The TONY 40 Whitewash
I'll start with a cliche-amending statement: Sometimes it only takes one picture to obliterate a thousand words of cant. That's what happened with this week's Time Out New York cover story, "The New York 40," a roundup of photos of, and interviews with, "New Yorkers who've made a positive impact on the city" since the magazine's inception in the mid-'90s. Of course, the TONY editors didn't dare to include non-celebrities in this group, but all things considered that's the least of their offenses.
The "New York 40" interviews compile rote statements about the supposed "Disneyfication" of NYC that were commonplace well before 9/11. Playwright Adam Rapp says, "Rents are making it hard for artists to sit and daydream." Actress Patti LuPone boasts, "I would rather have a sex shop than an Applebee's." Singer Nellie McKay laments, "I think the city is losing a lot of its character and a lot of its diversity."
The TONY editors certainly intend us--expect us--to agree with this chorus of celebrity complaints without skepticism. But the magazine's cover image, a Photoshopped gang's-all-here gathering of the "New York 40," complicates (to put it mildly) that assumed consensus.
The cover makes it immediately obvious that Time Out New York's social panorama is ruinously skewed. Of the 40 icons on view, only three (baseball superstar Derek Jeter, novelist Junot Diaz, and rapper/entrepeneur Jay-Z) are people of color. This 10-to-1 ratio, which doesn't reflect either actual NYC demographics or the heightened profile of non-white performers since hiphop gained mass acceptance, must be viewed as editorial preference.
Far from resisting gentrification, the cover concretizes ways of thinking that blot out non-white social and cultural contributions. The "positive impact" that people of color have had--can have--on their social environments is reduced to a token presence, barely noticeable amidst the capering and grinning of a benevolent white majority. This image in fact illustrates how popular culture (and design culture) itself has been gentrified in the last 15 years.
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The demographics of the New York population may not be proportionally represented in the photo for the cover of TONY, but the theme isn't about that; it's about forty New Yorkers who are supposedly making a difference to the city. The real question is does the photo reflect the proportion of difference-makers or not. In this case, quantity may not necessarily represent quality; while the non-white fraction of the population may be more present in the city than in the photo, maybe their positive influence on NYC is not as significant as the "non-non-white" people of influence. And to use the mass acceptance of hip-hop as an argument for more non-white representation in the photo is a bit ridiculous; is hip-hop the most important piece of the NYC pie? Is that all NYC has to offer as its primary means of positive influence? I doubt it; you are assuming too much and jumping to conclusions. If I am way off-base about this, please include in your posting specific New Yorkers who were overlooked for the article and photo shoot who have had as great as or greater influence for good on the city than those shown; right now your point is unsupported.
Mr. Orviatt,
While I can accept your "argument in need of support" premise-it's a typical non-white response. Being of African American descent, I hear this kind of response all the time as to why we aren't represented more proportionately in certain arenas or areas (in the Western New York area if you looked at any local advertising, you'd think we didn't exist). I think Mr. Kessler's point, as you well know, is just that-why aren't there more people of color represented in the proportion they deserve. I'm sure there are plenty of people (especially in NYC) to choose from outside of the entertainment arena--which was the magazine's job to find, in order to present a more balanced view-not Mr. Kessler's. I know in the advertising and news arena in this area, non-whites are not working in those fields and the only stories we ever hear about are pretty much the negative side of life in the inner city.
Thanks for your entry and thoughts, Ben. I agree that sometimes it seems that only the white (heterosexual) individuals are included in all things considered exemplory or star-worthy. It is still a (white) man's, old boy network. Let's hope it changes with the next generation of more open-minded individuals.