maybe… probably… i dont know…
Apparently the First Lady feels that she had an opportunity to turn her relationship with the president into a Martha Stewart type branding situation…
The Story
“had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multimillion-dollar business relationships for a multiyear term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/opinion/melania-trump-inc-imperiled.html?
That’s absurd.
The fact that people take photographs of you shouldn’t be a justification for jack squat.
As the wife of the President, you are inherently going to be photographed an insane number of times… You aren’t a model anymore and the thought that somehow simply because you are being photographed that you deserve to use that photography’s popularity for profit is just so absurd.
The world is more than media coverage and money and people take photographs for a million and one reasons. Shockingly, one of those reasons is news coverage. News coverage that only occurs because she’s attached to a Trump.
And you are not Martha Stewart just because there’s a gazillion photos of you. Martha had some merit, Martha put some work in, Martha didn’t marry a President. You gotta earn your brand. Even Trump earned his by being a terrible television actor.
The assumption that simply because there are photographs of you your brand value has somehow skyrocketed… I mean my god. Think about that for a moment. Think about the blatant commercialism and self-centered thinking necessary to even imagine that you have an inherent brand that’s skyrocketing.
*yells at ceiling* ahhhhhhhhh
Whatever, jesus, frick.
If you’re a photographer I think you should take a moment to think about how you’d feel if your photographs were used as a justification for other people’s commercialism. Your photographs are being seen as an inherent asset of Melania’s brand. You increase her value. How does that feel?
Whatever…
Say what you’d like about the effectiveness of Michelle Obama’s attempts to model a healthy diet for the kiddos… but at least she didn’t want to profit off of her position so she could be a literal, Barnes & Nobel bottom shelf magazine rack, model or frickin Martha Stewart.
Vanity thy name be Melania… or Trump? I don’t know… I’m very confused these days…
This is Martha Stewart – Update 2/11/2017
I decided to plow now I am stuck darn!!!!! pic.twitter.com/htdUI9iXfW
— Martha Stewart (@MarthaStewart) February 9, 2017
The difference between a Martha™ brand and a Melania™ brand?
I’m not uncomfortable.
They both irritate me.
But with one of them… you can just shrug your shoulders. No big deal. She’s just doing her thing.
The other though… the other is being exploitative.