Before it's in Fashion, it's in Vogue

Does this look like the Oprah you know?!?! Certainly not, and even in 1998 when this photo was taken, this isn't what she really looked like. Make no mistake - I love me some Oprah, but this Vogue cover seems a bit contradictory to what she has been telling everyone for years. A big part of her mantra is that beauty come from within people, and being yourself and not succumbing to the world's pressures is what makes a strong person blah blah blah. When she was approached to do the cover of Vogue, of course she was ecstatic as anybody would be, but it was a conditional offer. Anna Wintour, Vogue's universally hated editor-in-chief "suggested" that Oprah lose 30 pounds to "look her best" for the shoot, and when Anna Wintour "suggests" something, it generally means that it should be done. Not now, but right now. So Oprah put away the cookies for a couple months and hit the gym hard, but what does this really say about a) Oprah and her values and b) the influence something like a magazine can have over the wealthiest woman in the world?

First of all, let's just take a second to look at this photo. It's Oprah, on a lawn chair in some beautifully grassy hillside in a sasafrass black dress with sex hair saying "come and get me, boys" with her eyes and airbrushed jawline. Did you ever think you would see a sexualized image of Oprah Winfrey? This is the same woman who hosted a one-hour special show solely about poop. The media issues here go both ways. First, how can we, as a culture, be so obsessed with Oprah that we look to her to be on a high fashion magazine? And secondly, what power does Vogue have in our daily lives to convince even Oprah that her status will be elevated by being on the cover?

Even after this critique, I still love her show. And look at those guns!