Men’s Magazine Smartly Decides To Redo Extremely Racist Cover

by Justin Fenner | 2:13 pm, February 29th, 2012

Concept for a magazine cover: Take a light-skinned Asian woman from a culture that promotes the use of skin lightening creams and surround her with dark-skinned women (scratch that, make it women in black face) with the cover line “Stepping Out of the Shadows.” Nothing amiss with that picture, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong — and FHM Philippines, the reigning lad’s magazine in this blogger’s home country, found that out the hard way when it executed and announced plans to print such a cover, with actress Bela Padilla as the standard bearer of light skin and beauty, for its upcoming March issue.

The response to the cover’s racist overtones was swift and widespread, eliciting angry comments from readers who asked how the magazine could miss the fact that this cover was so clearly not OK. After rounds or angry Facebook comments and a few tweets decrying the magazine’s cover (and it’s objectification of women), the editors decided they probably needed to create something that wouldn’t get people riled up at the newsstands.

“We deem this to be the most prudent move in the light of the confusion over the previous cover execution. We apologise and thank those who have raised their points,” FHM said in a statement on its Philippine website.

“When FHM hits the stands in March it will have a different cover,” it added.

We’re glad the magazine realized the error of its ways. What we’re disappointed about is the fact that it made such a ghastly and racist mistake to begin with.

[MSN Philippines]

Bela Padilla FHM Philippines Racism

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