Glossed Over

Allure's Olympic Coverage: Beach Volleyball and Butts

Tonight, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh will compete for their third consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball. (Update: they won!) Back in the July issue of Allure, they were profiled in a story called "Golden Girls," which, by the way, is a title so played out it should be banned. Especially when, in the case of this article, the text is less about gold medals and more about, well, ass.

And not just the lingering shots of barely clad butts that you've come to expect from the quality coverage of beach volleyball available to us here in the USA. (Thanks, NBC!) No, Allure manages, somehow, to take the media's obsession with beach volleyball players' bodies to Olympian heights.  

The article opens on a Southern California beach. May-Treanor and Walsh, wearing bathing suits (of course), are walking on the beach to their practice spot. Along the way, they capture the attention of a man playing a casual game of volleyball. Imagine if you were playing volleyball in the sand, and along come the world's foremost players. What would you think?

Pretty much the exact opposite of this guy, I'm guessing. Also, unlike this chump, you'd probably be able to form complete sentences.

His reaction, so insightful it apparently demanded to be immortalized in print:

"Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass," he mumbled to his teammates. As if on cue, a small crowd of tourists, surfers, lifeguards...squinted into the blazing sun to watch the women walk by.

"Ass, ass, ass, ass," the man repeated, a little louder this time. "That's some five-star ass."

Was his comment offensive? Sure. Objectifying? Of course. But accurate? ...Absolutely.

Was his comment disgusting? Sure. Would it be street harassment if it had occurred there instead of on the beach? Of course. But Allure still thought it necessary to include? Absolutely! And in case you didn't get exactly what this guy was carrying on about, because "ass, ass, ass" is really quite complex, Allure helpfully included this giant picture of--you guessed it!--what appears to be Walsh's ass.

There's not actually a caption explaining whose ass it is, at least not in the Kindle edition, so I deduced based on the bikini. Congratulations, Allure! You've just won the gold medal in the dehumanizing the subjects of your article! 

Next, the article details the women's accomplishments, but veers almost immediately into something far more challenging: bikini line hair removal! Because what's really important isn't their world championships, it's their pubic hair. Then:

Therein lies a dichotomy: Yes, they are extremely serious athletes [apparently it's necessary to remind the reader of this, since the author has done little to relay this key point], but there is no getting around the fact that they're also "girls running around in bikinis," as Walsh puts it.

Yes, hard to get around that, when a national magazine opens its profile with a story specifically highlighting that. 

While it's a relief to know that these women have hang-ups about their bodies...

It's not a relief. It's terrible. I know this line is supposed to make Walsh and May-Treanor seem relatable, but it's depressing as hell. If I ever manage to reconfigure my DNA so that I too can be six feet tall and totally ripped, I will walk around naked. Constantly. In public. THERE SHALL BE NO HANGUPS. 

Off the beach, the women are plenty girlish.

Oh good! I wouldn't want their lives as professional athletes to somehow diminish a total stranger's arbitrary assessment of how much they resemble a child! 

You get the idea. In the every-four-years glut of women's mag articles about athletes, "Golden Girls" fits right in. And while it's kind of annoying to see athletes reduced to such trifles when I'd rather know, say, how they stay focused, the beauty articles make some sense. I mean, I go swimming once a week and my hair is like steel wool for days after--so, sure, I would like to know what conditioner Natalie Coughlin uses.

But, other than an aside about oily sunscreens affecting the volleyball, Allure's article never quite achieves that winning (sorry) combination of unique athletic perspective and fun beauty chat. The piece talks about how the two look great in bikinis, but not how to select a perfectly fitting one. It mentions how well sand exfoliates, but not how to moisturize after. And, of course, there is the ass picture. 

At one point in the story, Walsh says, "I can honestly say I haven't felt objectified one day in my life." I hope, after Allure's article, she still feels that way.

Springing Forward with Six New Magazine Covers

Hi. It's been a while since I've been here. That's because I've been having a tremendous New York depression adventure!

But these new issues—well, their covers—are forcing me out of my silence. I mean, have you seen these things? So I'm going to write brief, snarky comments about a few covers, and I'll hope you'll humor me by pretending this is a real post. Cool?

