tesserae's Full Review: O The Oprah Magazine Subscription
I bought my first issue of 'O' (Oprah's Magazine) this week.
My first reaction? It's incredibly well-produced. Full of cutting edge design, full colour photos, and catchy titles, it's the kind of magazine I love to look at. Eye candy, everywhere.
My second reaction? It's like a shot of vodka at an AA meeting.
Let me explain.
I have always known that Oprah stood for strong, capable, self-assured women. She has chosen books for her book club that emphasize this -- women that triumph over hardships, abuse, and other difficulties in their lives. She interviews these same kinds of people - survivors, overcomers, those who have won out over the odds.
This magazine is like a giant inspirational, "you-can-do-it" exercise in modern Zen thought. She writes repeated variations on "trust yourself," "be in the moment," "believe in your positive inner voice." There is a picture of a breathing space: a relaxing country image of trees and empty roads, nifty four-colour inspirational cards with uplifting quotes, and self-empowerment, positive thinking, personal contentment tips on every page.
It's really quite a head trip. Oprah herself is decisive and confident enough that she can sweet talk you into actually thinking you're a pretty wonderful person. The more I read, the more sure of myself I became. I felt myself let down the mask, the guard; I felt myself begin to really accept who I am. Like myself. Trust myself, even.
Yet as I read (feeling all the more full of "I go, girl!" and "yay for me!"), I found myself finding a definite dichotomy and I started to squirm. Here Oprah (et. al) was, telling me that I should respect myself and trust myself and like myself, and here I was actually believing it. And then I started noticing the advertisements (There are a lot of them, so it's a wonder it took me so long to do so). And as I noticed, I felt a heavy feeling in my gut, and thought:
The advertisements contradict all of Oprah's zen feminist spiritual guidance
Right next to an article on liking your body is an extremely thin model wearing Hilfinger clothes. Right next to the page on befriending yourself, is lipstick that will make your lips more succulent, eye shadow that will remove those worry lines, more waiflike women wearing expensive designer labels.
Even as we are being told how wonderful we are, we are being reminded of how much we are lacking. Even as we are being told to befriend our bodies and trust ourselves, we are being reminded of how low we are to the standard, how much better we could be. We are promised youth and sex and love simply because of our hair dye or our low-waist kahkis or our coloured contact lenses.
The contradiction doesn't work. You have to either accept what Oprah is telling you or accept what the advertisers are telling you.
They are not the same message.
I can see how people might think this is a harsh review. Doesn't Oprah need advertisers? Doesn't her magazine require funding and support?
Certainly it does. But Oprah is making a choice to water down her message by choosing the advertisers that she does. She is making a choice to continue to exploit and belittle the American woman by catering to big brand names, big companies, and the designer label hype.
There are a lot of people giving out the kinds of messages that Oprah is. Most of them are little tiny feminist or new age magazines, 2 colour jobs with environmentally-friendly, co-op friendly, socially aware advertisements. They may not have the big name interviews or the full-colour inspirational cards, but they have the same idea: Love yourself. Take care of yourself. Trust and enjoy yourself.
I hear the message clearly from these other people. I believe it.
I think that Oprah could carry her message even further and more powerfully if she took control over who advertised in her magazine, and catered those ads to people and products who further emphasize her points. It's easy to talk about being empowered and being strong and rising above the dreck - not so easy to prove it by what you sell and who you cater your products to.
I might buy another issue of O Magazine. I really did enjoy the interviews, the thoughts, the inspiration. I really did feel for a brief time that I was invincible. I even loved the layout and the slick coloured attractiveness of the magazine itself. But when I read the next issue, I'm going to tear out the ads first. Rid myself of the conflicting messages.
I think it's something Oprah should also think of doing.
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