The media considered Kardashian\u2019s Oval Office meeting a joke.<\/b>
\nTwo reality stars met in the Oval Office on Wednesday. One wanted a presidential pardon for Alice Marie Johnson, a grandmother serving life in prison without parole for a drug crime. The other wanted a presidential pardon for Dinesh D\u2019Souza, America\u2019s greatest troll.
Guess which star became a media joke?
Kim Kardashian West met Donald Trump in the White House Wednesday to lobby for prison reform and to ask him to pardon Johnson, who went to jail more than 20 years ago after getting involved in a cocaine ring. In a viral interview, Johnson told Mic that her son had died, she\u2019d been divorced, and she needed the money. \u201cI couldn\u2019t find a job fast enough to take care of my family,\u201d she told Mic. \u201cI felt like a failure.\u201d
Kardashian was moved by the interview .
Trump heard out Kardashian. Then he released a photo of the two of them in the Oval. The media pounced. It wasn\u2019t criticism; it was an assault.
The New York Post went with not one, but two references to Kardashian\u2019s rear end on its Thursday cover. The image was retweeted and liked thousands of times.
It\u2019s tempting to say that Kardashian just isn\u2019t serious. She\u2019s a reality star. She makes millions selling a brand on top of questionable products. But Trump, too, is a reality star. He, too, makes millions selling a brand on top of questionable products. The difference is that Trump is the modern male archetype. Kardashian is his female foil.
The reaction to Kardashian is a window into how we think about male and female leadership. Trump is an alpha man who never backs down, never apologizes, and never accepts \u201cno.\u201d He gets to be president. Kardashian is the modern female archetype \u2014 she is thin (except in the places it\u2019s difficult to be plump), she is ageless, and she glamorizes motherhood. Her politicking is treated as a joke.
Celebrities draw attention to causes all the time \u2014 and it works. The media flocks to cover events when big names get involved in policy. Whether it\u2019s Bono testifying on the state of AIDS resources, Brad Pitt meeting with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi on sustainable housing, or Ashley Judd taking on saving wolves, the coverage usually takes them seriously along with the issue.
Trump\u2019s rise is proof of the phenomenon. He was irresistible to TV news during the 2016 campaign. He still is.
But even advocates of prison reform didn\u2019t see Kardashian, perhaps the best publicity-getter in America, as any kind of help. In a response to my colleague German Lopez\u2019s explainer on yesterday\u2019s meeting, Kristen Clarke, the president of the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, wrote him the following email:
Many organizations rely on celebrities to draw attention to their cause. Clarke\u2019s organization, for example, has highlighted \u201cspecial guests\u201d at their annual gala, like Laz Alonso, a Hollywood star from box office hits like Avatar; Mike Tomlin, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers; and Jim Nantz, a CBS sports personality.
Perhaps the only person better at using celebrity for promotion than Trump is Kardashian. But when she takes up a cause, no matter how significant, her role as a feminine icon overshadows it. We laugh at the idea of the perfect woman having something important to say. But it\u2019s not funny at all.<\/p>\n

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