Lucky

Perhaps it's because of my advanced age, but I do not aspire to look "So. Damn. Cute." You know who is "so. damn. cute."? My cat. Except I would say "so damn cute," because that thing with the periods was over in like 2009.

Glamour

Hunger Games and "Acne Smackdown": is Glamour going for the teens? Kudos to the Glamour staff for finding an actress whose face hasn't yet adorned a million glossies (ahem, InStyle); no kudos for the word "ballsy." Bravery has no genitals!

Cosmopolitan

You get the feeling Cosmopolitan would have stuck that pink "25 Fun, Free Dates" bubble right over Megan Fox's face if they thought they could get away with it. Way, way too much going on here, and it's all distracting me from what really matters, which is—duh!—trying to figure out who has the hottest butt in Hollywood. 

Bazaar

Three things:
1. Angelina Jolie did it better.
2. What better way to exemplify "Fabulous at every age" than by putting a 28-year-old on the cover?
3. I really hope "10 New Looks that Matter" includes an explanation of why they matter, because that will probably be the most hilarious thing I read all year.

Elle

I like to think I speak for the entire world when I say, "Was this really necessary?"

It's not that pregnant women aren't lovely or that they shouldn't be on magazine covers. It's that this pose has been done to death. It's that a pregnant woman posing nude feels remarkably similar to plus-size models posing nude, which is itself an uncomfortable mélange of sexualization and stylists just throwing up their hands in frustration. It's that fashion magazines apparently live in a world where clothes for non-sample-sized women just don't exist—except, oh look, they do! Which means this cover is really just another naked, Photoshopped female body on display in a cynical ploy for cash. 

I do, however, admire the juxtaposition of "Change your look instantly" with Simpson's burgeoning belly, because hello! Pregnancy is a great way to change your look. You know, when eye shadow and some new shoes just won't do...

(If your blood pressure can handle reading a more serious—but still snarky!—take on this cover, I liked this Dallas Observer post.)

And finally:

InStyle

Have you ever thought, "Gosh, I wish there were a major media outlet covering that little-known actress Jennifer Aniston. What's up with her love life? Does she work out? I wonder if she has opinions about those popular denim trousers!" I sure haven't, but apparently those people exist and they're buying this issue. I will not be among them.

What do you think about these covers? Anything good inside these issues?

The Fifth Annual September Vogue Liveblog

Good morning! Welcome to the fifth annual liveblog of the September issue of Vogue. Five years! 

The rules: I have not opened this issue, nor have I read any blog posts/articles/embittered rants about its content. I will, however, admit to watching Racked try to smash snack foods with this sucker. It's heavy! The liveblog goes in chronological order; refresh the page to see the latest updates.

Oh, and one more thing. As I mentioned in the video, I will be tweeting during the day using the hashtag #vogueliveblog, and I would love for you to use that hashtag too! As a small token of my gratitude for all of you out there reading along with me, I'll be giving The September Issue on DVD to three randomly selected people who tweet a link to this site and the hashtag between 10 a.m. today and 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday. (This is not a sponsored giveaway, just me spending my own money to send three lucky people a movie. US and Canada only, sorry.) Remember, your tweet must include both a link--you can use http://bit.ly/vogueliveblog11--and the hashtag #vogueliveblog to be eligible to win.  [Contest now closed, winners declared.] Thanks for being here!

Now let's get going.

Vogue Liveblog 2010: The One with Halle Berry on the Cover

The other day someone asked me why I still do the liveblog. After all, I've done it three years in a row. Isn't it time to move on? To which I say: Definitely not! I've been so focused on my day job lately that I'm barely finding time to read anything. (Alas, snarking on fashion magazines does not pay the rent, though I'm willing to entertain offers.) If not for this liveblog, I might never read September Vogue. That page count is intimidating!

As always, the rules: I have not opened this issue of Vogue. I have not read what any other writers thought about this issue. I'll be looking at everything except the cover for the first time. The liveblog happens in real time, so just hit refresh on this post to see the latest entries. And I'll be posting periodic updates on Twitter and Facebook throughout the day, too.

