Glamour Undermines Its Under-the-Skin Message

The October edition of Glamour is all about age. You know, it’s the issue where they divide women into incredibly broad and stereotypical categories based on one small facet of our existence and then expect us conform exactly to one of those groups.

Oh, wait, that’s every issue.

I’ll start with the upper right hand of the cover:

Love Your Looks

Rachel Bilson, Ali Larter & Diane Lane Tell How

Awesome. There’s nothing I love more than a woman on the cover of a fashion magazine explaining to me how I can learn to appreciate my appearance. The obvious: If I resembled one of those three, I’d have no trouble loving my looks.

So what enlightenment does this trio offer? Let’s check out “Gorgeous at Any Age” to find out!

Rachel Bilson is dubbed “Confident at 27.” Well, wouldn’t you be confident if you could be described the way she is?

She’s already starred in a successful TV series, The O.C., bought a home and launched a brand new fashion line for DKNY Jeans…[To Rachel] You’re a young woman with a successful career at an age when a lot of your peers are starting out. You probably have a little money in the bank and a sense of direction about what’s coming next.

See how easy it is to feel good about yourself? Just star in a TV show and design a clothing line in conjunction with a major apparel label! There is one glimmer of hope here, though: 27 is considered young!

It gets better, though. Next up, Ali Larter, who is “Sexy at 32”! (Sexy, eh? Like women of 32 are typically asexual prunes?) Here’s what she has to say about the purported subject of this section:

I actually think I look better now [than when she was in her twenties] because I feel so much better about myself now. And that’s what’s so exciting. As you get older, you get better…Look at all these incredible women, like Vanessa Redgrave, who are still so beautiful. The reason is because they embrace who they are.

That may be the healthiest, most reasonable attitude about aging ever printed in a women’s magazine.

Finally, there’s the “Red-Hot at 43” Diane Lane, who offers a similarly sensible approach:

...there is something wonderful about coming to terms with time—that it is finite. You want to have as much joy in your life as possible, and you take responsibility for your own joy.

How does Glamour follow up all this talk about surrendering to the inevitable and learning to respect yourself? With two pages full of expert advice, makeup, and skincare products to “work your looks.”  Loving yourself is spectacular, but you’d like yourself even more if you got rid of that frizzy hair and applied some bronzer!

Admittedly, appreciating “the skin you’re in now” involves loving your actual skin. But if self-esteem starts on the inside, as the rest of the article suggests, shouldn’t the advice for developing that go beyond, well, skin deep? I think so, but that’s probably because I haven’t shelled out for the Glamour-endorsed $155 anti-aging cream. Hey, why bother developing inner beauty at all? There's always someone at the cosmetics counter willing to sell it to me in a jar.

Comments

[Jessica]

While it's nice that 27 is considered young, it's a shame that they could hardly stomach to push beyond 40 in this article. But maybe that's because, at age 40, you apparently "surrender," to use your word for it. The unspoken message, even if unintentional, is that anyone over 42 isn't worth the attention (at least of this magazine). Though I DO remember some woman's magazine a while back touting Raquel W. as sexy in her mid-fifties.
Even if women in their 50's and 60's and 70's aren't a part of the market that this magazine is selling to, it would be great for younger women to not feel like they are quickly going to approach that point at which they fall off the map in terms of both desire and self-worth.

[Glossed Over]

I completely agree. This issue contributes to a media atmosphere where older women are practically invisible--and where they do exist, they're rarely sexy.

Is it a question of targeting the magazine to its audience? Using Glamour's own circulation figures*, their audience includes more than 2 million women who are either younger than 18 or older than 44. However, most readers are 25-34.

There are some occasional exceptions in women's mags: Vogue's age issue includes women well into their seventies (and occasionally beyond), and Bazaar's "Fabulous at Any Age," which is in every issue, suggests styles for women up to "70+". It's a start.

* Circulation figures are here: http://www.condenastmediakit.com/gla/circulation.cfm. I took the number of women readers and subtracted the number of readers 18-24, 25-34, and 35-44 to reach that conclusion. The numbers may be skewed since Glamour lists a total of male readers but doesn't break them down by age.

