I love reading GQ and Esquire b/c in addition to snappy fashion advice, they also publish meaningful articles - for example, this article about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. There was an article about Roger Ebert recently that was moving and interesting and, you know, a consideration of a culturally important person. The most creepily absorbing fiction story I ever read was in an Esquire.
Cosmo and Glamour just publish the same few articles about (straight) sex and clothes and shopping. Wait, I guess they do dedicate a page now to career advice. (Illustrated w/ cartoons. Ugh.) Marie Claire has a token article every month about how much harder women in some other part of the world have it. Vogue and Elle can be counted on for cutting edge updates on... what women with lots of money are doing to their faces to look young forever. Oh, and maybe something about infertility. I do like Bitch and Bust and Curve but find them kind of parochial (and Curve is weirdly affectless and what's the point of putting so many straight women on the cover? I will take 6 covers a year of Margaret Cho, thanks.)
I like clothes. I like frivolity. I like clever and self-confident dating advice. And I like incisive reporting on politics and current events and culture. I'm perfectly happy to get these things from men's magazines if women's magazines won't step it up - but I can't help but feel disappointed every time I see a Cosmo in the supermarket with the same neon shrieking blazed across the cover - most women I know are perfectly capable of thinking 'Oh, I kind of like that purple eyeshadow' AND 'Ugh, what a human tragedy, maybe Congressman Cao needs another phone call from a constituent' WITH THE SAME BRAIN. Come on, women's magazines - cater to the whole woman!
There really is a void in printed magazines aimed at women. Perhaps this is due to the shift from print to online news sources. I love Bust and Ms. but I can see that they don't match exactly what type of magazine you desire. Probably at its root it lies (once again) in the power structure. The owners of all these publishing housing are predominantly men who seemingly underestimate the appeal of such magazines to women. Clearly it's about selling a product. As men they can understand how GQ and Esquire can sell because they would want to read it, but seeing that women are these crazy, flippant mythological creatures that are so difficult to understand they are content to just provide fluff to that "demographic" because it still sells.
ReplyDeleteheh, i love being a mythological creature! just kidding. nice comment Jess and i agree Julia, it's embarrassing and annoying and fine, i'll just men's magazines then. i too love clothes and shoes and makeup, but i actually can't even read the woman's magazines anymore b/c i lose interest too quickly. like it or not, some of the better articles i've read have been in Playboy. yeah, really.
ReplyDeleteso ah, ladies. this sounds like a call to arms. :)
Remember Jane? I loved that magazine, and subscribed to it for about 5 years...until it went out of business about 3 years ago. It was pretty much what Julia is describing--some makeuppy, fashiony stuff, but also some really strong content. What I loved most about it was the tone, which was intelligent, funny, and basically anti-Cosmo. But I guess it just wasn't popular enough to keep up ad sales (sorry kids, I take full responsibility for this and all other sad things related to advertising), so they had to fold. So basically it's all our (womenfolk's) fault, for not buying this shit. Come on ladies, get it together! Cosmo is ASS!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see Jane's marketing budget compared to GQ and Esquire
ReplyDeleteBut in general there are fewer low-brow men's fashion magazines...so they are only given intelligent options
ReplyDeletei still say its a call to arms. Go Jess Go!! i need a new job anyways!!
ReplyDeletei'm kind of with clare - people who sell magazines just want to make some money. it's up to the consumer to not buy crap. hegemonies/power structures incorporate resistant discourses as soon as it becomes evident that it's to their advantage to do so, so if it hasn't happened yet, it's our fault for not being loud enough.
ReplyDeletefor jane, though - i don't remember seeing it as widely available as glamour/cosmo, so how it was distributed might have been part of the problem.