In which a scholar and a journalist argue about the definition of “sexy” (oh, and Africa, too).

By S. Brent Plate and Jeff Sharlet

Revealer contributing editor S. Brent Plate sent in the following commentary on Vanity Fair‘s special July issue dedicated to Africa. I let my politics get the better of me and at first rejected Brent’s commentary with a long rant about why. Brent graciously wrote back with his own thinking, and before we knew it we had what’s called an “exchange.”

S. Brent Plate:

I’ve been a fan of U2 since Under a Blood Red Sky, and have followed their music and politics since then. So I’ve been looking forward to the July issue of Vanity Fair, guest edited by Bono on the theme of Africa. It’s worth a read. Like many, I’m intrigued by Bono’s desire to make Africa “sexy.” For my taste, he walks a sometimes too-thin line between conservative and progressive politics, here including both George Clooney and George W. Bush, Brad Pitt and Warren Buffett, on the twenty cover images photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the issue. (I picked up the Muhammad Ali/Barack Obama one, but I’m thinking I need to run back down to CVS to get the G.W. Bush cover.) Yet I think Bono is on to something. Perhaps being the leader of the world’s biggest band has given him some insights into how to make things work to his advantage.

Wonderfully, Bono (and presumably VF Editor in Chief Graydon Carter) included pieces by writers who tell success stories in Africa alongside the grimmer stories of AIDS, malaria, and dictators. Many of these stories walk side by side with religious realities. Christopher Hitchensshowers praise on the country of Tunisia for its economic and social successes, even stopping to say halfway-positive things about some of the religious tolerance that has been found there — in spite of the constant threat of militant Islamists blowing things up. Brad Pitt interviews Archbishop Desmond Tutu and gets a brief lesson in liberation theology. And brief exposés on artists, filmmakers, musicians, and other producers fill out the depths of the cultural, political, economic, and religious lives of Africans across the continent. Binyavanga Wainaina, born in Kenya and now living in the United States, sums up the need for such optimistic storytelling: “This habit — of trying to turn the second-largest continent in the world, which has 53 countries and nearly a billion people of every variety and situation, into one giant crisis — is now one of the biggest problems Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Ghana face.” In distinction to the common outsiders’ views, “We have learned to ignore the shrill screams coming from the peddlers of hopelessness. We motor on faith and enterprise, with small steps. On hope, and without hysteria.” The result of the issue is hope mixed with a need to do more. Bono succeeds in shifting Africa, even if only slightly, beyond the images of famines, AIDS clinics, and civil wars that are all too often the evening fare in the northern hemisphere.

But just how sexy is too sexy? That limit is found on page 35. Who knows what control Bono had on the entire issue, but it is definitely the advert for M.A.C. Cosmetics’ “Viva Glam” line that goes too far. M.A.C. cosmetics has been making it sexy to contribute to HIV/AIDS support through sexually charged images for Viva Glam in magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, andVanity Fair for some time. I understand that sex sells. But this one goes beyond sex, entering a realm of exoticism, othering, and downright racism that triggers a history of jaded race relations. The dark-skinned model’s bling includes an exoticized necklace of bones, shimmery gold bodysuit, and jeweled chains. The chains, small as they are, particularly cause one to pause. Then one sees the sign, hanging bosom-level, stating: “EVERY CENT OF THE SELLING PRICE OF VIVA GLAM LIPSTICK AND LIPGLASS IS DONATED TO THE M-A-C AIDS FUND…” Who can be against that? But when worn on chains around the neck of a black woman, staged as a spectacle, far too many conjurings of slave auctions are easily brought up. And when the odd, varying typeface of the sign is contrasted with well-known slave auction posters, the result verges on the obscene.

Sex sells, but lets hope it doesn’t simply sell Africa.

* * *

Jeff Sharlet: Such was Brent’s first take. To which I responded like a sailor:

I hate to say this, but I think you’ve been rooked. As journalism, almost the whole issue is bullshit. Slick and persuasive, but bullshit. Jeffrey Sachs is a red flag big enough to see from the moon; his collaboration with Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, a moderate dictator skilled at playing to Euro-Am hunger for positive stories, should call only for investigation, not celebration. Likewise the normally astute Alex Shoumatoff’s celebration of the Red campaign, which is already looking like a boondoggle. Madonna’s Malawi? That’s nice. But so what? The whole issue smacks of a celebration of celebrity responses, when what Africa needs is massive change. I’m not saying Madonna’s thing isn’t just great, but a journalist covering Africa has a responsibility to look at the whole picture. Hitchens and Tunisia — I’d trust his writing on anything Islam-related as much as I’d trust a David Duke story on Israel. Like Sam Harris, his rabid atheism appears to be a gateway bigotry — the destination is hating Islam. As journalism, the only thing that looks legitimate — or even up the high moral standard of, say, Men’s Life — is William Langewiesche’s piece on the Congo airline (which is one of the few stories that didn’t make it online).

