Actress Sheron Menezzes is the first black woman featured on the cover of VIP magazine in 14 years

Note from BW of Brazil: Well, as we mentioned yesterday, Carnaval season is over so for the most part the standard is that black women, for the most part disappear from Brazilian TV screens. Today’s short feature is not actually about television but as VIP magazine so rarely features black women on its cover, it’s still worth mentioning. As the title reveals, it’s been years, many years since VIP featured an indisputably black woman on its cover. In 2013, we included actress Débora Nascimento’s cover feature, but for many, her appearance, while considered “exotic”, is not clearly black. Actress Sheron Menezzes will debut this month in a new Globo TV novela which is probably one of the reasons she’s featured on this cover. 

So what can we say about her VIP magazine feature? Well, in fact, it’s more of the same. If a black woman is not portrayed as a maid, she has to be the sexy ‘mulata’ type. To be real about this, this is how it goes. If Afro-Brazilians want to get in the game they have to play by the rules. In a sex-obsessed market it’s almost impossible to make it in this business without showing some skin. And most black actresses have show some skin at some point in their careers. The other thing I note about this photo shoot that follows the typical Brazilian formula is that if Afro-Brazilians are featured in magazines, TV, etc, they must be surrounded by whites. So while Menezzes is the main attraction of the photos, her presence in the midst of white men still plays on the sexually available black/’mulata’ motif so common in Brazilian culture. So, OK, a black woman’s on the cover of VIP. Would it be too much to see one of the cover of Pequenas Empresas & Grandes Negócios (Small Companies and Big Businesses) magazine? Jus’ sayin’….

Sheron Menezzes is the first black woman featured on the cover of VIP magazine in 14 years

By Andre Sank

For the cover of VIP magazine’s March issue, the beautiful Sheron Menezzes posed for the lens of Fernando Louza on the beach and paradisiacal locations of Rio de Janeiro.

Sculptural, she posed next to male models that take the place of surfers.

The last time there was a black star on the cover of the publication had been Taís Araújo, in 2001.

Before her only the morena jambo (1) Camila Pitanga had had the privilege in 1998 and 2000. It’s worth mentioning that Camila has not returned to grace the cover of VIP because she hasn’t wanted to.

Source: Blog do Sank

Note

1. Morena is very commonly used term that can describe a wide range of phenotypes. Jambo is a fruit that comes in three varieties: jambo-rosa (pink), jambo-branco (white) and jambo-vermelho (red). In reference to skin color, morena jambo or morena de cor jambo (morena of the color jambo) refers to a person who appears to have a year round tanned color.