Glossed Over

Lucky Thinks You Have the Body of a Model

The cover of Lucky’s August issue claims it features “The Best Jeans for Your Body—Ever!”

Unfortunately, it looks like the footnote to that coverline was omitted in what was surely a grievous copyediting error. After perusing the fashion spread in question, I’m certain that cover line should have read:

The Best Jeans for Your Body—Ever*

*if you are 5’11” and weigh 125 pounds

See, unlike most features that bill themselves as suggesting clothes “for your body” and therefore present at least a token range of body types, Lucky depicts only a slender model, head and torso cropped out of the frame, wearing the featured jeans. Ah, yes, it's the time-honored fashion magazine tradition of publishing cover lines that bear no resemblance to the article! 

So if you are very tall and your thighs don’t touch, you’re in luck! Not under contract with Ford Models? Lucky does not acknowledge your existence. Or your need for well-fitting pants. 

To be fair, the feature does include plenty of advice about how jeans should fit for optimum flattery. But is there a pair of snug pink straight-legs on earth that would look good on anyone but a model? (That's an actual example from page 115.)

While “The Lucky Guide to Denim” lacks body-type diversity, it does feature a range of denim trends. Some highlights:

Studded: Lucky calls these “unapologetically punky” and “a bit dangerous”—and nothing says punky and dangerous like $460 Just Cavalli denim!

Shredded: Ooh, jeans that are “all-out destroyed” are “rebellious.” What exactly are bleached and slashed jeans rebelling against? Pants that are, like, intact?

Dark, clean skinny: Says Lucky, these are the “ultimate day-to-night jean.” And they certainly are, if you work at a fashion magazine and jeans constitute appropriate office attire.

At the end of the guide, there's a promotion for an online video offering “tips on how to look great in jeans.” But why bother watching it? According to this feature, looking fantastic is simple. Just be genetically blessed and let the pants do the rest!

A Rant: Miley Cyrus, Thigh-High Boots, and the Fetishization of Youth

Oh no! Miley Cyrus looks vaguely mature in the August edition of Elle—cue the outrage!

At 16, is Miley too young to be posing “provocatively,” as she does in this feature? Riddle me this,  universe: what is the proper age to don thigh-high boots and a push-up bra in a national publication? Can you imagine the uproar if Elle had photographed an older woman, say Helen Mirren or Judi Dench, in similar attire?

Our culture has fetishized youth. We worship it. Women undergo surgery and inject toxins into their faces to maintain lineless complexions. They wax their nether regions to a pre-pubescent smoothness. Youth and attractiveness are coveted and prized to an insane extent, but a young woman wearing form-fitting black clothes—you know, being youthful and sexy—is somehow crossing a line? Forgive me if I find Botox a far more insidious force than Hannah Montana’s cleavage. 

Sure, these photos aren’t exactly congruent with the squeaky-clean way she’s normally packaged. But so what? Is it so shocking that, at 16, she might want to be portrayed in the media in a more adult fashion? After all, she's been working full-time for years. In many ways, she is an adult. And didn’t we all spend significant portions of our teen years trying really desperately to be viewed as grown-ups?

I'd much rather see a teen star wearing sophisticated clothes in an attempt to look sexy and mature than following that time-honored tradition of posing in lingerie for Maxim. (Hello, double standard! Where are the pictures of Justin Timberlake stripping to prove his readiness to move beyond boy bands?)

All that said, I'm troubled by the pervasive conflation of sexuality with maturity. Can't we have the "not a kid anymore" story without the requisite trying-hard-to-be-risqué photo shoot? (Sorry, Elle. It's just so predictable.) Even so, the downright hypocrisy of a society that so treasures sex appeal but condemns women for cultivating it is far more damaging than a glimpse of Miley’s decolletage ever will be.

Naked Celebrities Show Their "Spirit" in Allure

So, let’s discuss the nude women in the May issue of Allure, shall we? It’s a photo spread called “The Naked Truth,” and it does not start off well:

Five celebrities shed their clothes and reveal not just their bodies, but also their  confidence and spirit.