As for the positive angle, why should that whole picture be positive? And why should we trust these African elites and old warriors who say it is? Africa is fucked, and fucked by us. One instance: How can an American magazine do an issue about Africa without mentioning Somalia, a country the U.S. and our on-off client, Ethiopia, have been as good as murdering for nearly 20 years? As religion writers, how can we excuse the neglect of the story of prosperity doctrine, nearly as much of a curse on the continent as Big Oil?

I could keep griping — the covers, oy! — but you see where I’m going. I’ll admit my problem with the issue is half-politics, but it’s half plain ol’ journalism, too. As a U2 fan, I go back to Blood Red Sky myself, but I think it’s time to stick a fork in Bono. I remember riding around with Senator Sam Brownback a couple of years ago, talking about some bullshit “free market” solution for Africa. His aide says, “Let’s get Bono!” Brownback says something to the effect of, “Bono can sell anything.”

* * *

S. Brent Plate:

Hi Jeff,

It’s not that I don’t agree with your critiques listed here (I do agree), but I think that “journalism” is only one perspective. Indeed, there were journalists involved, but the overall scope of the July issue is not simply about journalism: Bono and Carter (and Conde Nast in general) are already a long way from journalism. I recognize that. Yet I actually think that there is a point to be made about making Africa sexy and that must go far beyond journalism. (I can barely imagine a better venue than VF, though I rarely read it and really don’t want to be taken as a proponent of the mag.) Bono (or whoever) is making a point by appealing to my average student at Texas Christian University, who otherwise would not want to be bothered by pain and misery, at home or abroad. If we are all doing investigative journalism (I do wish we were, but I also wish we were reading it) we would have a scarce audience. There are layers of journalism, and not everyone will get the deeper dimensions to, say, a NY Times op-ed page, in distinction to some story in People, even if readers claim it’s all journalism.

Several years ago, I spent a few months in Northeastern Kenya, not far from where Wainainagrew up. While things change every day (Wainaina’s point), it was a quite mundane place to be. We needed to be up early at the market to get some goat or chicken meat, but if we waited it was only some leftover camel (pretty tough). But people weren’t in enormous queues, and people weren’t starving. In fact, the Muslims (Somalis) who so populated the area were active, playing football (soccer) in the village lots, and taking time to come and see us “Christians” and tell us about our mussed-up doctrines. Everybody drank Coca-Cola cold (“soda baridi hapa”), but few thought twice about it. Most children simply made toys out of the used Coca-Cola and Oxo cans. Colonization happens in a myriad of forms, but it’s so self-righteous of us Westerners at times to say we are the only ones responsible, that we are the only ones who can make or break a place. Again, I think Wainaina is on to something here, and he out of all of the contributors should be praised.

Shoumatoff’s praise of the (Red) campaign is indeed suspicious, but I actually was interested in Hitchen’s story on Tunisia BECAUSE he wasn’t so overtly negative about the Muslim influence there. In the end it was something of a draw for him, and he really didn’t convince me that Islam was to blame for anything wrong, just that “some” Muslims were wrong-headed.

Now, my punchline was that there ARE limits to “sexy,” and I tried to bring that to a point with my critique of the MAC cosmetics advert. How sexy is too sexy? Well, here is an image that shows that not all is acceptable; and here’s some reasons why. You were much more suspicious in saying that it’s all too much. I wanted to play the hermeneutics of suspicion and say that there is much that’s ok, but not everything.

* * *

Jeff Sharlet:

Brent,

Those are fair points, and there’s a case to be made for presenting the normality of life in Africa as a counterpoint to the hopeless despair with which wealthy nations dismiss the continent. But I guess I just can’t buy the notion that Vanity Fair is that place. Yes, it’s a celebrity-oriented magazine, and yes, people buy it to read it at the beach — but it still publishes mainly serious journalism apart from its celeb profiles, and thus it gave the imprimateur of serious journalism to this mostly shallow, occasionally worthy, often disingenuous effort. That it did so in a summer issue is even more egregious, I think, to me and the journalists I know who make their livings writing for magazines like this — that, to us, doesn’t smack of exploiting summer reading time to get a serious issue across, but exploiting a serious issue to sell this summer’s pose — which everyone who reads the magazine for its celeb covers understands is JUST this summer’s pose. You want to make Africa sexy? Bump the inevitable primary package that’s coming this fall and run Africa then. Then people will know you’re serious. Then journalists will start researching and pitching Africa stories with confidence that they can place them.

But even then, I guess I’d take issue with the “bright side” of Africa angle. As for the narcissism of Westerners blaming themselves for Africa’s problem vs. the optimistic view of the continent, I think that’s a false dichotomy. Of course Mobutu and Mugabe and Savimbi and Arap-Moi and Barre and Mengistu and Botha and etc., etc., and millions of their flunkies did as much to damage the continent in post-colonialism years as did the West. But so what? I don’t have any access to their purse strings. I can’t vote or not vote for them. I don’t live next to them. The society I am a part of includes the folks who work for and profit from Shell, or the diamond trade, or the arms trade, or the rightwing AIDS pimps. So let’s start there.

