Yay for sales and rambling

[veronica_rich]

To assuage the pain of getting stuck with a $500 bill for replacing my car's compressor in order to have A/C (still cheaper than buying a new car at this point - as long as the engine turns over and it doesn't use oil, knock on wood, I'm keeping it), I bought just a few inexpensive things yesterday at St. Louis, including this t-shirt at the Disney store for only $5. If it had had her in a princess ball dress, I would've sailed right by it, but I like her in the piratey getup. I wish I could find a companion Will shirt in my size (they had, on sale, a tiny girl's tank top with Will on the front of it - I don't even WANT kids, and I'd adopt a daughter just to dress her in this, it was so cute).

Also, in the Department of Huh?, my folks like to get what I call "the scandal sheets," which I used to do for free at the drugstore when I lived down South once a week with my cheeseburger (the point is, I wouldn't pay to read the Star and InStyle and OK!, but oh well) - yes, they're pieces of crap, but it never hurts to know what's going on in your world, even the unimportant shit. Now I realize these things are the worst thing in the world to read - it may seem the other way around on the surface, that downgrading "the beautiful people" will make normal folks feel better about themselves, but the truth is that a lot of people either (a) identify with someone famous and feel bad when they're down, or - and this is me - (b) just plain don't like other people's misery (unless they've done something to me personally, then HELL yes).

If you're like me and just looking for glimpses of Johnny or Orlando or Rebecca looking cute, it's not a problem. But actually stopping and *reading* these so-called articles is a mistake; it's just misery upon misery, catty remarks and grand tales possibly based on a grain of truth that doesn't matter in everyday life. And the stuff they focus on NEVER changes and is so harmful - who can't get pregnant, "bump watches" (*retch*), who's gay, who's on the skids, who looks like shit, etc. What gets me is most of it is directed against women ... when women are these rags' primary purchasers. WTF?

But anyway. I did find a laugh in the latest Star that has the "beach bodies" on the cover - who has the best, the worst, etc. It's basically nothing but photos of stars (mostly women) in their skivvies and remarks about who looks toned and good, and who looks flabby and bloated. What cracked me up is reading the editor's remarks near the front of the magazine - without actually reading any of it, I just glanced at the photo of the woman. Now, I'm fat; I do not look wonderful in a swimsuit (but I go swimming anyway because that's how little I give a shit). But I can only imagine what THIS woman would look like by her head shot. She would FAR outdistance any of these "fatties" in a swimsuit - and here she is, yet, leading the gleeful charge. Again, I have to ask, WTF?

So, I wonder from you reading this: Are these things meant to make you feel better about yourselves, or just worse and, if that's the case, is actually *reading* them (as opposed to just flipping through for photos of people you like in pretty clothes) a form of masochism?

Comments

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

is actually *reading* them (as opposed to just flipping through for photos of people you like in pretty clothes) a form of masochism?

Yes. For me it would be, certainly. Actually, I don't even like looking at them-- they always seem to pick the awfullest pictures they can find of these pretty people. To make us feel better about ourselves? That's awful, for everyone concerned.

Yay for Disney piratey garb! Very cute shirt.

[benkenobigal.livejournal.com]

I glance at the covers when I'm in line and mostly laugh at the BS there. If there's something about the weight of this actress or the waistline of that actor I'm disgusted and don't even look.

I look in People or Entertainment Weekly for Orlando articles/pictures. :)

[elessil.livejournal.com]

In the cases I read them, I considered them highly amusing to read and mock, sort of like reading teenie magazines.

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

I think they're meant to show that Hollywood isn't as perfect as it's made out to be, which ought to be somewhat relieving because so many people literally make themselves nuts by emulating the Hollywood ideal (especially the surface beauty), but it really doesn't.

Anywho, when I see them, I loko at the pics and try to figure out how the photo was touched up/altered. I don't even think the pics are genuind half the time.

[ainsoph15.livejournal.com]

I work in fashion, but in the manufacturing side of the industry. I haven't actually read, and have barely even glanced at a fashion magazine in about two years, because now I see it as work. I know what's going to be in the magazines, clothes-wise, before they're even published, and the clothes, not the gossip, and certainly not the articles, was always what appealed to me before. I used to get them all the time, several years ago, and even subscribed to a few because I was interested in the fashion, and also, I was morbidly curious about the idea of image-selling. Now, if I want my celeb fix, I'll look on the internet. If I want an intelligent article, I'll read the New Scientist (or just read a book about a subject that interests me). The articles in fashion magazines are so depressing. I hate all that 'real-life' sob story crap. As for the body-fascism, that's what I hate most of all. Women are always portrayed as being too thin, too fat, too slutty, too career-driven at the expense of their families and husbands, lonely singletons etc. No one is ever applauded for being happy, or successful. Yes, it's riled me for as long as I can remember that these are labels that are perpetrated by other women. As you pointed out, there seems to be this odd cycle of the very magazines/media that bemoan the fact that women are made to feel pressurised to conform to a certain mode of appearance and behaviour, that also condemn women when they don't conform to those standards. These standards are to a much greater degree imposed by other women, NOT by men. The hypocrisy and, indeed, misogyny that women demonstrate towards other women is deeply frustrating.