In the run up to the Oscars you can always count on some things - brilliant dresses on the red carpet, worthy speeches on the winners’ podium, and a full raft of male directors on the Best Director and Best Picture list of nominees. Another thing to get excited about, though, is the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue.
Always shot with lots of stars’ arms and legs draped all over each other, so as to prove that Vanity Fair did the impossible and got all these famous, sexy and very busy people in the same room together, it features Hollywood’s brightest stars, some new, some old, all very much Of The Moment. Even if they’re not nominated for the most coveted acting awards in the world.
And this year, three years after the #OscarsSoWhite campaign to make both the Oscars and Hollywood at large a touch more representative of the people who actually watch films, Vanity Fair has produced its most diverse Hollywood issue yet.
Alongside white stars Beautiful Boy’s Timothée Chalamet, Mary Queen of Scots’ Saoirse Ronan, Widows’ Elizabeth Debicki and The Favourite’s Nicholas Hoult, we have Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman, Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding, Sorry To Bother You’s Tessa Thompson and BlacKkKlansman’s John David Washington.
Also, of the Oscar-nominated to grace the cover, there’s the Egyptian-American Best Actor-nominated Rami Malek, for his performance in the controversy-riddled Bohemian Rhapsody. And the Best Actress-nominated Yalitza Aparicio, a newcomer who stars in the 10-times-Oscar nominated Roma, playing a Mexican maid. She is normally a teacher, and is the first indigenous woman to ever be nominated for an Oscar, which is a pretty huge feat. And Regina King, who’s already got a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, also features, making her the oldest woman (48) in a cover that has an average age of 31.
The previous most racially diverse cover ever was in 2014, when six black stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Idris Elba, Michael B Jordan, Lupita N’yongo, Naomie Harris and Chadwick Boseman appeared alongside white actors and actresses Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Jared Leto, Brie Larson, Margot Robbie and Léa Seydoux.
It’s great news to see so that many people of colour are taking the helm of such a glamorous and reputable publication. Even if the whole arms-draped-over-each-other thing seems a little mis-stepped, post-#MeToo.
What is notable, though, is that while a diverse roster of performers are being celebrated, there are still moves to be made. Yes, Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman got Best Picture nods at the Oscars, but of the 25 people nominated for acting, only four are people of colour. And that’s before we get onto the crew nominations.
If Vanity Fair’s cover can help in showing the rest of Hollywood the way forward, then that’s a good thing. And, maybe, for 2020, it’ll be ok to shoot a cover without all the stars’ limbs entwined