Here we go!

A Sticky Situation in Lucky's September Issue

In its patriotic mission to stimulate the economy, Lucky does everything it can to make shopping easier for the few, the proud, the misanthropes who detest malls, and the between-sizes Americans prone to fitting-room meltdowns. With the stickers marked “YES!” and “MAYBE?” in every issue, vicarious shopping has never been easier! 

This month, instead of tearing out the stickers to annotate a publication with actual paragraphs (like, say, a book), I actually affixed them to the magazine's comparatively noteworthy pages. And in my mission to help you avoid “reading” Lucky, here's what I culled from the September issue:

YES! I may need the entirety of Anna Sui’s Gossip Girl-inspired collection for Target, now that I’ve seen the two-page ad near the front of this issue. Unchecked spending on stuff I don’t need makes me a good American, right?

YES! Just as expected, Kim France’s “Editor’s Letter” does acknowledge the crummy financial climate, but adds that “against all odds,” the magazine’s fashion editors found plenty of great stuff for fall. Such sacrifice!

YES! Lucky continues its slaughter of the English language on page 94, trotting out the non-word “splurgier.” Are there fuses in my brain? Because I think one just blew.

MAYBE? It is totally acceptable to shop at outlets. If you’re in Italy and buying stuff at the Prada outlet, that is. (page 108)

YES! There exists an article of clothing called “zoot pants,” and Lucky’s “Style Spy” expects you to wear them for fall.

YES! Lucky’s editors may suffer from long-term memory loss, since they’ve managed to load up “The Smart Shopping Sourcebook” with heaps of accessories and clothes under $100, but can’t seem to remember those stylish bargains long enough to insert many of them in other features.

YES! According to “Accessories Report,” eyeglasses are in for fall. Great! I hate when glasses are out and I have to go around squinting. Suffer for fashion, right? (Or, you know, wear them and look like I don’t care about my appearance at all.)

MAYBE? Ed Hardy’s new perfume, which, according to the ad in this issue, is a “vintage tattoo inspired fragrance,” could be less appealing. But probably not.

YES! Cosmetics are the sure path to happiness and fulfillment! According to “Beauty Spy,” hot pink blush will make you “instantly feel 5,000 times prettier.” The latest anti-wrinkle potions are “kind of miraculous.” A saffron lip stain is “unexpectedly gorgeous”—for $65, it had better be. A new Maybelline lipstick is “perfect,” and a handful of acne products work with “stunning efficiency.” Yay!

MAYBE? Despite the wisdom so altruistically dispensed on page 214, most readers probably don’t need detailed instructions on shampooing.

YES! It is possible to “Love Your Hair,” as page 224 exuberantly instructs. It doesn’t require a shift in perspective—just a heap of drugstore products, a $140 flat iron, and a $34 shampoo. Easy!

MAYBE? We shouldn’t take beauty editors’ advice as gospel, since in “Skin Regimens of Beauty Editors,” one confesses that she hates washing her face at night and another never takes off her eye makeup before bed. As all of us who’ve been indoctrinated by a lifetime of women’s mags know, not washing up before sleeping is a cardinal sin.

MAYBE? I might have actually used the stickers to mark various pages of the “Lucky Fall Shoe Guide.” I’ll never tell.

YES! As noted in “40s Modern,” the right clothes can make me “magpie-cool.” Whatever that means.

YES! A $415 leopard-print blouse can be worn for work, weekend, and evening, according to “Fall’s Most Versatile Pieces.” Good thing, too, because at that price, it’d be the only blouse I own.

MAYBE? An $1195 Emporio Armani jacket and $630 Bruno Frisoni pumps, as seen on pages 280 and 281, aren’t the best exemplars of the “punk rock” or “collegiate” style the spread is supposed to embody. But then, neither is posing those “punk rock” models in front of a nightclub advertising a show presented by Radio Disney. Oops!

YES! Now that I’ve read the entire issue, I do want to purchase a new wardrobe! Lucky, you’ve successfully completed your mission.

InStyle Makeover Needs a Makeover of Its Own

As I discovered this weekend, InStyle Makeover and Taco Bell are remarkably similar. They're both cheap and require a very strong gag reflex. 

