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Originally posted by NinjaPoodle
2. Instead of consistently putting entertainers on the cover, why not our women of the community? Civic leaders, artists, professionals...the other people who BUY the mag. If the mag is about us, shouldn’t we be represented? I would love to see sisters like Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, Susan Fales, Dr. Mynora J. Bryant, Linda M. White, Barbara C. Moore, Dr. Louise A. Rice...I'm saying take it to the next level. We're not all entertainers.
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It's so interesting that you mention this b/c a friend of mine and I were just talking about how they had Usher on the cover of their most recent anniversary issue. We were wondering why this magazine dedicated to black women couldn't find a better person to feature for such an important issue. I mean really, an issue like that should be a testimate to what you were created for. Also, the Editor-in-Chief (who interviewed him) raved about how wonderful he was and how proud she was to feature him in their anniversary issue. Now, not to knock Usher or anything, but I've always heard that he was a little cocky and not the most selfless guy around. Again, this isn't to bash him, but it's to say if Essence can misrepresent him this way (by painting him as a Saint), then what else are they misrepresenting to us?
Here are somethings that I do like about Essence:
- The financial advice column (I forget the name of the woman who writes it each month)
- The career/business planning column (I also forget who writes it, but it deals w/how to handle various business situations)
- The sex ed column by D. Hilda Hutchinson (We don't want to be vulgar or anything, but some of what she says is more woman's health related)
- The 5-8 exercise poses
- Informative features like those on the black women killed in Iraq, or black women who have been missing, or the black women who own their own businesses, or black women who have been able to retire young, or even the woman whose son has schitzophrenia.
Here is what I don't like:
- The entire front half of the issue is dedicated to beauty. Not only is this too much, but it isn't well organized. Sometimes I have no clue what their recommendation is.
- There is too much focus on entertainers. I honestly don't care about Beyonce or Mary J Blige (though I did like the piece on Jill Scott). I wish that they could keep these to a minimum and intergrate in other prominent women in black society (as mentioned above)
- Underdeveloped articles. There was recently an article about men (I'm not sure if it focused on what they want from a woman, or why they cheat, or what, but the format was a conversation w/about six black men from different backgrounds). It could have been done a little better. Each guy only answered about 2 - 3 questions, so no one character really got developed. There was no theme or message for you to take away. It was just a brief conversation that left me
- Random articles that don't tie to the theme of the issue. They always have about 4-5 articles that are 1 page long. Sometimes they tie into the issue, but sometimes they don't have anything to do w/anything. It's like they have hundreds of these random little articles that they throw in as fillers.
- The last 20 pages. I hate flipping to the back of a mag to finish an article (that's just me), and I don't understand the need for the random recepie here and there or tons of tiny advertisements. I'd rather that the articles be complete, and if they want to add recepies then they should make that a legitimate portion of the magazine with a theme and some backstory.
Sorry for the long post and/or any spelling errors.