Vanity Fair Evolves

Holy cow, I almost choked on my coffee as I looked at these covers. You never see non-whites on the cover of Vanity Fair, never ever. In the second term with our first African American president, a film that looks like it might become — MIGHT BECOME — the first ever film written by, directed by and starring black filmmakers and artists to win Best Picture now Vanity Fair has actually turned a very very significant page. How much easier it would have been to put Margot Robbie and Julia Roberts and the other white stars on the cover? That is how you sell magazines but it certainly is not how you make history. So here’s (what Jeff Wells would call) a crisp salute to Vanity Fair.

I mean, Lupita doesn’t get the cover still, but hey…it’s a start I suppose. To date, no black woman has ever gotten on the cover of the Hollywood issue. A small handful of black male actors but as yet, no females.

Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue, and bigger version of this photo, after the cut.