The way my teaching schedule was structured last year meant that I had a big chunk of time in the middle of the day that I spent in the library, which is a good place to spend any chunk of time under any circumstances. Because I’m lazy and hate to do my work, I’m easily distracted, because I love magazines, pick one – or all, whatever, I often spent that time in the library reading magazines. Thus, I was able to do my monthly Vogue roundup from time to time.
My schedule this year is different, and I miss my library time. I’m much more likely to be overtired or cranky or frazzled for my afternoon classes without that time “to myself” in the middle of day. Plus, I miss reading the magazines.
I’ve got my hot little hands on April’s Vogue, though, and I’m ready to roll.
My first observation is that Beyonce, who is on the cover, is a chameleon. She can change her look so dramatically that I almost didn’t recognize her. She’s no less beautiful, just different, but I’d like the photograph better if she weren’t wearing a bath towel.
This edition of Vogue is “The Shape Issue,” and their teaser captions on the front cover promise “fashion for every figure,” “Real Women have Curves” “Work It! Longer Legs…” “The Right Swimsuit for Your Body,” and my personal favorite, “Weight Obsession, One Woman Conquers Her Demons.” Really? Weight obsession? I wonder if the fact that every other article, let’s not even talk about the ads, is about weight loss and body type.
Yves Saint Laurent keeps advertising five inch heels made out of that plastic netting you can buy at Home Depot. We used a staple gun to attach it to the railings on our deck in Maine so the kids didn’t fall ten feet to the ground. It was ugly in that context. It’s even worse as footwear.
1/3 of the way in, the ads are all for ugly clothes featuring women in that weird hunched over, model posture. And none of the leather bags are good…they’re all bright colors and slouchy. Boooo….
As a guidance counselor, I’d be making referrals and phone calls about the Neiman Marcus models, who all look like they have escaped from an eating disorder clinic. This actually makes me so mad that I’m turning the pages and running away.
The last thing I’ll say about the ads is that there is an ad for Prevage body “total transforming anti-aging moisturizer” that has been running in most fashion magazines over the past few months. Apparently this stuff guarantees that in six weeks your skin will be firmer and “totally transformed.” There are arrows pointing to a nude woman’s body describing the various problems women could experience with their skin in each of the areas: “loss of firmness and sagging” in the butt, “childbirth,” in the abdomen (not sure childbirth is necessarily a bad thing, but then again, my stomach isn’t the better for it), and so on.
Here’s the thing: THE NUDE MODEL IS A MANNEQUIN. Not a real person. A fake person. Made of plastic. It doesn’t have skin, let alone stretchmarks, hell, let alone the ability to procreate. I don’t get it. Is the message that we should try to have skin like a plastic girl? Plastic girls don’t have brains. Apparently, plastic girls are the target audience.
Grey Gardens is being remade with Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. I’ll try to keep an open mind, but I tend towards the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy about remakes.
I said I was finished with the ads, but I’m not.
There’s also this, and I can’t decide if it’s appropriate that it’s in this edition of Vogue or just screwy:
Beyonce article – yawn. Not her. The article.
You could read up on contemporary art:
“Jaunty and Mame” John Currin
…or maybe one by George Condo (this isn’t the one in Vogue, but you get the idea)
Probably the most valuable piece in the magazine is the article about Monica Seles and long war she waged against weight obsession. If that’s too intense (I swear I wrote “weighty” here, then I changed it to “heavy” before I could think of a word that wasn’t a bad, bad pun) for you, you could always flip the page backwards and read about plastic surgery, or flip the page forward and read about how high heels can make your legs look longer and thinner.
I can’t believe I spent my lunch hour today reading this garbage when I could have been reading something by someone not trying to convince me that I’m not tall enough or thin enough or booby enough.
Instead of wasting your time and your $4, go get Maile Meloy’s Liars and Saints and join me on April 13th for the Virtually Well Read book club. People keep stopping me all over town and sending me emails to tell me that they’re in the middle of it, or they just got it in the mail, or they finally checked it out of the library, or that they’ve finished it and loved it. Hooray!!
Kelly from A Child is Born won the copy of my dad’s book Plain, Honest Men for identifying Ida Wells-Burnett as her historical soul mate. As soon as Nutmeg sends me evidence of the tattoo on her ass, she gets a copy of Liars and Saints. Thanks for playing, ladies!
