Linda de Mol is enormously popular in The Netherlands. She hosts tv game shows, even has her own talk show, speaks German fluently, and moreover, comes across as very approachable. (She also happens to be the sister of John de Mol, the co-founder of Endemol, the company that should be blamed for “Big Brother,” “Deal or no Deal,” “The Voice,” etcetera.)  The new thing among famous Dutch people is to publish a glossy magazine with their own name on it (think “O” by Oprah as model). Most of them do it once a year, or just one time only. Linda publishes a glossy monthly, LINDA Magazine, which has a large circulation because Linda is popular among Dutch women. The September issue is an ode to Africa, so it’s titled “The Safari-edition.” Here’s the trailer for the cover shoot:

Linda is a very busy woman, so she doesn’t have time to put on a zebra-print dress and fly to faraway Africa, so the best place else to be is Safaripark de Beekse Bergen about an hour and half long drive from Amsterdam, since they also have drooling giraffes. Fortunately, the sun is shining, so it’s “just like Africa” according to the “always smiling” Linda. Who will see the difference; A giraffe is a giraffe …

“Just a report from location ‘Safaripark’ won’t let us get away with it”, the editorial team from LINDA-magazine must have thought. So, let’s add some “typical African things” to the issue. LINDA is being read mostly by women so it should be something interesting for that audience. What do African women have what Dutch women don’t have? A delicious, big, round, BLACK BUTT!

Of course, it’s not only good things that come from Africa, so they have to include a story about women being raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now if I had the chance to edit an Africa-edition of a magazine, I would come up with something totally different: I would not go for fake safari-pics; most Africans have never seen an elephant in the wild. I would love to show my readers Africa like it is. Africa is a continent with 54 countries, some of them individually the size of Western Europe. All of them have different cultures and habits. I would–because that’s my personal interest–make a report about the many different musical styles in Africa, which are so unknown here. I might tell something about opera in South Africa, or about that handsome singer from Rwanda …

LINDA is a magazine read by women, so some articles about clothing, make-up and the diversity of hairstyles in Africa could have been appropriate. Stories about African women who are successful in their lives, maybe an interview with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her struggle for female rights in Liberia, and her election to be the first female president of an African country ever. Women with strange hobbies. That kind of things.

Instead, LINDA chose to inform Dutch women about “the big bottoms” of black women, and how most African men are attracted to that quality.

LINDA chose to write an article about women who had been raped in DR Congo. (Can you notice the improper connection between the two articles?)

LINDA chooses to present all of this with Linda de Mol on the cover of the magazine, sitting on the hood of a Jeep, between drooling giraffes and horny zebra’s in Safaripak de Beekse Bergen.

“It’s just like Africa!”