Could Vanity Fair have sold a blockbuster issue without making Africa sexy? Could they have gotten college students to A) care; and B) feel something more than warm and fuzzy because they bought a red t-shirt? I think so. Because what sells more than fluff (and that’s what this was — it wasn’t sexy, it was establishment and wholesome) is sensation, and there is sensational corruption surrounding Africa. Americans don’t care much about corrupt foreign dictators, but they can’t get enough of the foibles of their own. Fine. Send a reporter with Senator James Inhofe on one of his African tours for Christian Embassy. Watch him trade the vague promises of aid in return for abstinence pledges — and natural resources for his corporate pals. Watch him fly home first class on a corporate jet. That’s a story. Or Uganda — drop in on energy tycoon Dennis Bakke’s fabulous Arlington, Virginia home, paid for in part with funds squeezedout of a broken dam that the country didn’t need. You want rich and famous? That’s rich, and it’d make Bakke, one of the wealthiest men on the planet, famous. And here’s a story that’d move issues just like VF‘s Reagan diaries did: The never before reported tale of how Reagan and the Apartheid gov’t armed the Zulus to try and foment a civil war against Nelson Mandela. Guns, spies, assassins, and nastiness. That’d be a tale.

But wait — these stories aren’t really about Africa, they’re about America. That’s true — but I’d certainly say that anything about Jeffrey Sachs is not about the country it’s set in. There’s a good portion of the world that’d like to put that guy on trial for crimes against humanity. Bono may not have known better, but there are surely editors at VF who do, and they took the easy way out.

There are more people dying unnecessarily of AIDS in Africa than died in the Holocaust. The Holocaust just wasn’t sexy, and neither is that death toll. I’m not convinced that making it seem otherwise inspires Americans to do much of anything. The kids who don’t want to know about the bad news? I don’t think they’re going to do much when they hear the good news. The truth is that there is a Left activist core and a Christian activist core, and one of either group matters more than a 100 spring breakers chipping in $18 to adopt a kid through one of those thoroughly crooked late night tv scams.

* * *

S. Brent Plate:

Jeff,

A final response, such as it is, follows…

We are no doubt in agreement on many points here. Your argument that “Africa” is not just about Africa is really critical, that the stories (many of which still need to be written about) are also very much stories of the U.S. and other wealthy countries and their involvement with African nations. Africa may be a geographic continent, easily delimited by its surrounding waters, but it is situated in the middle of the world, and is impacted by all that passes through and over it. Africa still is a land flowing with milk and honey, but most Africans are denied access to their own wealth. And increasingly, people are denied access to fresh water (Coca-Cola, among others, is buying it up), to natural resources found on the lands, and to the societal goods of education and health. I would suggest that the real despots are the multinational corporations, with bases in the G-8 countries, that are helping to keep basic resources from many people. Which is not to excuse Mugabe, Arap-Moi, and others. But such finger pointing is endless and not solvable here.

So, a few points on our conversation until now:

On Vanity Fair as journalism. My approach is that there are many approaches. If Bono, Carter, & Co. can put Africa on the front burner for some of my students (and it has at least achieved this, as I can testify from my student responses) then this is progress. Hell, even getting them to point a finger to the continent on a world map is progress. As a teacher, I want then to push them further, get them to see the history, to read Chinua Achebe and Meja Mwangi and Desmond Tutu. But do I think a revealing story, in VF or anywhere, on Dennis Bakke’s slap-happy Christianity and his exports to Africa, or Senator Inhofe’s tours, and their connections to Africa would get people turning pages? I really doubt it. Certainly some people would read these. But precious few of my students will. Sensation sells indeed, but sensational stories surrounding corruption of a foreign nation with U.S. involvement? Ok, no wait, I’ve got a text message coming in . . .

“Sexy” may be the wrong word. That’s what Bono used some time ago, and with an issue graced by the likes of Brad Pitt, Madonna, and George Clooney, it’s obviously the angle. I really don’t trust Pitt to give me my news, and I don’t read it for that. But in a contemporary U.S. society that looks down on intellectuals and gives little space for writers, people listen to the celebrities. As pathetic as this is, I think what some of us need to do is start getting these celebrities to be responsible with their wealth and status. Start reading some books, finding out the history, and talking about it. I can’t tell you how nervous this makes me to even suggest this, but I think it is a very real and necessary option. And it seems to be happening in new ways that haven’t been the case in the past. July’s issue of Vanity Fair, for all its missed opportunities, offers such an approach. Which is not to say it should be the only one.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this isn’t a time to make Africa sexy. Maybe it is a time to write and write and expose the multitudes of corruption that surround Africa. Still, writing for a publication that takes religion seriously, I think religious groups both within and without Africa need to start taking on these issues and owning up.
S. Brent Plate is an associate professor of religion and the visual arts at Texas Christian University and a contributing editor to The Revealer. His latest book is Blasphemy: Art that Offends. Jeff Sharlet is editor of The Revealer.