It’s raining men!
Vanity Fair has revealed its iconic “Hollywood Issue” will controversially feature an all-male ensemble this year.
The news-making twist is the first Hollywood Issue overseen by the magazine’s new editor, Mark Guiducci. A Princeton grad, previously of Vogue, the 37-year-old was hired in June and promised to shift VF’s focus to “money, politics, and style.”
The Hollywood Issue, viewed as a “yearly doorstop seen as the starting gun of Oscar campaigning season,” will hit news stands next month.
There will be three cover variations, including one featuring Jeremy Allen White, A$AP Rocky, Glen Powell, LaKeith Stanfield, and Callum Turner—but none featuring a single woman.
A second cover features stars Paul Mescal, Michael B. Jordan, and Austin Butler, and a third captures Riz Ahmed, Jonathan Bailey, Harrison Dickinson, and Andrew Garfield posing together under an umbrella.
Vanity Fair said that it seeks to highlight a “new generation of leading men captivating audiences and propelling cultural conversation at a moment of industry transformation.”
Not everyone is a fan.
The New York Times, which interviewed Guiducci, noted in a critique that there is no shortage of attention on men in showbiz. Its headline read, “Men? In Hollywood? You Don’t Say.”
A commenter questioned under Vanity Fair’s Instagram post revealing its cover, “We were not hearing it for the boys before?”
Another asked, “Wait, it’s all guys this year? Oh, OK.”
Guiducci views the edition as an opportunity to highlight how male movie stars have changed since Hollywood’s heyday.
Vanity Fair’s Ottessa Moshfegh wrote of the supposed shift, “Today’s leading men aren’t unreachable idols. They feel like real people, very special people who hover just half an inch beyond our grasp.”
The Times noted that many of the big players in this year’s Hollywood Issue—on both sides of the camera—are millennials.
“Guided by an editor, photographer, and stylist who are all under 40 (and often wearing clothes designed by men around this age), the photo shoot simmers with an early aughts energy,” writes the Times’ Jacob Gallagher.
Ahmed and Garfield, each 42, are the only subjects older than 40. Dickinson and Mescal, each 29, are tied for the youngest of the bunch. All are millennials.
“The scenes, laid out as a collage of snapshots, feel more ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ than West Egg,” writes Gallagher. “The lack of women makes some images come off a touch homoerotic. (A conspicuously-placed oar only underscores that feeling.)”
Vanity Fair has highlighted rising stars in its Hollywood Issue each year since 1995, following the success of its first Oscars party the previous year.
Highlighting a single sex is not entirely new. Its first Hollywood Issue featured all women, including Nicole Kidman, Angela Bassett, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Uma Thurman.
Controversy over the 2025 Hollywood Issue is not Guiducci’s first headache at the Condé Nast outlet.
Described as being Anna Wintour’s handpicked successor to take over the magazine, he also ruffled feathers in August by suggesting that Melania Trump be featured on a cover.
The following month, criticism returned when Robert F. Kennedy’s digital lover, Olivia Nuzzi, was hired as its “West Coast Editor,” despite her being fired from New York magazine for having an affair with a politician she covered.
The post Vanity Fair’s New Editor Unveils Wild Twist to Iconic Issue appeared first on The Daily Beast.
