How do we release Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart's talon-like grasp on the minds of our nation's women?
I can buy her paints, her sheets, her dinnerware. I can read her column and watch her TV show. I can subscribe to her magazine but somehow I just can't get my goddamn risotto to taste right.Let's face it, we can't all be as perfect as Martha Stewart, despite the products we surround ourselves with to convice us otherwise.
But who the hell wants to be? Who wants to be an insipid woman who talks in a forcibly calmed voice and lives in a celadon green world?
Well judging by the Martha-ites that come into my store, everyone with a two X chromosomes wants to be her.
They ask for the baking mats they've seen on the show. They bring clippings from her magazine. The share DIY tips on how to faux paint a coffee table. They ask if I have any of that milky glass stuff she features in her book.
I look into their sad little generic Dooney and Burke purse-toting, Gap sweater bought at Ross-wearing, Walgreen's brand night cream-using faces and think, "Honey, you're trying too hard. Just be yourself."
But they yearn to be her, like teenagers strive to be like the latest trend-setting pop star. Martha is Britney Spears for suburban housewifes.
And just as digusted as I am with girls modeling themselves after little singing starlets, I am likewise troubled when grown women who should have already exercised their inadequacy demons are looking to Martha Stewart to give them the same sense of belonging and worth that the bad chicks in high school gave them when they accepted a forbidden cigarette.
I'm not here to attack Martha, but she's a bit of a bad chick herself. So unless you want to end up a loveless, two-faced, divorcee, why would you want to be like Martha?
And then there's Oprah. I don't watch her show, but I do live in the world and see the effects of her media mogul omnipotence.
O, The Oprah Magazine is complete rubbish. Most magazines sell people make-up, clothing and perfume. But leave it to Oprah to sell peace of mind. Each issue has a theme with "meditation pages." The pages have quotes on bookmarks that are perforated for you to tear out and fill-in sheets asking you to jot down your values. It's like she assumes women don't think about these things on their own until they are spurred on by her. So in the guise of this innocuous-looking magazine, she is telling women how they should think.
A little valentine to the magazine I found on its website made me keel over with its foo-foo, optimistic malarky. "It gives confident, smart women the tools they need to explore and reach for their dreams." Oh so reaching for dreams is a trade now, like sheet metal working? The magazine also claims to help women "make choices that will lead to a happier and more fulfilling life." That is, the "Oprah" way of life. "With one of the most trusted women in America inspiring the editorial content, this magazine serves as a catalyst for transforming women's lives." So Oprah is some kind of shaman with the power to help me get over my co-dependancy problem? I can see how women can buy into this bullshit when everyone's lives are crappy and Oprah is selling a ticket to la-la land with a connection in Self-improvement-ville
And lest the women think they'll escape her talon-like grasp on their consciousness by reading a book, Oprah put on the hat of librarian as well to dictate which books are worth a woman's precious time (conveinent that we have those perforated book mark pages, huh?).
Everything I hate about stereotypical femininty (parlor talk, droning over relationships, homogeonous perfection, potpourri sachets) is embodied in the devoted followers of these two women.
Sure, Martha and Oprah are awesome media personalities who deserve places in history for their acomplishments, not only in their field, but as women as well. But maybe they could be more responsible with the power they wield as quasi-goddesses in the minds of our nation's women. Instead, they feed off their followers and shove books, paint chips, and table linens down their throats and collect the cash. Clearly these women, two of the most wealthy in the world, won't be telling women to be individuals when there's a Be-Like-Martha kit on sale in every Kmart.
So then let me deprogram these poor women, and free them from their addiction to Dr. Phil and herb gardening: Quit finding media personalities to be your paragons. Be your own woman. Have the courage to buy a lemon meringue pie, Martha won't slap you on the wrist for store-bought baked goods (you could never get those egg peaks to stand up anyway). Have the courage to buy a book without Oprah's little orange sticker of approval. Read just for the heck of it, not because you're afraid of being ostracized by the office gals if you don't have the latest Toni Morrison in your purse too. You don't need to emulate someone else's impossible lifestyle. It will only make you feel worse. Perfection is overrated.
You are not your Martha Stewart bedspread. You are not a sheep in her flock. She's only making money off your devotion. She's not your personal jesus, so you can just snip off those WWMSD? bracelets.