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  • Thursday, July 28, 2005

     

    Deconstructing Oprah Magazine

    I remain in awe of Ms. Twisty Faster's ability to ironically demolish almost anything she turns her attention to. The results are always amusing to me. Here is a bit from her post Chucking Oprah:
    Having studied in my lab the magazine’s advertising, content, and tone (in searching the rich canon of women’s magazines, the aficionado of patriarchal propaganda will be hard-pressed to find a match for O’s tone: a bizarre coalescence of the authoritative, the slumber-partyal, the glib, and the insipid), I have determined that the magical world of Oprah is populated by just such a species of tip-and-trick-seeking woman. She is in her 30s, white, middle class, desperately miserable, with a deep sense of isolation from her distant, inscrutable man, and a pathological compulsion to shop. Judging by Oprah’s near-universal appeal, such women must exist in droves, the inevitable product of the dominant culture’s disdain for them as receptacles, as well as its enthusiasm for producing both distant, inscrutable men and shopping malls. But Oprah can save them! Every page is like a bright yellow box of Empowerment Bonbons (You’re Special! You’re Strong!), but with Crispy Cockroach Centers (Now change your impossibly inadequate self into a sleek, professional man’s woman! Here’s how!).
    For goodness sake, please read the whole thing.



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