Emily Cooke
Communication Theory and Criticism
Professor Bybee
Final Paper
11/28/01

Talk Magazine

The sheen of the pages of the magazine Talk, its cover photo of Gwyneth Paltrow (or rather, Gwyneth Paltrow’s cleavage) and the sheer number of fashion advertisements it holds make Talk a close cousin to Elle and Glamour. However, the range of articles found within the magazine is much broader than those found in the prototypical fashion magazine; six of the ten features relate to the events of September 11, and eleven of the twenty-one other articles also are directly or indirectly related to the terrorist attacks. Sitting right next to it on the magazine stacks, the latest issue of Jane, on the other hand, has only three or four references. The two magazines bear a strong resemblance to each other, but Talk stands out in its unusual breadth of content, and I was immediately intrigued by the juxtapositions of images and text the diversity of subject matter produced.
The ‘other’ we find in the pages of Talk is merged into one amorphous entity. Afghanis remain undifferentiated from Pakistanis, various classes are subsumed into a single poverty-stricken group, and men are consistently associated with the military. Difference within this broad ‘other’ go unremarked upon, implying that the variation is either not present, or if present unimportant; the only significant difference is the one between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the reader of the text and the people represented in it. The magazine does not imagine that a young Pakistani girl will be reading it, and so does not speak to her—if she were to read it she would be forced into the subject-position of the white middle class twenty-something female, the comfortable liberal who wishes to see exotic, unfamiliar images of what’s outside her world, distant. Afghanistan is placed at the "end of the world" from her (104).

Represented as both impossibly distant, unreachable, foreign, and, conversely, "like us," striving for similar things as the American, Middle-Easterners are forced into a binary opposition. Difference is accented and erased simultaneously.

The cartoon of "Osama’s Place" (40) offers a sarcastic look at the impossibility of the situation the comic creates. Unlikely sentiments are placed in the mouths of the conservative residents of a fictional town, and the improbability of a small white-bread community embracing and defending a restaurant named Osama’s Place is highlighted. In its irony rests an acknowledgement that the relation of Middle Easterners to "everyone else" will never be one of easy acceptance, and if you look further buried in this idea is the sense that the American-ness of the two Jordanian restaurant-owners does not exist, cannot exist, until it is validated by the white population. This is what the cartoon suggests will never happen. In offering a commonality between Jordanians and Americans the actual possibility of one is erased and ‘Jordanian’ and ‘American’ become mutually exclusive.

In the article "A Home at the End of the World: An Afghan Diary," the representations of Afghanistan set the tone for the entire magazine. On the second page of the article the young Afghani smoking a cigarette stares steadily outward at us, his hair long and soft, his skin clear, his hat tilted on his head. The clean lines of the photo, the undifferentiated darkness framing his face, the luster of his eyes, and most particularly his well-groomed fingers holding a cigarette all work together to create an eroticized male image that is not so different from what you might find in a fashion spread. He could pick up an instrument, grab a mic, and fit in perfectly with the men in the DKNY ad near the front of the magazine. The DKNY models have a kind of careless chic that the young Afghani mirrors. His otherness is presented as seductive, intriguing. The inclusion of the cigarette gives us an object to which we can relate, and requires that he be both wild, even primitive (in his untamed hair, his dark brow) and at the same time familiar and up-to-date. The caption tells us he has been at war since his teens, and this description essentializes him, serving to enforce the sense of him as exotic and masculine and implies a resolute perseverance—he is the quintessential warrior. He has given his life to a cause.
Interestingly, the ad for DKNY already includes a model that appears to be a person of color. He is the object of their gaze, the center of attention; separated off by his placement on the opposite page from the other two characters, he is marked as different. There is space between he and the other two. We focus on his otherness. The image is constructed so that it is their seeming interaction that engages us, an interaction produced from his difference from them.

