Vanity Fair’s 2012 Hollywood issue could use more color – and Latin flavor
The cover of Vanity Fair’s 2012 Hollywood issue looks awfully pale. But are we really shocked? (Photo: Vanity Fair)
By AMARIS CASTILLO
Channel: Entertainment
The glossy publication revealed its March cover today, which includes 11 actresses whom it boasts as “Hollywood’s most precocious beauties.” Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games), Jessica Chastain (The Help and Take Shelter), and Mia Wasikowska (Albert Nobbs) grace the front cover in pastel-satin dresses that evoke memories of the 20s and 30s. The other seven actresses appear in the three-panel foldout, which was shot by Peruvian photo extraordinaire Mario Testino.
Out of all eleven actresses on Vanity Fair’s cover, only two are women of color: Pariah’s Adepero Oduye and Mission Impossible’s Paula Patton (whom we’re sure the editors at VF thought could fulfill the Latina quota because she’s racially ambiguous and drop-dead gorgeous). But in fact, there are no Latina actresses on the cover. We are not discrediting the tremendous work these women have done, but the cover is deprived of some minority representation.
Vanity Fair has featured Latina actresses on its annual Hollywood cover through the years — from Rosario to Salma, to lesser known Brazilian actress Alice Braga in 2008. But, as Jezebel points out, part-Puerto Rican, part-Dominican Avatar star Zoe Saldana and Honduran-American actress America Ferrera were pushed to the right side of that year’s panel foldout, which is hidden from the eye on newsstands.
Since the magazine proudly labels its cover girls as the “Fresh Young Stars of 2012,” we’d like to call out a couple of exceptional Latinas who belong in that same group:
Harmony Santana
Last summer, the part-Puerto Rican, part-Dominican transgender actress caused tremendous buzz with her moving performance in indie film Gunhill Road. Set in New York City’s Bronx borough, the film centers on an ex-con (Esai Morales) who returns home to find his teenage boy exploring a new life as a transsexual. Santana is nominated for an Indie Spirit Award this year as Best Supporting Female (a category she shares with VF’s current cover girls Chastain and Woodley).
Bérénice Bejo
We don’t even want to hear that the Oscar-nominated actress is too old (35) to have been included in Vanity Fair’s Hollywood cover, because Patton is 36. Bejo, who is French-Argentinean, has been praised for her role as Peppy Miller in the silent film The Artist – a clear awards season-favorite (and one of our faves, as well).
