unconscious and even vain the process of looking at a magazine can be for someone, how people just flip through it happily and leave with the image stored somewhere in the back of their head, unquestioned and accepted, why are they then taking chances perpetuating racial misconceptions? why can't they be as modern and up to date as they parade themselves to be in the rest of their content and feature the modern side of reality, instead of hanging on to the one that's slowly fading away.
