So as I arrived home last night from Toronto, my monthly subscription of Cosmopolitan was stuffed into my screen door. Damp and curled into a baton, the magazine itself is way too expensive to be bought at the store which is why I purchased a 34.00 yearly subscription back in sophomore year. The cover, much the same every month, has a heavily photoshopped picture of some celebrity usually in a similar pose with a similar tan. This month is Jessica Alba, a very girl-next-door type of beautiful but in somewhat risque clothing. The month's theme, is exactly the same as another one this summer: "Guy sex confessions" and focuses on fashion for the fall. The magazine itself dictates what is sexy, beautiful etc when it has little or even NO authority to do so.
The first ten pages of Cosmo are all advertisements. Usually the pricier things, with the skinnier models, with more airbrushing, by the time you get to the table of contents you're already debating going out to buy new clothes to make you look slimmer, or in this case more emaciated. My favorite part of the magazine is where they give you makeup tips, but the makeup they usually use is ridiculously expensive. The only way to get the look is to buy into the Dior or Chanel brand, when the majority of girls who read this magazine (note the use of female jurisdiction) have enough disposable income to buy covergirl and maybe even Revlon cosmetics.
But yet, time after time when perusing the aisles of the Bay or Wal-Mart stores, I find that any and every item showcased in Cosmopolitan flies off the shelves, l especially if its affordable or promises to 'cure' common teen issues like acne or increase breast size.
I still read cosmopolitan for the odd bit of schadenfreude, or what they call the "confessions". It's good to know that someone somewhere out there has done the same stupid stuff I have, or even way worse. Cosmo's main focus now is sex and looking sexy. A popular page in the magazine dictates through photos of celebrity behaviour what is considered sexy and skanky. It's similar to a "what's hot, and what's not" page and leaves me wondering who decides whether a particular trait or instance is good or bad, and whether the fact that moral quandary plays ANY role in that choice.
I question my efforts to pick apart the magazine, because as a die-hard Women's Health subscriber and health-nut, I find cosmopolitan to be the tabloid of women's magazines. It offers little useful advice and more often than not incorrect information. Cosmo is really just a good bathroom reader, in that it is filled with garbage and useless fodder. Why would a teen ever care to know 101 ways to give oral sex when Pakistan is in dire need of relief aid and disease is about to exponentially grow? Why would anyone want to read such a piece of crap when the world is so full of problems?
That's exactly why they read it. The world is such a hard place in which to be an optimist, and reading crap like Cosmopolitan not only lets us feel 'better' about certain situations ("Well at least I'm not so-and-so) and focuses our attention on material wealth. It teaches us that happiness is only a great pair of shoes away, that we are mere objects for men to play with, and that our only satisfaction comes from being wanted, as an object. We're bombarded with incorrect representations of the female form, computerised and digitally enhanced versions of breasts, eyes, lips and teeth so many times that we lose touch with what is considered beautiful and even normal. Flaws are normal, cynicism is commonplace, people are fat after size 6. The world is an ugly place.
But yet, when it came time to renew my subscription I hesitated only for a moment. I put off calling them and going through this conversation. I procrastinated and paid the price, after seeing the automatic charge put onto my credit card for 40.00.
That could have bought me a new pair of shoes.
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