Indeed. There’s no better way to demonstrate self-esteem than by posing nude in a national magazine!

I’m sure taking the pictures was a life-affirming experience for all involved, but sadly, these photos do not provide the same effect for the rest of us. If I have to look like Eliza Dushku (who has three—three—personal trainers) to feel good about my body, I never will.

Also, how does getting naked reveal their “spirit”? Despite what some people (okay, men) I’ve met seem to believe, my personality does not reside inside my bra, and I’d think a women’s magazine would be more interested in fighting that notion than in furthering it. Or have I not mastered Allure’s little lesson in confidence?

“Just being female means we know how to hide our flaws—but this is a nowhere-to-hide kind of thing,” said actress Sharon Leal of Limelight. “It’s about embracing your body and feeling good.”

We may know how to “hide our flaws,” but that knowledge is gender-related only in that being a woman means our “flaws” are continually pointed out.

And why does “embracing your body” require taking your clothes off? The answer:

 “It’s important to do this to show young girls that beauty doesn’t have to be perfect,” said Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef.

Lakshmi has a scar on her arm from a childhood car accident, so she would know! I understand her concern, and it’s a valid one. But instead of teaching young girls that beauty doesn’t have to be perfect, maybe we should teach them to value themselves and others for something other than beauty. Maybe we should teach them that they can love their bodies without the need to prove it by disrobing. Conflating self-confidence with nude portraiture only reinforces the idea that our value lies in our appearance and sexuality.

Of course, confidence is inextricably linked with how we feel about our bodies. But I fail to see how painstakingly lit, gratuitously retouched pictures promote self-acceptance for anyone other than the women in the photos. Surely there is something more notable about each of these celebrities than the precision of her bikini wax.

One of the actresses pictured, Lynn Collins, told Allure that “It’s hard not to focus on vanity in this industry, because such a large part of it is about how you look.”  If only the magazine had realized that such an undue emphasis on appearance exists not just in Hollywood—and that photo shoots like this only exacerbate the problem. Next time Allure wants to demonstrate an actress’ “confidence and spirit,” a simple interview will suffice.

Bazaar: You'd Like Yourself More If You Stopped Eating Solid Food

The April issue of Bazaar contains the usual assortment of ludicrously priced fashion tagged as “investments” and “smart buys.” But because much has been written about that—and, sadly, because it’s no longer surprising—I’m going to mostly ignore Derek Blasberg’s off-putting article, which helpfully explains that the super-rich can still handily afford couture. I’m so happy for them! Also, the reference to John Galliano’s “let-them-eat-cake euphoria”? Charming.

Instead, let’s talk about “Tracy Anderson Muscles In,” a profile of the woman Bazaar dubs a “fitness guru” and I would call a “fitness guru, but only if you consider magazines’ absurd ideas about women’s bodies to be absolute gospel.”

This past summer, she tinkered with a drastic 14-drink-a-day liquid menu she may also bring to market. There have been times in her life when she has all but subsisted on the kale lemonade… Her prodigious eating habits shock and awe: the 30 cookies she ate in a row one weekend, an entire apple pie.

14 drinks a day? And that’s it? There’s some shock for you. My awe is reserved for the fact that a woman whose diet vacillates between liquid fasts and junk food binges is considered a fitness expert.

Tracy has an opinion about everyone else’s trendy regimens: Spinning, and its gift of a manly butt and legs. Pilates, which regrettably builds out the stomach. Weights for women? You might as well shoot steroids.

Silly me, I thought it was a penis that made one’s lower body manly! And the problem with weight training? Apparently, we women are supposed to be delicate and small—or, in Anderson's parlance, “teeny-tiny dancer types” with “teeny tiny” muscles. (Never mind that, like, every magazine ever has explained why lifting weights is beneficial and how to do so without adding unwanted bulk.)

“Gwyneth wants to look great naked too. I mean, so does Madonna.”…The method turns out to be less about vanity than self-esteem.

