What?? We Can't Believe How Offensive Michelle Williams' Latest Cover Is

Was there some secret media conference we weren't invited to where everyone decided that 2013 is the year to be really, really offensive in very public forums? First, there was Numéro's awful "African Queen" editorial, and now this: Michelle Williams appears on the cover of AnOther magazine in what Jezebel rightly calls Redface.


The worn jeans, plaid shirt, beads, and feathers only serve to deepen our concern and reinforce the fact that this is no accident. Plus, the tagline "there's no place like home" is actually very pointed in this instance, given the fact that thousands of Native Americans were forcefully ousted from their homes (not to mention slaughtered and denied full rights of citizenship) when European settlers came to this continent. The line is, of course, a reference to Ms. Williams' recent role in Oz The Great And Powerful, but if that's all they meant, they should have just dressed her up as Dorothy.

Plus, the reference to Oz actually makes things worse. It trivializes something tragic and serious. And, as Ruth Hopkins points out, L. Frank Baum (author of the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) was an outspoken racist who called for the literal "annihilation" of Native Americans in an editorial for the newspaper where he worked in December of 1890, just days before the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Pretty much the only thing we can do here is balk. Why was this produced and published? Who approved this idea? On what planet is this okay or called for, by any measure? Though it doesn't usually change anything, when creative imagery is found to be offensive by the public, artists usually say something about how political correctness shouldn't interfere with the direction of their art. But what's particularly ridiculous about this photo is that we can't imagine what lofty artistic goal could possibly call for this kind of offense against a people who are still marginalized in many ways today. Whatever it may be, we're not interested.

Photo: Courtesy of AnOther Magazine.