Beyonce Gets Flack for "Blackface" Photo Shoot

Clara Oswald

Clara Oswald

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Beyonce has been in scores of edgy, fashion-forward photo and video shoots -- but some critics are scratching their heads over a spread in the March issue of French fashion mag L'Officiel Paris.

In honor of the mag's 90th anniversary, and in tribute to Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, the singer, 29, appears in "blackface" makeup and tribal makeup and costume designed by her mom, Tina Knowles.

In a statement (via website Jezebel), the magazine said that the superstar' s surprising look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and explained that it was "a return to her African roots, as you can see on the picture, on which her face was voluntarily darkened."

But the "Halo" singer didn't exactly get universal praise for the shoot.

Sniped Charing Ball of the Atlanta Post: "Blackface is not fashion forward or edgy and, in my opinion, it is just flat-out offensive."

Echoed Jezebel's Dodai Stewart, "It's fun to play with fashion and makeup, and fashion has a history of provocation and pushing boundaries. But when you paint your face darker in order to look more 'African,' aren't you reducing an entire continent, full of different nations, tribes, cultures and histories, into one brown color?"

Source: Beyonce Gets Flack for "Blackface" Photo Shoot - omg! news on Yahoo!


Okay, so once you actual see the picture, which you can view here: Beyonce: African-Inspired LOfficiel Photo Shoot! | Beyonce Knowles, Magazine : Just Jared then it gets ridiculous lol. That's not what I think of when I think of blackface...
 
Ive never thought of Beyonce as relevant for anything, let alone fashion and style. her mother's designs look like something at a local swap meet.

this doesnt seem like a deliberate act of "wearing black face" to me. it seems more like a high concept presentation designed to convey a theme.

harry conick jr. wearing "black face" in australia a couple years back when parodying the jackson 5....THATs example of "black face" to me and that was totally tacky imo.
 
I think this is stupid. She's black already....how is it offensive for a black woman to "wear a black face"??
 
The stupid part is that she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.

She is part Creole, so she lightens and darkens naturally (I do as well). How IGNORANT is it that people jumped to the conclusion that she HAD to be lightening her skin.

Now in this instance, she darkens her face as a homage to an African Queen, that part of her ancestry and she gets killed for that. It is not Blackface, not at all. People calling it that are being stupid. It is her accepting dark makeup and the tribal markings to convey a theme. Her body in this instance is a canvas, nothing more or less.

And such a nice canvas it is.
 
well its not really jumping to the conclusion, in a few pictures they do so pre-airbrushing that her, Kim Kardashian and a few others are actually lighten in their photos but this hold issue seems moronic to me, The 50 billion things that happen to a photo, that models are force to do in shoots and this gets attention Blah
 
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