What was it about this special issue that was so hard to swallow? Was it the $600 cosmetic case? The fact that some no-doubt-underpaid editorial assistant had to conceptualize the ways in which a purse can camouflage a “flawed” figure? Or that every woman made over in this issue didn’t really need a makeover?

Impossible beauty standards, you win again! And we lose.

Take a look at Vanessa Hudgens, who was given an “undone” makeover. This was the result:

According to InStyle, this is a “polished no-makeup look.” Don’t you roll out of bed sporting fake eyelashes and the exact right shade of nude lipstick? With a professional hairstylist and makeup artist at your disposal, this natural look is so easy to achieve!

A few pages later, “Plump + Go” features someone who actually isn’t wearing makeup. That’s because she’s a model preparing to be injected with four different substances—Botox, Perlane, Cosmoderm, and Restylane. So there are at least four reasons none of us look anything like the women we see in magazines.

Continuing the trend of making over people who don’t really need making over, “6 Weeks to Slim” pairs two magazine staffers with trainers who, naturally, impose ultra-strict quasi-scientific edicts. Do they lose weight? Yes. Did they need to lose it in the first place? Nope! Both have BMIs within the normal range.

Admittedly, the BMI is a flawed calculation. Fine. But this depiction of two slim women getting slimmer alongside a “Dress Yourself Thin” coverline and a food diary from manicurist Ji Baek, whose diet consists largely of champagne—it all sends a powerful message about our bodies.

It says that our bodies aren’t ours—they’re open for public comment. That they don’t exist for our pleasure or strength but instead that they are a source of shame. That starvation and sacrifice are the path to self-satisfaction.

As long as our bodies and faces belong not to us but to an ever-changing, ever-more-impossible standard, women will be going to war with themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise to see a magazine emphasize being healthy and strong instead of slender and young? Wouldn’t it be great to see a magazine stop referring to “boyish” figures, as if those women somehow aren’t female enough, and stop altogether ignoring larger women? Wouldn't it be a positive change to see a fashion spread focus on flattery instead of camouflage?

Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. To accomplish anything other than selling insecurity, InStyle Makeover would need a makeover of its own.

Lowest Common Denominator: Allure, August

33,683: Number of free items Allure is giving away in August, according to the cover

10: Pounds lighter, years younger, and times happier editor-in-chief Linda Wells claimed to appear after a bra fitting

$39.95: Price of faux-leather strapless dress from H&M that’s named as a “must” in “Fashion Cravings”

0: Probability, estimated, that any major magazine’s fashion editor has ever actually worn faux leather from H&M

Far, far too much: According to swimwear designer Malia Mills, the amount of maintenance a suit needs to avoid fading and stretching. Daily rinsing and a secondary suit just for wear in hot tubs? Like it isn’t hard enough to find one!

95: Page on which an advertisement for Latisse appears, asking “Not enough lashes?”

Boundless: The joy I’m apparently missing by not sleeping with my hairstylist, according to “Dirty Blondes.” The article claims stylist-client affairs are a “female pasha fantasy”

Heaps: Amount I loved “Time Warp” on page 141, wherein a fashion historian and a history professor discuss the realism of period-movie hair and makeup. More like this, please!

6: In “The New Cocoon,” number of items made of fur, including oh-so-practical shearling gauntlets

None: Amount of the diet advice in “The Fashion Insiders’ Diet” that’s novel to anyone who’s read a women’s magazine before. Really? Eat a piece of fruit before going out to dinner?

Tons: Disbelief inspired by this sentence in the diet’s introduction: “Models aren’t the only ones who feel pressure to be thin, and fitting into a sample size can sometimes feel like a job requirement—if not exactly a virtue—when you work in fashion.” Because, you know, that's just the way it is.

1989: Year from which Allure must have stolen the fluorescent-themed fashion spread “Plugged In”

Subtle Ad for Hair Removal Products Promotes "Mowing the Lawn"

What's most troubling about this commercial? Is it the unoriginal use of cats to represent the female anatomy? The racial stereotypes? The notions that pubic hair is "untidy" and "rough around the edges" and fun to remove? Or the fact that some executive thinks this commercial is a brilliant way to convince us to buy the product?

