US Elle February 2014 : Women in TV by Carter Smith

[Nepenthes]

Zoey looks great!

 

[pixiedust1603]

Mindy's cover is the best but the use of black&white photography is really suspect.

 

[Srdjan]

Zooey is so uninspiring nowadays (and of course her cover is the newsstands/international one)...I have no idea who the rest three girls are, I guess I don't watch TV much lately, but their covers are more interesting, even though Zooey's outfit is the best.

 

[KoV]

You're probably right, and I appreciate you pointing all this out (truly ). But, the fact of the matter is, average consumer isn't going to be familiar with Elle's magazine cover history so by making the sole woman of color's image black&white and putting the rest in color they are sending a terrible message -- intentional, or not. There's no excuse for an entire magazine team to be so oblivious.

Mindy's shot is by far the best of the bunch, I fail to believe it wouldn't have looked equally great in color.

If I was them, I probably would have either made all of the covers looks similar, or at least not make 3 similar and 1 very different, because I'd expect people to question it. That said, I don't think Elle did anything wrong, and your average Elle consumer is either a subscriber and aware of the magazine's cover history or they're just going to buy it on a newsstand, where I believe only Zooey's cover will be available. Elle isn't responsible for potentially offending people who aren't even willing to do the research. It annoys me when, for instance, E! News talks about the cover and the alleged controversy surrounding it (which they just did) and they take it out of context. If anyone is going to take issue with the magazine, you have to look at their past work, look at it within context. Last month's issue featured a colored, full-body shot of a black model, so it's hard to believe they made her photo B&W because she's of Indian heritage. And unless I am mistaken, in every multi-cover issue Elle has done in the past few years, the covers aren't all consistent, they don't all look the same. And the women whose covers are different (either B&W or a close-up when everyone else got full-body shots) include people like Mindy, Uma Thurmon, Elle Fanning, Rita Ora, Sofia Coppola, Gabourey Sidibe, Susan Sarandon, and Hilary Swank. A diverse bunch. I just think that before we slam a magazine for possible racism, we need to do our research. Just because we're offended, doesn't mean we're right. Like when everyone complained about Adele's UK Vogue cover (and even her Elle cover) and then it turns out it was she who insisted on being photographed that way. Mindy herself has tweeted that she loves the photo, which I think should be enough.

 

[jal718]

My scan of the subscribers cover

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Carter Smith
Celeb: Zooey Deschanel
Styling: Joe Zee


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Carter Smith
Celeb: Amy Poehler
Styling: Joe Zee


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Carter Smith
Celeb: Allison Williams
Styling: Joe Zee


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Carter Smith
Model: Mindy Kaling
Styling: Joe Zee


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Horst Diekgerdes
Model: Cris Herrmann
Styling: Beth Fenton
Hair: Rolando Beauchamp
Make Up: Hung Vanngo
Nails: Sarah Leddick


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Mark Seliger
Models: Orange Is The New Black Cast
Styling: Heathermary Jackson


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Daniel King
Designer: Margherita & Angela Missoni with models
Styling: Erin Walsh


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[Mat Cyruss]

Photographer: Liz Collins
Model: Grace Mahary
Styling: Samira Nasr
Hair: Kevin Ryan
Make Up: Kaoru Okubo
Nails: Yuko Tsuchihashi


Digital Edition Elle US

 

[before]

Why is Mindy's photo the same inside? Looks lazy.