Some see King Kong, I see a lawyer

Look at this photo I've posted to my blog. Just for a second. No outside influence.


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Really, look hard.


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What do you see?

LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen I bet, and not much else.

Well, other people see the stereotype of a black man with a basketball holding a white model like King Kong held the damsel in distress in the 1930s.

I see perhaps the grrrrrr-eatest basketball players of all time and one of the most attractive women ever (Too bad she's dating Tom Brady).

Perhaps the photographer had King Kong in mind when she framed this photo. Maybe she was even commenting on our society's penchant for putting people — no matter how great they might be — into convenient little boxes labeled as "black" or "white" or "ball player" or "model" or "sleepy, lazy Mexican reporter." But I see no such boxes.

Maybe the people making such a fuss over LeBron's willingness to be photographed in such an ape-ishly apish way haven't seen the story about LeBron playing a lawyer (hardly the epitome of black stereotype) in a TV commercial.

"You want people to see a different side of you. It would be easy for me to do a commercial on the basketball court, shooting a ball through a hoop. People see me do that every day and they see the highlights all the time," James told the Canadian Press before he shot the lawyer commercial.

Guess the man can do more than just dribble a round ball, drive baseline and throw down a thundering dunk that would make Dr. J weep.

You mean a superstar might have more talent, more brains than just being able to knock down a 20-foot jumper as time expires and probably knew exactly what he was doing when he was photographed with Bundchen for the cover of this month's Vogue Magazine?

Huh. Go Figure.