LONDON: Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for her role in “12 Years a Slave,” on Friday complained her hair had been airbrushed out of the front cover of women’s magazine Grazia UK.
“I am disappointed that @GraziaUK invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like,” she said in a lengthy post on Instagram.
She said it was an “omission of what is my native heritage,” adding: “There is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women’s complexion, hair style and texture.”
She posted the original image, showing that her frizzy bob of hair had been removed and the rest smoothed out.
The actress said she had viewed being featured on a magazine cover as “an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are.”
The magazine apologized for the airbrushing but blamed the photographer for the alterations.
“Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologizes unreservedly to Lupita Nyong’o,” the magazine said on Twitter.
Beyonce’s sister Solange Knowles last month criticized the London Evening Standard magazine for digitally removing her hair braids from its cover.
Knowles posted an original version of the image with the caption “dtmh” (don’t touch my hair).
Earlier this week, British Vogue unveiled its December cover which will be the first since Ghana-born Edward Enninful was named as editor in April.
Diversity will feature heavily and the cover model chosen is Adwoa Aboah, a British fashion model and feminist activist of British and Ghanaian descent.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who is also interviewed in the magazine, said Enninful was “showing Britain at its diverse and creative best.”
Lupita Nyong’o complains of airbrushing on Grazia UK cover
Lupita Nyong’o complains of airbrushing on Grazia UK cover
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
