Vogue (magazine) - Criticism

Criticism

As Wintour came to personify the magazine's image, she and Vogue drew critics. Wintour's one-time assistant at the magazine, Lauren Weisberger, wrote a roman à clef entitled The Devil Wears Prada. Published in 2003, the novel became a bestseller and was adapted as a highly successful, Academy Award-nominated film in 2006. The central character resembled Weisberger, and her boss was a powerful editor-in-chief of a fictionalized version of Vogue. The novel portrays a magazine ruled by "the Antichrist and her coterie of fashionistas, who exist on cigarettes, Diet Dr. Pepper, and mixed green salads", according to a review in the New York Times. The editor is described by Weisberger as being "an empty, shallow, bitter woman who has tons and tons of gorgeous clothes and not much else". The success of both the novel and the film brought new attention from a wide global audience to the power and glamour of the magazine, and the industry it continues to lead.

In 2007, Vogue drew criticism from the anti-smoking group, "Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids", for carrying tobacco advertisements in the magazine. The group claims that volunteers sent the magazine more than 8,000 protest e-mails or faxes regarding the ads. The group also claimed that in response, they received scribbled notes faxed back on letters that had been addressed to editor Anna Wintour stating, "Will you stop? You're killing trees!"

A spokesperson for Condé Nast released an official statement saying that, "Vogue does carry tobacco advertising. Beyond that we have no further comment."

In April 2008, the American Vogue had a cover shot by the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, featuring the supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the basketball superstar LeBron James. This was the third time that Vogue featured a male on the cover of the American issue (the other two men were the actors George Clooney and Richard Gere), and the first in which the man was black. Some observers criticized the cover as a prejudicial depiction of James because his pose with Bundchen was reminiscent of a poster for the film King Kong. Further criticism arose when the website Watching the Watchers analyzed the photo alongside the World War I recruitment poster titled Destroy This Mad Brute. James reportedly however liked the cover shoot.

In February 2011, just before the 2011 Syrian protests unfolded, Vogue published a controversial piece by Joan Juliet Buck on Asma al-Assad – wife of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. A number of journalists criticized the article as glossing over the poor human rights record of Bashar al-Assad. It has been reported that the Syrian government paid the U.S. lobbying firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 per month to arrange for and manage the article.