Along with the new
, Tina Brown has rolled out another Daily Beast discussion-starter: a list of
to go with BeastWeek’s second annual ”
Women in the World Stories and Solutions summit
.”
Like
, the list is furry with archaeological dust spilled from the gears of Brown’s buzz-powered steampunk time-traveling editor machine: Meryl Streep! Padma Lakshmi! (“Tall, stunning, and savvy to boot….has successfully branded herself as an icon.”) Annie Leibovitz! (She took the photo of “the nude (and very pregnant)
“—and with that credential, the Brown-ian universe collapses into the signification of its own significance.)
Event horizons! Brown has even included the newest anachronisms: Michelle Rhee, who stopped mattering last year; Amy Chua, who stopped mattering last month. (Or did she?)
But in all this chasing after the right mix of Ladyhood, Buzz, and Seriousness, Brown somehow forgot to scoop up Madonna. Not anywhere in the 150. Not even under “United Kingdom”? No, the UK only has 4 representatives, including Cherie Blair. (Does the sentence praising Blair as “a committed advocate for women’s equality” also include the phrase “wife of”? Oh, yes, it does.)
(Does the entry for Melinda Gates include the phrase “wife of”? It does not.)
Where’s Madonna? Maybe she doesn’t work as hard on charity or international concerns as Ashley Judd or Angelina Jolie, but goodness gracious, still. Is Tina mad at her for something? Or is she really and truly so far over and done that she can’t even crack an Important Women list for a magazine where Harvey Weinstein rates a coverline in 2011?
Oh, wait—here I am, discussing the new Newsweek. Congratulations, Tina Brown!