On the next page of the "Home at the End of the World" article is a photo of four women covered head to foot. Certain racialized gender stereotypes are reinforced here; the women are covered and elusive, distant—what is underneath, we are meant to ask. What sexuality is hidden?
The only item showing beneath the yards of white fabric are the "defiantly elegant" shoes worn by the women, which become signifiers for their apparent repression and their resentment of this trapped state. Only through their shoes are they allowed to truly express themselves. The caption names them "uncommon women," and the combination of photo and caption work to imply that beyond their shoes, their clothing is not a matter of choice, that rather it has been imposed upon them. The word "uncommon" serves to produce unknowability, a strangeness in them. We are meant to relate to them only through sympathy in their "defiance," their love for something material, their rejection of the implied oppression. The facing photo depicting young girls in a "secret" school reinforces this idea of defiance. We are told they are taught at the risk of death. Politically, the idea that an unjust authority (religious and political) is being exercised over the Afghan people and that they need rescuing is useful in furthering popular support for the political and military stance the United States has taken towards the country. The subtle rebellion inferred by the photographs suggests an oppressive force that must be dismantled, and helps to maintain the virtue and "rightness" of the US's current military action. In addition, the references to danger are introduced in such a way as to make the images appear sympathetic and glamorous and thus meld with the glamour of the magazine as a whole.

The refugee camps presented on the next page of the article appear noisy and crowded, dirty, cluttered, but despite the referral to it in the text (107), neither famine nor death is depicted in the photographs on page 108. The image refrains from being too disturbing. Similarly, two of the men in the facing photograph seem unhappy or resentful and two are smiling; a kind of coexistent okay-ness and ominous uncertainty are represented.
In its choice and use of signs the magazine sanitizes the other, exoticizes and eroticizes it, makes it palatable, and in effect both brings us closer to the other and consistently marks the void between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ We consume ‘them’—they are ours to see, to contemplate. Their inherent danger as something different and unknown diminishes, as we are able to watch them and name them and consequently hold power over them. The other is produced as the social, political, and economic inferior.

This regime of representation fails to recognize complexity in a manner that does not resort to dichotomy, and breadth and depth are limited in an attempt to control the subjects portrayed and reduce their threat. Images are constructed in such a way that they are different enough to intrigue but not so alarming as to provoke a dissatisfaction with the prevailing state of affairs, a dissatisfaction that could lead to action. Complacency in the reader is encouraged. On a mythic level, this magazine provides a sense of immunity from strife even in the midst of the very fact evidenced by the terrorist attacks that we are not safe. It seeks to promote a trust of the powers that be. "Don’t rock the boat," this magazine says. "Be concerned, maybe even a little appalled, but rest assured that you know what’s going on and that others are taking care of it with the appropriate measures. You need to do little." Talk invites us to feel we are unusually informed, privileged to be reading the magazine, yet in a sense motionless. We become the paragon of compassion portrayed in the Frank McCourt article (34), compassionate yet impotent, unable to express ourselves, much less act. Below the headline for the article: "In the New York of September 11, there was only helpless horror." (34).
The intertextual meaning produced by the overall interactions of the editorial and advertising content serves to make the issues addressed fashionable, glossy, attractive—and simultaneously normalizes that process, naturalizing the kind of difference constructed. After all, it is a fashionable urban magazine. This is how we expect that they operate.
I position the magazine Talk in a discourse that names itself as liberal, concerned, and sophisticated and thus masks its construction of narrow, rigid imagery that reinforces the prevailing conceptualization of Middle-Easternness. In a process of disavowal the readers are invited to feel that they are engaging with the images and learning more, culturally broadening themselves, when in fact it is just an excuse to indulge in the contemplation of foreignness. The readers are given the chance to drop their jaws and ask incredulous questions: How can they wear that, do that? How can they stand it? In this disbelieving, awed state readers may remain comfortably separated and in effect immune.
This limiting world created by Talk begs a response, and makes it necessary that we explore how the issues at hand might be addressed in other ways. Instead of assuming a white middle-class reader, we must allow for the actual complexity and diversity of populations potentially consuming the material. This could be achieved by a kind of contestation from within, an art that grows out of the insufficiencies of representational systems that play off stereotyping and the fixing of meaning, an art that locates itself in the interplay of power and communication and so draws our attention to the discrepancies found there.