Oprah sitting pretty in Vogue

Is Oprah practicing what she preaches or is she selling out?

Please forgive a brief personal story. Last semester I lived in Northern Ireland, a place where (it felt like) 99 percent of the women are thinner than me. They eat meat and potatoes but stay thin enough to look stunning in capri pants.

I remember coming home from work one afternoon feeling fat like I did pretty often. I turned on the TV to find Oprah talking to young teenage girls who were dieting. I remember a wave of happiness as I heard Oprah saying something along the lines of, "My body just is a 12. I've been thinner and I've been fatter, but I seem to just end up at a 12. That is what I am supposed to be."

It is a little disturbing how much better this made me feel. Just to hear a face on TV say it is OK I'm not very thin made my whole day, week even, better.

But then I picked up a copy of October's Vogue and I did a double-take. The usual covergirl is not a girl at all. It's Oprah.

It's Oprah ignoring her body's natural equilibrium to tease us on the cover of Vogue. How many of those 12-year old girls she was preaching to on her talk show do you think pay attention? Most of them.

Weight and Oprah have been a pair since the beginning. In the file cabinet of your mind you probably have a folder on Oprah's waistline, like it or not. The celebrity's "struggle" with weight has been publicized almost as much as her wealth, accomplishments and talk show combined.

She might be the most powerful woman of the 20th century, but she's still a woman. If she wants to make it to the cover of Vogue she still has to lose 20 pounds.

Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, thinks Oprah's decision to participate in a Vogue "makeover" is an example of the common thread that runs through the minds of all women in the US. She couldn't be more right.

She writes in her editor's note: "There's something reassuring in the fact that Oprah, one of the most powerful women in America, should nurture her own dreams of perfect beauty and allure-just like the rest of us,"

Reassuring. Yes, I'm relieved that even with her accomplishments and wealth Oprah can't be in Vogue if she isn't pencil thin. I'm relieved to know that even with "power" women are still weakened by the chronic imperfection of their bodies. Very encouraging.

Vogue-Oprah looks foreign to the many women who have admired Oprah's independence and confidence over the years. Vogue editors, pleased with their transformation of the celebrity, promise us that despite the fact she looks so different, "the glamorous (read slender and white) woman on the cover is still the funny, clever, wonderfully down-to-earth, usually rather maternal (read fat black mammy) woman we know as Oprah." Whew. Even if Oprah can shed her mammy image for a month of fashion magazine stardom she is still black. She is still non-threatening.

The pertinent question to ask seems to be why Oprah would do the Vogue thing. Oprah offers one answer in the Vogue interview: "So why would I be dreaming about Vogue?" Oprah asked rhetorically. "Vogue is the big house! Didn't think I'd be sitting at that table!"

I guess you can't dispute that Vogue is the big house. But it would be nice if someone who is clearly attuned to the fucked-up power dynamics in the U.S. today would refuse to give that particular big house the time of day.

Twenty-one-year-old no-name models need to do Vogue-Oprah didn't. The most powerful woman of the 20th century is bigger than Vogue, or at least she used to be.