VANITY FAIR PROMOTES AFRICA -- AND AFRICAN STEREOTYPES

Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin gnashes her teeth in her post deconstructing Vanity Fair's "Africa" issue; the July issue of the magazine was guest-edited by Bono and spotlighted huge swaths of the African continent. Jardin thinks they got it all wrong, and points readers to a post by Africa-enthusiast Ethan Zuckerman that explains why:

I wish the timing had been a bit different, though. It would have been great to see Bono engage with more of the extraordinary Africans who took the stage in Arusha. And I really wish he could have spent time with us before working with Vanity Fair on their July edition - maybe he’d have done things a bit differently. If you want to understand why so many Africans are upset about how they’re portrayed in the northern media, this issue wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

Let’s begin with the cover. Shot by Annie Leibovitz, there are 20 different covers. (Collect the whole set!) Each features a pair of celebrities, shot in closeup in some form of interaction. The twenty are as follows: Don Cheadle, Barack Obama, Muhammed Ali, Queen Rania of Jordan, Bono, Condozeela Rice, George W. Bush, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Brad Pitt, Djimon Hounsou, Madonna, Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, Oprah, George Clooney, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and Iman Abdulmajid. So… count along with me - that’s three Africans out of twenty cover subjects. Yes, it’s a great representation of African-American influence on American culture, but the actual African participation in the project seem, uh, limited at best...

...The message of the cover is that Africa is important and sexy because important and sexy people care about it and are willing to lend their “talent” and celebrity appeal to the “cause”. This tends to piss off my friends who are begging the world to think of Africa less as a cause and more as a continent, particularly as a continent open for business. How hard would it have been for Vanity Fair to pair some of these well-meaning celebrities with actual Africans working to build businesses, repair hospitals and save forests? Put Corniele Ewango on the cover and let Brad Pitt look up to him, an actual superhero, someone who has risked his life numerous times to preserve the forests of the eastern DRC. Put Madonna on the cover with William Kamkwamba, the remarkable Malawian youth who built a windmill to power his family’s house. (Wait, scratch that - she’d probably adopt him.)

Zuckerman goes on, and does an effective job of reminding his readers that there are many filters through which to view Africa -- Vanity Fair portrayed the continent as a cause; Zuckerman prefers to look at the continent as a vibrant center for entrepreneurship.
I think Zuckerman is a bit harsh in his critique, even though his perspective is one that more Americans should adopt. Africa straddles multiple worlds; it borders on the absurd to try to define the entire continent -- huge swaths of the land mass are struggling, while other spots are exploding with vibrant and creative growth.