Actress Laura Harrier says Modeling Industry was “Unapologetically Racist”.
‘I’m also very wary of celebrity activism’
Before paving your way to the destination where you are currently at, it requires a lot of experiences that will mold your perception as an artist and an activist.
Most of the actors in Hollywood started with small modeling gigs to highly-acclaimed blockbuster movies. Indeed, every journey starts with a single step.
With her past experiences as a model, actress Laura Harrier has expressed her opinion and how she sees it. According to her, the modeling industry as being “unapologetically racist”, revealing that she struggled to boost her starting career and book for model gigs as a teenager due to the color of her skin.
Before setting her appearances on screen, over the years, she first started out her career as a model in New York City aged 18. Laura Harrier has also worked and starred in several blockbuster films including Spider-Man: Homecoming and BlacKkKlansman.
The 29-year-old actress told Marie Claire magazine while reminiscing her past career, she begin with heating up about her experience working in the fashion industry, “Girls have so much more individuality now and different types of women are celebrated”
“When I was a model, it was literally just skinny white Russian girls, so nobody was booking me for jobs.”
The Chicago-born actor recalled going to casting calls at model agencies in Paris who would sign her but later say: “’Oh, we already have a black girl.’
“It was just unapologetically racist,” she described the modeling industry. “Fortunately, I think that’s changing.”
Laura Harrier attends the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 27, 2019 in Los Angeles, California (Getty Images)
Also, the actress is also vocal with her advocacy and political stance. Laura Harrier also made her points and expressed her support on the marriage between fashion and gender equality, stating: “I don’t think that one negates the other.
“You can be a woman, and love fashion and clothes, and that doesn’t mean you don’t care about big issues. I don’t understand why it’s like, ‘OK, you’re wearing a pretty dress, you’re not a feminist’.”
Being active and motivated as she is, Harrier, who played an activist called Patrice in BlacKkKlansman, stated that she doesn’t consider herself an activist, rather a “human being with opinions”.
“I think there’s obviously more of a space for your voice to be heard and to be more in control of your voice because of social media – it has presented a whole new platform for people,” the star explained.
“And using our voices feels natural to my entire generation. But I’m also very wary of celebrity activism. I don’t consider myself an activist.
“I’m a human being with opinions and morals, but it seems that as soon as you’re in the public eye and you’re somebody who does that, all of a sudden you are ‘an activist’. To me, activists are people who are standing on the front lines in Ferguson [Missouri].”
During the interview, Harrier also discussed the lack of racial diversity in film and how she wants to represent a diverse range of women.
“I want to do romantic comedies and other films in which you don’t see people who look like me; movies where you’ve never really seen people who don’t look like Kate Hudson,” she said.
“I don’t know what people’s thought process was when they believed that audiences couldn’t connect to seeing people of colour fall in love.”
Read the full interview in the September issue of Marie Claire, out on Thursday 1 August.
