Last week, First Lady Melania Trump gave a U.N. speech in support of the anti-bullying campaign. Clearly, bullying is a highly controversial and serious issue that needs to be discussed. The speech was meant to raise awareness about the negative impact that bullying has on children, but instead, the media chose to focus on a different, and completely unrelated topic. Melania Trump’s dress became the takeaway of the speech, because her expensive dress is obviously way more important than the widespread issue of bullying.

Yes, the First Lady’s designer dress was obviously expensive, but what the media forgot to recognize was the fact that designers want to dress important and famous people. It’s great branding for a designer’s dress to be worn by any celebrity, especially by the First Lady. Melania has had a bad reputation for dressing lavishly in inappropriate situations, like going to visit the victims of Hurricane Harvey. However, I think the media is beginning to focus too much on what the First Lady has been wearing. With a speech that holds so much importance and is very relevant to current events, the answer as to why the media chose to focus on a dress is beyond my knowledge. Michelle Obama also faced scrutiny in the media about her fashion choices, which also distracted the public from issues that she wanted to discuss. On the contrary, Michelle Obama was also known for shopping at J.Crew, which made her more relatable to the public. Designers also desperately wanted to dress Michelle Obama when she was First Lady because that is amazing for their reputation as a designer, and that makes a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, because a lot of the media seems to be against the Trump family in general, I think Melania will always have a bad reputation for something, whether it’s her fashion choices or her public speaking skills. The media could have brought more attention to the danger of bullying and how extremely relevant this issue is in schools all around the world, but instead, they chose to focus on something so unimportant. Media exposure, no matter the platform, is a huge force that drives our society in both positive and negative ways. It would’ve been beneficial for the media to expose more about the reality of bullying, instead of just deciding to distract the public from a huge reality with a negligible fashion choice.