**This isn't a footnote, but self-promotion. I wrote about this exact subject in Bitch magazine last year. There's a PDF of the article at http://www.glossedover.com/glossed_over/media.html.

[Jessica]

I enjoyed the article you linked to. I also thoroughly enjoy your site.
I think that "writing for a target audience" is the typical excuse that would be given by any one of these magazines, should they ever actually be cornered into a discussion like the one above. A magazine has to sell, after all. However, as I mentioned, the acknowledgment of older women would make me feel a little less conscious that I am only a "desired" target audience (or target of anything, for that matter) for a limited period of time, after which I will be expected to hang up my efforts, whether in fashion, popularity, success, dating, worth to society, etc. I don't know, I don't imagine that this is a conscious fear lurking in the minds of women as they read these articles, but I would think that there is some strange discomfort "zone" of women who are, say, 29 and have a myspace account :) When will I feel foolish picking up an Elle due to my age? And before I do feel foolish, won't I be encouraged to view those older women who "try" in some contemptible or condescending way?
I'm not saying (or expecting) that these magazines will/should do something wildly forward or socially minded such as actually try to extend their target audience and publish to that effect. Then they wouldn't be what they are. And they probably wouldn't be as popular (or not in the same, Hollywood-esque way). It's just interesting to note the kind of implicit club that forms when articles like the one above are posted.
Of course, you do note the exceptions, and I have seen them myself. And among the exceptions it is still hard to find good articles that don't find ways of mucking it up by being patronizing or harping on "age-appropriateness" (I'm not personally against the idea of age-appropriateness, mind you), or just in general giving bad advice to young and old alike. I think for now, magazines have picked up on more of the fad of showing an interest in "real" women and topics such as politics and careers, but are still filtering these subjects through a more artificial formula and not giving truer and more thoughtful attention to them. They are there, but not believable. I'm not convinced of their sincerity. But, as you say, they are at least there, if only to ensure the magazine's survival amid a growing population of women who are demanding more intellectually from these places.
Apologies for the length of this response!

[laylaness]

I have to say, I'm beginning to really respect Ali Larter. I don't know where I got the impression of her as a airheaded starlet, but every magazine interview I read with her makes me like her more.

I've always been an admirer of Diane Lane. She seems like she has a very healthy outlook on life in general.

RE: 40+ aged women in magazines like Cosmo and Glamour: I sincerely hope I am not reading these magazines when I am 35, let alone 50 or 60. At least Harper's and Vogue take a stab at culture that could appeal to older women. I just don't see it in this particular market.

[Ida]

Of course, you do note the exceptions, and I have seen them myself. And among the exceptions it is still hard to find good articles that don't find ways of mucking it up by being patronizing or harping on "age-appropriateness" (I'm not personally against the idea of age-appropriateness, mind you), or just in general giving bad advice to young and old alike.

[philoclea]

This is my first time commenting on the site, although I do do a great deal of smiling and nodding.

There's a women's mag I read when I'm in Germany called Myself. Pretty standard fare, though it does have more in-depth "career" articles than I've seen in American magazines. Well, this summer they had a "love the skin you're in" kind of photo spread, and you know what they had? Normal women, not stars, of all ages (including into the 60's as I recall), photographed in the nude.

It nearly made me cry. Some were thinner, some were thicker, one had lost a breast to cancer... Many talked about how their bodies had changed after childbirth. They all, even the thin ones, had a little tummy. Nobody's buttocks were perfectly round and taut. I seriously had never seen real bodies in a magazine before, and just seeing it made me realise how normal my own body is, and how abnormal everything I see in the ads is.

What I'm trying to say is, it can be different. And seeing real people, people with lives and jobs that don't allow for strict dieting and three hours of exercise a day, is pretty freakin' liberating.

[JESSICA BERN]

That is why I love the British actors. They pretty much only care about one thing, ACTING. I belong to a gym here and the number of saline boobs I run into during my five minutes in the locker room is insane. I resent all the messages these rags send out that after 40 you might as well get a shovel and bury yourself. I've never looked better, never had more confidence and actually feel real happiness for the first time in my life and there is no skin cream in the world that's going to make that happen.