I realized we thoroughly discussed Cosmo and Maxim magazines this past week, but I thought it was important for me as a reader to re-analyze at least Cosmopolitan because, yeah I am a woman who does read it.
The typical cover of a Cosmo magazine has titles along the lines of “sex him up in ten minutes,” “How to look sexy in anything (or not in anything),” and the smallest title at the bottom of the cover: “How to lose 20 lbs in 20 days.” Okay, so they don’t exactly say things that extreme but they come real close! Usually…well almost always they boarded along the lines of sexual. Sure, Cosmo is a fun read that gives women dieting tips, fashion tips, and sex tips but often times (as mentioned by Johnson) those cover titles make it seem as though women need to be gorgeous, sexual creatures who know every rule to making sex easy and wonderful, a perpetuation of Dr. Galician’s myths 4 and 5.
I was thinking about our discussions in class about magazines, especially Cosmo and Maxim and decided to pull out my one issue of Cosmopolitan that I own. It’s the newest issue with Lauren Conrad. As talked about in class, her stance is one where she is standing confidently with her hand placed ever so perfectly on her thigh. This photo could show women, that you have to be thin, have long hair, be tan, and have perfect breasts to hold confidence. Next, I noticed the headlines on the cover; they are large, bold, and attract your attention with edge, raw words. My issue featured articles called: “100 SEX Questions,” Virgins in Cosmo! We thought this day would never come,” “You on Top,” “4 Signs He’s Craving You,” and the small line, “Cut 100 Calories at Any Meal.” Some of these articles are about just what they say they are; like the 100 SEX Questions. But, others are about how to be successful: You On Top. But who is going to stop and examine that? All people care about is what looks dangerous and exciting on the cover of a magazine.
I was interested in checking out Cosmo and Maxim’s websites to see if those forms of their media are as risqué as their magazines. And… they are. The first titles I noticed on the home page of Cosmo was “5 Annoying things Guys do on Facebook,” “A Meal that will Mesmerize him,” and “Cosmo’s Sex School.” And with Maxim I first noticed “Today’s Girl,” “Nutsack safety tip #286,” and “Maxim.com’s DVD aphrodisiac.” Once I moved on to their sex topic links I noticed more provocative titles like “7 Kinds of Sex all Couples need,” “Hot 100,” “10 things to do with Ice,” and “Hometown Hotties.” I’m sure you could make an intelligent guess as to which title belongs to which website.
With all these titles it’s easy to see how and why they catch a reader’s attention. But, one thing I will never understand is why we (including myself) put ourselves through reading things that make us seem unattractive, unsuccessful, and just plain bad at sex?!?
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I too am a Cosmo reader and every single time I pick up an issue I ask myself, “Why do you keep buying this silly magazine?” I think the basis for this question is that I ultimately enjoy the laid back feel of Cosmopolitan. The magazine itself is not stuffy and at times it really does have interesting articles that step outside the myths that the magazine constantly perpetuates. Although, every time I buy an issue I feel incredibly ridiculous for doing so. I feel that there are stigmas attached to reading certain magazines and I think that cosmo is one such magazine. As you stated these sexually oriented magazines have blatant sexual content thrown all over their covers. I myself sometimes feel embarrassed buying or checking out a copy of cosmo that has headlines like “Sex that he Craves” or “100 sex positions.” It just makes me wonder what kind of society we have become in which it is okay to openly display these types of “tips.” I don’t want to sound like a prude and I will be the first to admit that sex is a huge factor in relationships but it constantly surprises me that there is that type of advice and articles everywhere we look. I think the reason why I question the availability of such “advice” is because anyone can buy this magazine, for instance teenagers. Now, in my opinion I really don’t think that 14 year olds should buy or read cosmo, I think they have more important things to worry about. However, this is a little off topic. But you are right, this type of magazine constantly puts women down as not being adequate enough and what is worse, woman buy this magazine because they believe this is true. I feel that we read this magazine to gain confidence but I don’t think that is what ultimately happens. I feel that just by reading this magazine our confidence drops because we see images of courageous, airbrushed models and we tell ourselves that we will never achieve this. I think that magazines like Cosmo are confidence roller coasters; addicting and full of confidence lows and highs. But despite knowing all of this, I will still read the magazine and I will probably still feed into the myths it expresses.
ReplyDeleteHey, I have never really been much of a magazine reader, but I do like to read to cover lines when I’m standing in line at the store waiting my turn. I agree with you that it just doesn’t make sense for us to read them, knowing in the back of our minds we may never look like the girl on the cover/ or even have the things she has. It’s something we do without even thinking about it and we keep putting ourselves through disappointment. It’s interesting that stores put those magazines right in our way so that we have to browse them while waiting in line. Where is the censorship? Should young kids have to be subjected to this kind of information? I don’t think so and it can be embarrassing even for adults standing in line. It almost seems like these types of magazines should be in adult book stores. I was at a race track over the weekend and there were young girls walking around half naked to promote a pin-up race calendar. What really bothered me was that the track hired these young girls to flaunt themselves in front of thousands of people and boy oh boy were the guys standing around them with their tongues hanging out. It really was quite embarrassing!! Girls see this type of behavior on magazine covers and are compelled to copy these images. What really bothers me more than this is that the parents allow this to happen. Where is the sanity in that?
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