Hot Topic: Typecasting

I received a Facebook message as a part of the BGLO Scholar group from Gregory Sparks, a scholar in Black Greek-lettered organizations, about the controversy surrounding the Lebron James cover of Vogue and was compelled to send you all the story. Check out the images below:


Here's an excerpt from the blog:

"Tom Withers of the Huffington Post describes LeBron James on the cover of the April cover of Vogue thusly:

LeBron James is striking a pose.

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ superstar will appear on the April cover of Vogue, joining actors Richard Gere and George Clooney as the only men to do so in the influential fashion magazine’s 116-year history.

Wearing a tank top, shorts and sneakers from his own Nike clothing line, James appears on the cover dribbling a basketball and screaming as if in game mode while throwing one arm around supermodel Gisele Bundchen with Tom Brady nowhere to be found.

LeBron James is striking a pose, all right.

What Withers does not say is that neither Gere nor Clooney struck a pose remotely close to that of James’. What Withers does not say - nor does anyone else as of yet - is that Tom Brady would never have been asked to pose with his girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, in full New England Patriots gear.

And Tom Brady never, ever would have allowed himself to be cast as a human ——-

King Kong.

Some people who see the Vogue cover and see the inescapable similarities between King Kong and King James will blame Vogue and/or photographer Annie Leibovitz for the ape-like visage of James, mouth agape, all 6′9″, 260 pounds of his blackness charging out of the cover with Bundchen swept up in his arm and her in her best German-Euro version of Ann Darrow."

Click here to read the rest of Dwil's post, "Lebron James and the Vogue Cover: More 'King Kong' than 'King James'" and also check out this amazon review of the book Typecasting and then speak your mind.