Psychologies, the magazine, has recently attracted a great deal of attention from its readers as well as those on the social networking site, Twitter. The reason it has drawn so much attention is because it has an Indian cover star, Archie Panjabi, a British-born actor.
It seems rather strange that in today’s modern world that Indian style being chosen to be on the front of the magazine would attract much attention. However, magazines worldwide are known for being rather conservative and generally this is seen in their choice of cover star. Fortunately, there has recently been sign of change in the industry and in the past few months the covers of magazines have been more racially diverse.
Asian stars however still remain a rarity on the front of magazines. Anjana Gosai is an expert on Asian beauty and she has commented, “In the past it was rare to see ethnic faces on magazine covers because companies thought it might negatively affect sales figures. It is very good to see in recent months that the covers of these magazines are becoming more racially diverse.”
Louise Chunn, from the magazine has commented, “In the past we only had two non-white stars on the cover, Lucy Liu and Halle Berry. This was something that was a concern to me and it didn’t seem right that we were mostly featuring Caucasian women. Especially considering that a large percentage of our readership are not white.”
Ms Gosai continued, “The fact that there are so few Asian women on the front of magazines just highlights that they have not yet broken into the industry mainstream. Many Asian actresses have not found success in Hollywood yet and if they were to this would give them a significantly higher profile and they would be seen on many more magazine covers.”
Other thanHollywoodactresses, it is thought in the industry that the only other names big enough to sell magazines are those from the music industry. Here again, Asian stars are somewhat lacking a presence in the West.
It is not just the magazine industry that is seeing a change towards ethnic diversity. Recent campaigns involving models have been featuring women other than Caucasians. The question the industry is currently asking themselves is whether this is a move into a more diverse industry, or whether it is just a fad that companies are going through. Many are questioning whether the attitudes in the industry have actually changed.
The editor of Red magazine is Sam Baker who has said, “I really do think that times are changing. When you put someone on the front cover of the magazine for the first time it’s always a risk but we are very careful with selection.
When we first featured Lorraine Pascale on the front cover we knew we were on safe ground and the magazine was very well received. I very much think that this is a change that is going to stay with the industry and I think magazines are becoming more socially forward.”
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