Topless bodies found in brainless magazine

Feb. 14, 2006 | Those of you who are not movie stars, magazine editors, fashion publicists or morning show hosts may never have heard of Tom Ford. Those of you who have may be surprised to learn that he has anything to do with Hollywood, short of deciding which frocks its inhabitants should don to walk down a red carpet.

Yet Ford, who became known in certain circles for revivifying the moribund Gucci brand in the 1990s, has gotten himself so deeply confused with the movie stars he used to dress that this month finds him on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue, on sale nationally today, sniffing the ear of naked "Pride & Prejudice" star Keira Knightley. And while much has already been made of Ford's manically narcissistic decision to appear clothed next to nude starlets Knightley and Scarlett Johansson on the magazine's cover, that over-the-top orgy of self-love, misogyny and outright idiocy on Page One is just a preview of what Ford, the issue's guest editor, has brought to its inner pages.

But let's get the cover out of the way: Rachel McAdams ("Wedding Crashers," "Red Eye," "The Family Stone"), one of the women scheduled to pose for this year's cover, arrived at the photo shoot only to learn that Ford wanted her naked. I had not thought a willingness to disrobe was a condition of appearing on the front of Vanity Fair, but reluctant ecdysiast McAdams not only lost her spot, she is mentioned in the magazine only as "a certain young actress" who "bowed out when the clothes started coming off," thus squelching "Ford's plan of having a gorgeous female threesome." There you have it, ladies, straight from Vanity Fair: We don't care if you star in three successful movies in one year; if you won't get naked for a "threesome," you can forget your spot in our pages!

As for Ford's claim, to editor Jim Windolf, that it was an "accident" that he plopped himself in the middle of the cover shot (fully dressed, because only the chicks have to take it off), a quick glance at the magazine's cover line ("Tom Ford's Hollywood"), its cover-photo caption ("Ford's Foundation"), its full-page contributor's bio of Ford, the letter from editor in chief Graydon Carter titled "Vanity Fair's Tom Ford Moment," a story about the making of the magazine called "Welcome to Tommywood!" and multiple pictures of Ford (walking sexed-up 12-year-old Dakota Fanning to her photo shoot, taking a bite out of Mamie Van Doren's inflated breast, strutting around in Wellingtons) provide subtle clues that there is nothing "accidental" about Ford's megalomania.

Aside from himself, what has Ford chosen to feature in his vision of Hollywood? By the numbers: Seventeen women (average age 31) and 19 men (average age 34). There are 16 visible female nipples (erect or exposed) to 17 recognizable female faces. Only five of the women are over 30, and two of them -- 75-year-old Van Doren and 38-year-old Pamela Anderson -- are honored not for their talents, exactly, but for their identities as "The Breast Friends." There are three female ass-cracks, one naked headless woman (in a photo of "Shopgirl" star Jason Schwartzman), two manicured female feet (for Viggo Mortensen to tickle), one pair of shapely female legs (upside down, for Topher Grace to maneuver as if he might at any moment spread them and dive) and one giant Dada-ist breast on a golf course in front of a featured plastic surgeon.

There's much to be said about the appeal of a well-placed arm, leg, breast. But extremities tend to be more compelling when attached to, say, a body. Ford is not celebrating the female form: He's hacking it apart and selling off the parts to male stars in need of girl-flesh to gussy up their own boring images. (For more on the use of disembodied lady parts as sales devices, see Women's Studies 101 chestnut "Killing Us Softly.")

For those women lucky enough to remain intact for the portfolio, total nudity seems to have been encouraged. (Ford had joked that this would be the "all-nude" edition of the magazine, but that edict seems only to apply to the babes.) Five of the women appear to have been photographed naked. They include Sienna Miller, topless but sterile, and Natalie Portman, gilded but folded in on herself. Angelina Jolie lies on her belly in a bathtub, while Jennifer Aniston curls into a protective ball of skin and boots. Both Jolie's and Aniston's photos appear to have been castoffs from V.F. shoots they did earlier this year. Apparently, it was more important to include these old -- but nude! -- shots than it was to photograph less-exposed, and more persuasively "New!" stars like Amy Adams, Michelle Williams or Rachel Weisz, none of whom are in the issue.

But it's Joy Bryant's picture that is most disturbing. The African-American Bryant, her blurb tells us, earned straight A's in Bronx public schools, went to Yale, scored roles in "Antwone Fisher" and "Get Rich or Die Tryin'"... and now appears in Vanity Fair, where she is called "The Wild Honey," and photographed wearing expensive jewelry and nothing else. Congratulations, Joy Bryant, on breaking class and racial barriers so that you can be reduced to your breasts and bling on the pages of a national magazine!

I don't mean to be a scold; I have nothing against nudity in magazines. One of my favorite images from Hollywood issues past is of Sigourney Weaver, dressed in a fishnet body stocking and boots, lying on her back, one breast very visible. The photo was aptly dubbed "The Force." In it, Weaver looked fierce, turned on by her own long body. That picture might fairly have been described as a "Do Me" shot, but it projected an unspoken warning: "Do me wrong, and I'll kick you hard with my big boots." Sienna Miller looks like if you did her wrong she might pop another Klonopin and doze off.

Next page: In Tom Ford's world women's bodies are props, toys, jokes