Personally, I think art is that which is made to be seen.

And I mention all that just to make it clear to those who don’t want to hear it that context isn’t only important when race is concerned. It’s always important (how else do you know the difference between your right hand and the right thing to do?).

In our society, you can’t ignore the context of these images. I know the photographers didn’t.

In the context created by the other images, it made me think of the line from Romeo and Juliet: “she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.”

I wonder if that was part of the inspiration for the shoot? I don’t mean that to excuse it in any way – it’s dehumanizing to the men, and it’s obviously unacceptable to take your idea of race relations from the 16th century. But I think that image captures two competing points here – yes, it’s about visual contrast, but yes, it’s also racist.

Hahaha, so true!

Actually, the only reason I know that Germany even had colonies in Africa is tha a friend mof mine married a woman from Kamerun, and they were both heavily into post colonial politics. It’s not something that is generally talked about here – definitely not in History class.

But yes, all that said: the photographer being European doesn’t make the whole thing one bit better, no matter if he lives in London or wherever.

Oh, and Belledame: we have those sweets too. Some time in the early 90′s, they were renamed from “negro kisses” to “chocolate kisses”, but some people still use the old name.

Yes, this. Bundchen is famously married to The Star ( White of Course ) Quarterback™ so nobody will worry that the sexuality depicted is to be taken seriously. Phew, she’s safe.

I’ll always wonder how it can be a fashion photograph when there aren’t any, you know, clothes?

You also can’t just “whitewash” a scene like this by having the woman smile. The scene of a black male figure carrying off a white female figure is laden with centuries and centuries of baggage. Just putting on a smile doesn’t break that. There’s no story here, no complexity, just an image. And a positive expression just confuses things, doesn’t resolve them. (plus yeah, what belledame and snowdropexplodes said. of course.)

What Holly said in all, but to add on to the quoted bit:

We also have to remember that “rape” is not always defined as injury of a woman–in fact, the traditional definition of rape was theft or vandalism of male property. Rape was often depicted with the kind of terror and horror that you’d expect from any victim of assault, but I think this had as much to do with virtuous womanhood than with acknowledging female subjectivity.

Alongside that, though, there was a lot of male paranoia about what women might get up to if they weren’t properly controlled. They didn’t own their bodies, so they didn’t have independent interest in chastity. Maintaining the purity of the white woman also meant regulating white women–and constructing female sexuality as permanently selfless and virginal. And a culture that sees female sexuality as fulfilled only in passive submission to men will have complicated suspicions about what women might want.

In other words, a happy expression on the face of Gisele doesn’t necessarily release this image from the history of white male paranoia about black men and black male sexuality. It might latch onto an even more pernicious set of fears.

And they would never ever make any openly racist slurs. After all, they *love* it that we’re different, right?

Oh, absolutely. Which is totally why as recently as at least last decade (could still be true for all I know), you could buy a (rather delicious, but still) round chocolate and meringue confection in a Parisian bakery with the moniker “tete de negre.”