France's Cosmopolitan: Inexplicably Tackling the Unexplained

So!  We’re back!  It’s been a life-changing and thoroughly wonderful couple of weeks.  We got married.  We went to Paris for ten days.  And we learned some very important lessons:  always have safety pins on hand when wearing a strapless dress; real butter is pretty much the best thing ever; and never, ever take it for granted that your suitcases will arrive at the airport when you do!

Also?  We picked up a huge stack of French magazines and learned that—surprise!—in many ways, they’re as mindless as their stateside counterparts.  Reading the November issue of French Cosmopolitan was a struggle.  Sure, we haven’t had a French class in a decade, but the U.S. edition is written at about a ninth-grade level (both in language and maturity), so we hoped we’d manage despite our years of forgotten verb tenses.  (Not like we ever mastered le subjonctif anyway.)  Nope!  Worse, what we did understand still didn’t make any sense.

For instance:  the supplement bundled with the November issue.  Titled “La magie est en moi,” (“The Magic Is In Me”), we figured it would be some sort of boosterish self-confidence tract.  You know, believe in yourself!  Embrace your curves!  You don’t need that scoundrel of a man!  Etc.

Mais non!  Instead, there were articles that were...well...actually about magic.  It was a little beyond for us, frankly.  There was a piece about contacting guardian angels, because, the article claims, we all have one!  They even managed to photograph one in the wild!  Good thing they identified her as an angel, too, or we’d have just thought she was a teenager in a see-through dress who got lost on her way to a rave.  The article also features a chart of what angels govern which days and what color to wear to please them.  We guess that qualifies as a fashion suggestion?

Elsewhere in the supplement, there are confessions of “magical” rites conducted by Cosmo readers (almost as compelling as the sex confessions in the American edition, which is to say, not at all); and a profile of several young Wiccans, accompanied by a photo of young women with smoky eye makeup dressed in gauzy black dresses.  See, it ’s not just American magazines that illustrate their stories with unimaginative photos!

Most mind-boggingly, the supplement contains a perforated set of tarot cards featuring such, uh, non-traditional icons as “Madonna, La Superstar” and “Bjork, La Visionnaire.”  Apparently, Paris Hilton and Victoria Beckham can predict our future, which is pretty much the most appalling idea we’ve ever read in Cosmo.  Scarlett Johansson and Bill Gates augur positive events!  Better hope you don’t turn over the Jennifer Aniston card, though.  (See the complete set behind the jump.)

The whole thing closes with Cosmo’s list of recommended psychics, complete with phone numbers.  But we didn’t call.  After reading this supplement, it was patently clear what our next step should be.

Comments

[Laura]

I'd be more concerned if I got the Britney Spears.

[Alice]

Yikes -- the French Cosmo is one of the mags I try to avoid over here, precisely because of this kind of stuff... Then again, lots of the femme magazines in France have major sections devoted to your horoscope and "voyance" -- it is a bit incomprehensible...

You might have gotten a kick out of Biba, and then of course there's the classic French Elle -- my all-time favorite read, because it's a weekly edition over here! And it has some great book and movie reviews.

[Glossed Over]

We read Biba on the plane home and were thoroughly confused (and not by all the words we didn't understand, either!). Who reads Biba? It seemed to be all over the place, with articles about threesomes and online shopping, clothing under 50 euros, advice on hiring an assistant, and a spread of baby clothes. Each time we thought we'd pinned down the target audience, we were proven wrong!

We have the French editions of Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and Glamour sitting on our desk...can't wait!

[The Brunette]

I find it quite amusing that there's only one French celebrity in the tarot cards (the rapper Diam's).

Anyone who thinks that the French are more sophisticated than Americans obviously hasn't read their general-interest women's magazines. Their editions of Vogue and Elle seem great, but I can't tell if they're as pretentious than their American counterparts.

[Alice]

Oh, you're absolutely right about being totally unclear on the targeting-their-market part -- I didn't even think about that! Basically lots of age groups seem to read Biba, I think -- or at least that's what they're trying to convey! I basically ignore the articles on things like "how to hire your own assistant" (yeah, RIGHT!) and page through the fashion pages, which at least aren't as intimidating as Vogue or Elle, and I even like the cooking pages at the end of Biba... It's the little quirky things I like best, I guess. And even though I know Vogue France is one of the most fashion-forward (what with Carine Roitfeld and all) I just find it too pretentious -- it wouldn't be doing anything but sitting on my coffee table looking pretty! Which I guess is the aim of most magazines anyway...

Sounds like you picked up quite a lot of good ones, though! Elle is definitely my overall favorite, even if I don't get the French humor and some of the articles.

[Whitney]

Mags from other countries are always more fun to read. I remember when I was a teen, I bought a magazine called Sugar (a teen magazine based out of the U.K.). It was one of the most bizarre magazines I've ever read, the humor was especially odd for a magazine aimed at teenage girls (ex. a celeb photo spread with penciled-in fart clouds coming out of various celebs butts like Liz Hurley). I remember it also had a big section devoted to mystical stuff, like runes and horoscopes, I remember the magazine came with a pack of tarrot cards. That sort of stuff seems more popular overseas.