(Spotted at Feministing)

Deep Cover: Noteworthy Stories from the Newsstand

Occasionally, I read something other than fashion magazines! Even so, topics that relate to some of the most frequent complaints about the glossies arise frequently. I’ve culled these points of interest from recent readings:

The February issue of Wired graphed the BMIs of Playboy centerfolds from December 1953 to January 2009, and then compared the results to the BMI of the average American woman over the same time period. The outcome won’t surprise you: The models’ BMI shrank from 19.4 to 18.2, while the national average increased from 22.2 to 26.8. Wired points out that, while the stats could be skewed because the Playmates provide their own weights and measurements, what Playboy thinks its readers will consider ideal is far more revealing than the actual numbers.

 

The March issue of Psychology Today probes the growing frequency of suicide among teen girls. A new book, The Triple Bind: Saving Our Teenage Girls from Today's Pressures, postulates that society and the media subject girls to unrealistic pressures, creating strain when girls are expected to become caregivers, excel academically, and still fit conventional standards of beauty. Female role models, the book’s authors claim, are “ultra-sexy, ultra-feminized women, like the female surgeons on Grey’s Anatomy or swimsuit-modeling tennis players…” Ultra-sexy, ultra-feminized women? Like, say, the Photoshopped images that appear in fashion magazines?

 

And speaking of Photoshop, the editor-in-chief of Shape answered readers who wrote to complain about what they thought was the egregious retouching of singer Faith Hill’s bikini-clad body on an earlier cover. In March’s “Editor’s Letter,” Valerie Latona says, “I can emphatically and truthfully say we do not alter stars’ bodies: We select A-listers, like Jaime Pressly (whom we voted this year’s Sexiest Body in Hollywood), who are healthy role models—and have the curves to show for it.” In response to readers’ correspondence, the magazine says, “We never alter any Shape model’s body—including those on our cover. The women we feature put a lot of hard work into staying healthy and should be given the credit they deserve.”

Eva Longoria Dyes Her Hair at Home and Other L’Oréal Lies

The award for the most moronic advertisement in recent memory goes to the spread for Excellence To-Go hair color by L’Oréal Paris, as seen in the current issue of InStyle and on display in drugstores everywhere. What, you ask, could be so terrible about an ad for hair dye—other than, you know, furthering this ludicrous notion that we women are supposed to coat our scalps in a potentially toxic substance every few weeks so as not to offend anyone with a gray hair or two?
 

    

Well, for starters, there’s this manufactured quote from Eva Longoria:

Today, everything moves so fast, my haircolor has to be perfect. And it has to keep up.

This is going to torture me. No exaggeration: I may lie awake tonight wondering how hair dye is supposed to “keep up.” How can haircolor do anything other than smell wretched and stain my forehead? With what or with whom is it expected to keep up? And how offensive is it to pretend that Eva Longoria doesn’t have a personal hairstylist touching up her roots every six minutes?

Then there’s the “so fast” part of the statement. Yes, the world moves so insanely fast, MY HAIRCOLOR MUST ADAPT INSTANTLY. What? This is a product that is supposed to have a permanent effect. It does not change. There is nothing fast about hair dye except the speed with which it stains the paint on the
bathroom wall.

The adjoining page gets even worse, somehow:

Rich color in 10 MINUTES. Hair that feels STRONGER. For me, that’s a NEW REVOLUTION!

For me, this constitutes a compelling reason to NITPICK! And to RANT!

The nitpick: revolutions are by their very nature new. And the rant: co-opting the language of revolution to sell the very products whose necessity feminism rejects is absolutely noxious. I’ll take my revolutions in the form of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, thank you, not in hair color that shaves a whopping 5 minutes from competing brands’ processing time and is marketed to me as if coloring my hair every six weeks since age 18 has actually slaughtered 75 percent of my brain cells. (Never mind the possibility that, well, it has.)

Finally, there’s L’Oréal’s trademark:

Because you’re worth it.

Actually, L’Oréal, we’re worth more than that. If only your advertising reflected as much.