Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
A slew of A-list stars are featured in the new "I Am African" campaign for the nonprofit organization Keep a Child Alive.
The Hollywood heavyweights -- including Richard Gere, Sarah Jessica Parker and Liv Tyler, as well as black Americans Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys and Tyson Beckford, along with Somali-born supermodel Iman, the organization's global ambassador -- are photographed in tribal face paint to more effectively send the message that "each and every one of us contains DNA that can be traced back to our African ancestors." Seems we could use that message to help bring attention to a number of issues, like, say, racism, but oh well. The campaign is meant to spread awareness about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It's a noble campaign, an epidemic is an epidemic -- the more awareness around it, the better. Still, the photographs raise some questions. For starters, why is it necessary to pose a formulaic African aesthetic in order to be compassionate? The campaign's art direction is coherent, yet desperately forced -- Sarah Jessica Parker just looks confused made up with the purple fertility line traditionally worn by women in eastern Africa.
"I Am African" ads have been sighted in urban spaces throughout the U.S., particularly in New York City, where thousands of African immigrants live and who, one can only imagine, may not be in the mood while waiting on the subway platform to take in an image of privileged celebrities who have the luxury of walking in and out of an African identity whenever's clever. Not to mention the sexually active urban black youth, many of whom are still not using condoms, and for whom this campaign only pushes the AIDS epidemic farther away from them.
Again, the cause is good. No one faults the effort. It's the additional stylized assertion that these celebrities, who, it is assumed, all citizens of the world aspire to emulate, must somehow become African -- and explicitly appropriate African-ness -- in order for this very important global issue to matter.
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
megan fox rush limbaugh and kathryn rogers hilary duff and mike comrie chelsea clinton and marc mezvinsky carrie underwood and mike fisher
No comments:
Post a Comment