As sales revenue is down on some recent publications where the First Lady appears on the cover, this is the ridiculous, whiny assertion made by this author in Jezebel…

Michelle Obama has graced the cover of a number of recent “general interest” magazines — including Vogue, Us Weekly, Newsweek, The New Yorker New York — solo, in addition to appearing with her husband and, in the case of O, with Oprah Winfrey. And, according to Advertising Age, they aren’t flying off the shelves.

On the other hand, magazines that target African-Americans (which are, apparently, not “general interest” like O or Vogue) seem to do great putting a strong, beautiful, incredibly visible African-American First Lady on the cover.

Well, at least we know where the writer is coming from.

Covers of “general interest” magazines that feature both of the Obamas tend to do either slightly or robustly better than average at newsstands. So why is it that a ladymag like Vogue doesn’t sell as many copies to its readers if it features the First Lady, who is considered a style icon (particularly in comparison to Laura Bush) as if it features yet another 18-year-old, hyper-thin white chick? Or is that just a really obvious question?

Let’s be real here; there IS something in the business called “overexposure”.

People grew so tired of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. People grew so tired of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. We needed a break from A-Rod and Gary Condit. Tragic stories about Jon Benet and Natalee Holloway were gladly allowed to fade away.

So making this about race because the writer considers Michelle Obama this “strong, beautiful, incredibly visible African-American First Lady” is shameful, especially when many Americans do not. It has nothing about her race but because of the first couple’s politics, and to be fair, Laura Bush never received this kind of out-of-the-box attention because she didn’t have a lapdog media fawning all over her out of politically correct fear not to.

We didn’t hear about Laura’s arms or her dresses or her motherly instincts or her mother and Laura didn’t appear almost everywhere the president was. We didn’t get that for one simple reason: the American people didn’t vote for Michelle Obama. Many voted for her husband and Michelle was part of the deal. And finally being proud of her country just because her husband was doing well in a presidential primary didn’t help either.

This author loves Michelle Obama. That’s cool, as many others do as well.

But when over-saturation causes a drop in cover story sales, it’s because the American people (believe it or not) actually know the First Lady is a black woman. The novelty is gone, the hype is wearing thin, and people have better things to spend their money on.

This is not about race except for those who wish it to be.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 7:11 am and is filed under Election 2008, Media Bias, Politics, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.