But is wanting to look good naked vanity or self-esteem? Does it even matter? Claiming that potentially harmful fitness regimens—like, say, refraining from actual food—are about self-esteem doesn’t instantly render them innocuous, and unilaterally imposing the "teeny tiny" standard isn’t particularly conducive to anyone's self-esteem.

In fact, I’d say it’s precisely the opposite. If the only way to be “teeny tiny” is to subsist on 14 glasses of lemonade a day, well, I’d rather eat cake.

Lowest Common Denominator: Cosmopolitan, March

1: Number of cover lines that made me cackle. “We are not kidding” is pure comedy

32: Page on which the word “shoegasm” appears

8: Actresses featured in “Red Carpet Confidence: Who Has It, Who’s Faking It”

Boundless: The inherent hypocrisy of a magazine that encourages its readers to be confident and then speculates about the confidence of celebrities. Does it serve any purpose to have a body-language expert declare that Renee Zellweger, Eva Mendes, and Brittany Snow appear uncomfortable in one particular red carpet photo?

59: Percent of men, according to “Guy Spy,” who “don’t want to know your nooky number”

6: Months I would like to travel back in time and use an assumed name to infiltrate Cosmo HQ and somehow prevent the term “nooky number” from ever appearing in print

$175: Retail price of a tank top deemed “cheap” on page 78

2: Number of pages between the $175 tank and “How to ‘Stretch’ Your Clothes,” which offers fashion-coping tips for those times “your checking account has taken a hit”

11: Number of “His Biggest Sex Secrets”

99.9: After reading “Is He Normal Down There?” and its incessant chorus of "it depends,” my inexpert estimate of the number of men who are, in fact, “normal down there”

13: Judging solely by the apparent necessity of using “down there,” the average age of Cosmopolitan readers

3: Assault and murder victims profiled in “The Hidden Work Danger”

Infinite: Locations where a woman can be brutalized by a man, according to “The Hidden Work Danger” and the psychopathic-behavior-of-the-month articles that appear in every single issue of this magazine

5: Bedtime rituals on page 164 that, claims Cosmo, will “keep you and your man connected”

2 weeks: Shelf life, approximate, of any relationship in which the participants need a women’s magazine to suggest that a kiss on the cheek might be a pleasant way to say good night

Onesie: Okay, it’s not exactly a number, but it is the name of a piece of clothing featured on page 173

2: Of the “45 Ways to Instantly Feel Sexy and Healthy,” number of tips which include the phrase “V zone”

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.”

The Slimming Secret of Glamour's "Best New Bodies": Childbirth

Dear Glamour,

Just a quick note about this page from your January issue:

Sure, her pregnant body was a significant departure from her usual peak shape, but carrying twins does not qualify Jennifer Lopez as the “before” in a weight-loss story—unless you’re touting the miraculous tummy-flattening benefits of giving birth.

Wait...are you?

Love,

Glossed Over

Lowest Common Denominator: Glamour, December

$1,712: Value of the gift bag from Glamour’s Women of the Year gala

68.75: Percent of honorees cited at least in part for their work improving the lives of women in poverty or oppressive situations

16: Women honored by Glamour for, in the words of editor-in-chief Cynthia Leive, “inspiring” other women

3: Celebrity hairstyles noted on page 86 as “Part Makeovers to Inspire You” (that’s “part” as in the part in your hair)

Null: Likelihood I would ever publicly admit to being “inspired” by the direction Gwyneth Paltrow combs her hair

10: Number of strategies suggested to “Make Over Your Body, Head to Toe,” including three for the face

2: Uses of the word “bling” on page 116

$895: Average price of the bling-encrusted bags on the same page

Boundless: My astonishment that anyone would spend $2,295 on a Valentino purse studded with hot-glued faux jewels

3: Body types represented in “The Sexiest Dress for Your Shape”

3: Number of “fun ways” to wear a scarf recommended on the next page

239: Page on which a Glamour staffer claims to have seen the term “sophisticated elf” as the dress code on an invitation

5: According to page 163, the count of “Fights Every Couple is Having Right Now”

100: Approximate percentage of those five conflicts that have been the basis for an episode of a network sitcom starring an average-looking former standup comedian and a gorgeous actress as his wife

9: “Sweet ways guys show their affection” in “100 Little Things that Renew Your Faith in Love”

1: Of those 9, the number which involve a man sleeping outside his girlfriend’s house without her knowledge. Sweet, eh?

