V #71 / The Gaga Issue
This post is a day late because I literally had to cool off yesterday after having seen this everywhere. “Yay! An extra V cover that celebrates the vibrant culture of Asia through a white New Yorker.” I read this in a forum and it was practically words stolen straight from my mouth. First of all, this is just highly disconcerting having an over-saturation of a three-headed mother monster sticking those heads in places they don’t belong. Also, the mere fact that this issue is going to do an additional 1000 copies in limited hard cover literally solidifies this mistake of epic proportions. Why Gaga? And don’t give me that bullshit of a half-hearted justification, Mr. Gan. Necessary pause for lame, aforementioned justification:
Honestly, we searched high and low for Asian celebrities, and we seriously did our homework. But stars who are big in Asia rarely come to America, and getting someone shot over there the way we like things done, started to look tougher and tougher. Gaga and I were emailing the day “Born This Way” came out and I said, “You deserve another cover!” It turned out our Summer issue was coming out ten days before her new album was due to hit. And so I turned to Inez & Vinoodh to come up with an idea that showed her as 3 different characters: herself, a Japanese butterfly, and a Bollywood Shiva goddess. This was their idea, and it just seemed to fit so naturally.
If this isn’t proof enough that the fashion industry is a huge disillusion and that being an editor is all about favours and that the reader and the content has absolutely no intrinsic relationship with the magazine just makes me so, so sad. I understand the need to push copies. And yes, I agree that Lady Gaga will most likely make that happen. And yes, it’s probably true that people will find out more about “asians” and how their segregated issue of V sheds light on some important figures because of the Gaga phenomenon (click & laugh). But seriously? Why is Ai Wei Wei on the cover of a non-Asian themed issue of Dazed & Confused this month as he battles the Chinese authorities and Mugla-gla on the cover of a magazine that could shed light on the big stars in Asia that aren’t important/relevant to an American audience. Let’s have some appreciasian because this says to me, “Who cares about Asian people?” Not to place blame but Mr. Gan, being asian, completely blundered with this issue. Who knew you could fuck up so badly on, what seems to me, an almost effortless decision. There are plenty of deserving Asians who could use even half of the promotion Gaga is getting with this cover. I could go on and on but I’ll stop it there for now. What do you think?
