Are Magazines Corrupting the Image of African Americans?

There has been a great deal of controversy behind magazines that when they have a famous African American on the cover that they may take full advantage of or slightly change their image to make them look even darker than they normally are or lighter. This has happened with OJ Simpson when he was on the cover of Times magazine and Gabourey Sidibe when she was on the cover of Elle magazine. Both of these celebrities whether they think so or not, were victims of what the media wanted them to be or what the media wanted to portray what they think they are.


Gabourey Sidibe was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her very first film Precious which is based off a novel called Push by Sapphire. After Gabourey had gotten her Oscar nod (though she didn't win. She started to appear on TV shows, late night talk shows and was the comedic host for SNL. Gabourey started to make a name for herself as she entered into fame. Unfortunately, controversy and stereotypes about her weight started to emerge though the talk about her weight and he dark skinned never seemed to bring her down or bother her as most celebrities would have been bothered by the mere talk of something so sensitive. She ended up being on the front cover of Elle magazine which is a magazine that isn't traditionally known fro have an African American on the cover. Not a full figured dark skinned woman anyway. As much as Elle does not want to admit but there is no way Gabourey's skin is that light. Below are the pictures that you can definitely see the difference in.

OJ Simpson on the other hand is the complete opposite of what happened to Gabourey Sidibe. We all know the story of OJ Simpson and how he was put on trial for killing his wife and the supposed to be "lover" which technically was the motive, but of course he was acquitted of all charges after the only piece of evidence that the plaintiffs were the going with were the gloves that were left at the murder scene. OJ Simpson was once on the cover of TIME magazine and on the cover the photograph seemed particularly dark. NewsWeek and TIME had released both their issues of the OJ Simpson story around the same time and both had different pictures.

Overall, these are just a few examples of how the media alters images for them to look a certain a way.

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