Petition to Vanity Fair

[Conghaileach]

Petition


This petition is to request a formal apology from Vanity Fair and
Dame Edna
for the offensive article regarding Latinos and the Spanish language
which

appears in the February 2003 issue of Vanity Fair. In the meantime,
please

boycott Vanity Fair magazine, and urge others to do the same.

If you are offended by the word-for-word transcription below, please
copy

(rather than forward) this email in a new message, sign it at the end
of the

list, and send it to all of the people whom you know. If you receive
this

list with 100 names signed, please send it to the Editor at
[email protected]

------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpt, Vanity Fair (February 2003), p. 116,

Ask Dame Edna:

Dear Dame Edna,

I would very much like to learn a foreign language, preferably French
or

Italian, but every time I mention this, people tell me to learn Spanish

instead. They say, "Everyone is going to be speaking Spanish in 10
years.

George W. Bush s! peaks Spanish." Could this be true? Are we all going
to

have

to speak Spanish?

Torn Romantic, Palm Beach

Dear Torn:

Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except
Don

Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take
care of

that. There was a poet named Garcia Lorca, but I'd leave him on the

intellectual back burner if I were you. As for everyone's speaking it,
what

twaddle! Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The
help?

Your leaf blower? Study French or German, where there are a t least a
few

books worth reading, or, if you're American, try English.

Dame Edna

----------------------------------------





Dear Editor,

I was infuriated at Dame Edna's response to Torn Romantic,, Palm Beach

(Vanity Fair, February 2003). Dame Edna could have chosen any number of

amusing responses; however, she responded using cheap, two-dimensional

stereotypes of Latinos and Latin Americans, revealing not only her
racism

but also her profound ignorance of who we are.

We are not just 'the help' and the 'leaf blowers'. We are architects
and

activists, journalists and doctors, governors and athletes, scientists
and

business people. We are Nobel Prize Winners and Rhodes Scholars. We
speak

Spanish, but we also speak fluent English, and many of us speak other

languages as well. As of last week, we are officially the largest
minority

population in the United States at 37 million and 13% of the
population.

Without us, the economy of this nation and the Americas, and
consequently

the world, would come to a complete standstill.

If Dame Edna were even remotely cultured or educated, she would have
read

and lost herself in the exquisite writings of Nobel prize winners
Octavio

Paz, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Pablo Neruda. She would know that Sor
Juana

Inez de la Cruz was one of the first feminists and poets in the
Americas.

She would admire I! sabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros for their

passionate prose and vibrant spirits.

And of course, if it had not been for us, the world would not know

chocolate! And everyone knows life would not be worth living without

chocolate.

Finally, I would like to point out that Dame Edna would have NEVER
written

such blatantly offensive material about African-Americans or Jews, for

obvious reasons. It seems that Dame Edna AND the Editors of Vanity Fair

believe that Latinos and Latin Americans cannot read, and even if we
could,

we would never be Vanity Fair readers. For the life of me, I still
cannot

figure out why you chose to feature Salma Hayek on the cover and in an

article celebrating her success immediately following such an offensive

piece.

I demand an apology in print in the next issue of Vanity Fair from the

Editors and from Dame Edna. In the meantime, I will be mobilizing
everyone I

know to boycott and protest Vanity Fair.

Wendy Maldonado

1. Wendy Maldonado, Jackson Heights, NY

2. Jasmine J. Friedman, New York, NY

3. Angelique Jewell, New York, NY

4. Paula Cserei, Houston, TX

5. Monica Cardenas, Houston, TX

6. Denise de la Cruz, Houston, TX


7.Ana Aguirre, Houston, TX

8. Elisa Mendez, Fort Lee, NJ

9. Elizabeth Vidal, Orlando, FL

10. Mirta Fernandez, WNY, NJ

11. Jessica Feria,North Bergen, NJ

12. Jeannie Feria, North Bergen, NJ

13. Barbara Perez,North Bergen. NJ

14. Angel Perez, North Bergen, NJ

15. Angelina Deleon,Flemington, NJ

16. Rolando Deleon, Flemington, NJ

17. Nilo Calichs, North Bergen, NJ

18. Alicia Calichs, North Bergen, NJ

19. Casey Perez, North Bergen, NJ

20. Dean Perez, North Bergen, NJ

21.Myrta Gonzalez, Miami, FL

22. Ramiro Gonzalez, Miami, FL

23.Patty Villoldo, Miami, FL

24. Evette Santana, Miami, Fl

25. Gina Lopez, Miami, FL

26. Javier E. Baena, Miami, FL

27. Annette Navarro, Miami, FL

28. Liz Hurtado, Orange, CA

29. Miguel Angel Lara, Fountain Valley, CA

30 Joe Purizaca, Downey, CA

31. Alejandro Soria, Los Angeles, CA

32. Sergio Diaz, CA

33. Miguel "Mike" Gomez, Los Angeles, CA

34. Vanessa E. Dominguez, Los Angeles, CA

35. Sandra Ruiz, Los Feliz, CA

36. Elizabeth Higuera, Carson, CA

37. Amparo Valenzuela, Huntinton Park, CA

38. Estrella Fernandez, Los Angeles, CA

39. Maria Novak, Burbank ,CA

40. Natalie Bock Lara, Vista, CA

41. Marissa Esparza, San Diego,CA

42. Severo Martinez, San marcos, Ca

43. Celsa Rosales Vista Ca.

44. Myrna Escobedo Ca.

45. Maribel Baltadano, Vista, Ca

46. Vicente Baltadano, Vista, CA

47. Erik Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ca

48. Ciarán Bradley, Belfast, Ireland

[MEXCAN]

Are you serious???Dumb **** really wrote that??

[Archie Victus]

It's pretty childish to demand an apology for this article. In no way is it offensive. Is our (United States) society still so insecure about race that every comment regarding certain races are deemed racially offending? It's pretty damn immature. This is like signing a petition to end women's suffrage.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Dame Edna is not an actual person. She is a character played by an Australian comedian in drag, and the basis of the act is to make fun of everything about everyone, although mostly Australians and Brits. And it's a damn good show, too.

If you look at the rest of the advice she's given in those columns you'll see that thing was taken totally out of contrast and there is no reason in the world to take offense at anything "she" says, because "she" makes up the letters as a vehicle for "her" comic writing anyway.


Here is some moer of her stuff to convince you of the tongue-in-cheek nature of this whole thing:

She moves to allay one writer's concerns about her lack of multiple orgasms by saying they are merely a concept "invented about 20 years ago by Cosmopolitan simply in order to sell magazines."

"In my day," she insists, "the word 'orgasm' wasn't even in the dictionary, and if anyone accidentally had one, they would have been rushed to hospital."

A male reader expresses concern his wife is not practicing yoga, as she says, but is instead carrying on an affair with her instructor. Dame Edna's tip is for the man to learn Swedish massage, and offer one to his wife.

"When she is in her birthday suit, gently start with her ankles and see if you can get them to a position just behind her ears. If this proves effortless, you have a problem," she writes.

[Conghaileach]

Well, say what you will, but the article has caused offense to a large number of people.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Yes, because parts of it were circulated out of context to people who had no idea that the person who "wrote" it doesn't exist....

--- G.

[Conghaileach]

Does it matter that someone hid behind a character/pseudonym when it was written?

[suffianr]

In all fairness, Vanity Fair is a fucking stupid bourgeois trash magazine, it should be boycotted anyway.

And nobody takes Dame Edna seriously, although her racist comments do appear at a highly sensitive time, the only person she offends is herself, for being so damned trivial about other people.