4: Pages devoted to “I Don’t Care About Being a Size 2,” a beauty story featuring singer Adele

1: Total of photos of Adele where her body is actually visible below the neck

We Read It So You Don't Have To: Eva Longoria Parker Wants You to Know She Wears a Size Zero

Near the end of the “The Good Wife,” the profile of Eva Longoria Parker in the November issue of Allure, writer Judith Newman describes her subject this way:

Longoria Parker becomes quite animated during this discussion; there is always the sense that she is the little sister—and the hot girl—who was not always taken seriously.

A lack of self-awareness is so unbecoming. Having read this interview in its entirety, the only thing Newman takes seriously about Longoria Parker is her uterus. The woman is obsessing over the notion that an egg may have implanted itself in the actress’ womb. Such gynecological mania is a little unsettling, honestly.

But that’s not all the article contains! Also included:

• Multiple insinuations that, despite her denials, the actress is pregnant (Among the less-than-convincing factoids presented as evidence of an impending birth: she drank iced tea instead of wine with lunch and wore flats instead of Louboutin wedges)

• A painstaking dissection of the actress’ seven-pound weight gain

• The author “begging” the Desperate Housewives star to reveal whether she’s with child

Thought-provoking stuff, right? I’m not saying the two should have discussed the ongoing clashes in Congo. But even the most uninformed examination of that topic would have been a more enlightening read than the four outraged paragraphs that the star’s slight weight gain commands.

“I’ve stopped working out and gained about seven pounds over the summer, which is a lot for a small person,” she says. “But I’m still a size 0.”

Oh, good! Those size 2 women are just slothful!

“And yet every magazine is tearing me apart,” the actress continues. “It’s like, ‘Oh, my God! She’s fat!’ I hate that message they’re sending out to young women everywhere who think, ‘God, she’s a size 0, and she’s still too big.’…”

Magazines like this one, for which pregnancy is the only explanation for gaining weight?

Ordinarily, I’d concur wholeheartedly with Longoria Parker’s assessment—except that she vehemently reminds us readers that canceling her workouts was motivated by her character’s weight gain, and that she’s wearing padding on the show to simulate a more dramatic change. If you’re trying to sell the notion that the media is promoting unhealthy ideas about weight, maybe you shouldn’t protest at every available opportunity that you deliberately put on a few pounds for your extremely well-paying job. Maybe you shouldn’t announce that you’ve already gone back to your trainer to shed that extra weight, meaning you were a slightly more substantial size 0 for a month or two. Oh, the sacrifices thespians make for their art!

This is how she concludes her anti-tabloid screed:

“I never went up a size. I just got a little rounder.”

Why the repetitive rationalization based on her clothing size? Because if her size zeroes became a bit snug, then the criticism would be warranted? Because sizing up to a 2 would be definitive proof that she is, in fact, “fat”?

Of course not.  But judging by this article, Allure would probably take it as proof that she’s carrying quintuplets.

Mariska Hargitay's Skewed Self Assessment

Is Mariska Hargitay’s appraisal of her body self-deprecation, the misuse of a term commonly used to mean “plus-sized,” or the result of working in an industry where breakfast is a cigarette and a swig of Starbucks? I don’t know, but it depresses the hell out of me.

In the midst of an otherwise resoundingly sane statement about eating in moderation, she describes herself in a jaw-dropping way. From Self’s “Living the Joy,” November:

“I’m a full-figured woman.”

I can’t decide what’s sadder: the idea that the healthy-looking Hargitay is a Hollywood version of full-figured, or that actresses with sharp-as-knives shoulder blades are considered so average that, in comparison, she actually is.