Black Beauty Spokeswomen: Is the Industry Changing?

Solgar says:

What exactly have every, possibly except one, of the women stated in the article sold about themselves in mainstream media ?

Ebony Intuition says:

Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with them being “black” but more to do with their rise in music (Beyonce, Rihanna are known world wide musically ) and for acting Zoe Saldana has moved up in the film industry with her lastest film Avatar.

Angela says:

The difference between a black male athlete and a black female celebrity boils down to beauty. Black male athletes can sell a shoe or a jersey to males of any race, creed, religion, etc simply because the men are buying the item because they love the player’s skills. Black female actresses have been few and far between (call me when Zoe or whomever gets a high-profile gig modeling Louis Vuitton or Chanel the way their white counterparts are) is because they are selling their beauty–a beauty which still has yet to be recognized. Queen, Zoe, Rihanna, etc are considered attractive, but they didn’t get endorsement deals as part and parcel of their “up-and-comingness” and because everyone is bowled over by their appearance–they got them because they are well known.

I have yet to see a black female celebrity (better yet, a black actress, because black female singers are in a weird bubble), be touted from their first movie/TV show and have endorsements thrown at their head like mad the way black male athletes are. If anything, companies are loathe to use a black actress’s face to sell a product because they view their primary customer base as comprised of middle-class white females aged 18-45, and when they do, they’ve got to be “extraordinarily” famous–and that customer base is also why all those upscale black fashion magazines like Suede folded; upscale companies don’t want to rock the boat with their Social Register crowd, nor do they believe there is a large and steady population of black consumers who can afford Hermes, or Tod’s, or Michael Kors.

Since we can’t even get black females on the cover of Cosmo or Harper’s Bazaar on a regular basis, I see this opinion as a little short-sighted.

Goldenah says:

I thought that was a picture of Jada Pinkett Smith, until I read the article.

Both are beautiful, so no contest.

Adding to what Angela wrote, black male athletes started to get hyped after Spike Lee pushed Michael Jordan in his Nike ads. The rest is history.

We won’t get anywhere unless we, black women, push ourselves into the limelight.

Last note: if Zoe had to wait for a co-starring black male or Latino, her career would go nowhere. Black males have no trouble doing films with lots of white women (see Will Smith and Denzil Washington, et al.)

There’s always a TV action show that has a black guy in it, but black women are nowhere to be found.