WORDS Brent Rosen
Three months. If this were a relationship, we’d have a toothbrush at each other’s house by now, would know each other’s favorite song, would understand each other’s habits and we would begin to realize the potential problems we face as our relationship continues to evolve. This column is not about toothbrushes or favorite songs or our good and bad habits. Instead, I want to focus on what could become a problem as MADE and Montgomery continue to grow together.
I am a displaced Northerner who spends more per month on food than on all other expenses combined, who loves British literature, who prefers the urban to the suburban, who engages in horseplay of all stripes, who enjoys ironic facial hair, and who whets his whistle with only the sourest of sour mash. For me, MADE does a great job of covering stories I find of interest. Our other editors are former fashion designers, current professional photographers, journalists, marketers, bartenders, actors, musicians, architects and small-business people. We all have other jobs -- MADE is an outlet for our creativity, and the paper’s content reflects our passions. We are very proud of what we have created, but we also recognize that without vigilance, MADE could easily fall into the “Southern-Glossy Trap.”
The Southern-Glossy Trap first came to my attention last year when the Oxford American got into a war of words with Garden & Gun. Since I doubt many of you keep up with spats between niche magazines, some background is likely necessary. The Oxford American is an award-winning Southern literary magazine known for its excellent writing and focus on untold Southern stories. Garden & Gun, which bills itself as “the Soul of the South” is a beautiful magazine geared toward well-off Southerners and non-Southerners who appreciate the charm, foodways, sporting culture, and laidback nature of the South. The spat began when the Oxford American accused Garden & Gun of white-washing (literally and figuratively -- if that is possible) the South’s racial and religious past and present, while promoting “vulgar and aggressive materialism.”
While I enjoy (and have subscribed to) both magazines, the Oxford American’s criticism, while excessive, raises a valid point. You can’t be the “Soul of the South” if you don’t have voices in your magazine that represent the South in its entirety. Or, to put it another way, if your magazine claims to be about “Southern Living,” but the only lives depicted are those of the rich and famous, your magazine may have fallen into the Southern-Glossy Trap.
For MADE to truly be Montgomery’s best newspaper, we need to make sure that every voice in Montgomery is included. While I think we have done a good job representing Montgomery so far, we also know we need a larger stable of writers, photographers and other contributors to ensure we don’t become the paper for vaguely progressive, somewhat artistically inclined, food-and-drink obsessed white people. While as a group we have a diversity of interests, backgrounds, ethnicities, and personalities, we need MADE to reflect our larger, wider diversity in Montgomery. There is much more to the city, and we need help covering it. We need to avoid the Southern-Glossy Trap.
So, dear reader, if you look at our pages and don’t see you or your community accurately reflected, step up. We need your voice if we are going to reach our full potential. Send an email to editor@madepaper.com and we’ll take it from there. If we can work this problem out early, I think our relationship could last a long, long time.