Check out the other photographs from the Vogue Series in the article' link to Style.com. What does each have in common? There are four pairs, and each is a male athlete (James, Phelps, Ohno, and White) paired with a female supermodel. In turn, three of these men are generally considered not just athletes, but Olympians (I excluse James since his popularity in the NBA overshadows any Olympic basketball performance he might have).

So what does it tell us when Vogue's shape issue portrays four male Olympic gold medal winners against four, um, pretty women? I don't think there's much to think about here. The right "shape" is obviously athletic men and waif-like, beautiful women. The article all but says right out that women are just not meant to be athletes - at least, not according to our style "experts". There were plenty of American female Olympians who won gold in both 2004 and 2006. Omitting them like this can really be construed only as sexism.

Yeah, I figured I would post my response under yours Mike8787 because they seem to go together:

I saw the cover when I wandered through the bookstore the other day, and having been an English major trained to look for symbolism in the most pointless places (even the cover of Vogue), yeah I got it right away. An entire history of racial and racist imagery kinda slapped me in the face. And I rolled my eyes. I figured maybe someone at Vogue was trying to be an intellectual gadfly and do a deconstructionist take on a tired stereotype, and not really figuring out how to do it well. They shouldn’t strain themselves that way.

I dunno. If you look at it as just a photo outside of historical and racial context, you’ve got an exultant LeBron looking ready to charge into battle in a pick-up game, and a mildly amused Giselle Bundchen kinda hanging out in a cocktail dress, with his arm just coincidentally around her. It just comes off as a weird picture, like they were pasted together from photos of different events. I was really struck by the lack of balance in the picture after I got over the blatant play on racial sensitivities. And that’s when I got a little irritated (though I remained unsurprised).

Just think about this: If it had been a white female athlete in that photo with HER game face on, would people be harking back to these racial stereotypes? What if it had been tennis champion Maria Sharapova in that picture? Would there be as many people sitting there worrying about racial stereotypes if LeBron James didn’t have his arm around a woman who looks like he could snap her like a twig? Doubt it.

So let me get this straight: Men get LeBron James as their physical ideal, and women get… Gisele Freakin’ Bundchen? Granted, both are pretty much unattainable ideals, but need they go in such opposite directions? Men should want to be fierce, strong, battle-ready, and muscular. Women should want to be… skinny, fragile, emotionally muted, accessorized and well-groomed. Men should look up to a man famous for his tremendous athletic skills (which involve both brains and physical discipline), and women should look up to a woman famous for being really, really good looking.

Which then led me to this conclusion: Yeah, Vogue was trying to elicit a reaction to the racial politics of their cover photo; they were shooting for witty and provocative in a detached hipster kind of way, I’m assuming, and really didn’t do a good job of it whatsoever. What they failed to realize was that those racial politics would not even come into play if they were not so trapped by their format (i.e., the one that requires them to conform to fashion industry standards of beauty with regard to the females on their cover). Any other magazine doing a “shape” issue would have had LeBron James and one of any number of female athletes, and they wouldn’t have his arm around her like he was going to carry her off at a moment’s notice (and even if he did, it wouldn’t look like such a distinct possibility) because she’d be playing her own damn sport, not standing there looking around for her cocktail party. But for Vogue, well, you can’t start playing around with racial stereotypes when you’re still obviously fostering all sorts of unreasonable gender stereotypes or ideals.

that a woman's magazine would use male athletes for an issue about being "in shape". but you can't be surprised. the fashion industry is so insular they care little about "the public" and what it thinks.

My first thought when I saw this article? Gisele Bunchen is a lucky girl.

First, she dates Leonardo for freakin ever. Now she's with some loser of a baby daddy football player, Tom Brady. Yawn. Now she's posing with LeBron James?! Not fair!!

She's not even that pretty!!

When I heard all the racial questions, I thought, well, what else do you expect from a magazine that still features fur in their pages? Class?

And sexist? Absolutely.

Where's Mia Hamm? Maria Sharpova? Danica Patrick? Gabrielle Reece? Serena & Venus Williams? Amanda Beard?

My preteen daughter is a swimmer, with a swimmer's broad shoulders and chest. She has enough body issues as it is without having some unattainable (unless you develop an eating disorder) ideal rubbed in your face every day.

We tell our daughters, sisters, and friends to be healthy, be smart, and be strong. Then they parade some stick in a silk dress who's only job in life is to make the clothes she wears look good, and tell them that SHE'S the ideal. And we wonder why our female population is so screwed up?!