Poor old Beyonce has got herself in hot water again. After all the hoo haa caused by her (alleged) skin lightening in the L’Oreal Feria ads, she’s done the opposite now and given herself ‘blackface’ for a shoot in the current issue of French magazine L’Officiel.
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The magazine issued this statement: ‘Far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce, the beauty posed for the magazine with amazing fashion designers clothes, but also in a dress created by her mother. [It is] A return to her African roots, as you can see on the picture, on which her face was voluntarily darkened.’
The jury is out still out on this one. Some are crying high fashion, others high racism.
It wasn't all controversial - she looked gorgeous with her usual skin tone too!
Personally, we’re feeling it more as an expression of art or fashion. Blackface was traditionally a practice where white people painted their face black and propagated highly offensive racist stereotypes like the 'happy-go-lucky all singing all dancing darky workin’ on the plantation.’ Do we really think Beyonce had that in mind when she slipped on the couture?
The image below raises some questions though. Blonde haired Dutch supermodel Lara Stone in ‘blackface’ for French Vogue. If they wanted a black model, surely they have Jourdan Dunn or Arlenis Sosa’s number?
