Re: Glitter/A Small Note

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

Fiona write:


>Not wanting to jump fully into the pornography debate, but...Chris, you
>note, as an example of Playboy's openness to a wide range of body types,
>that the current Playboy has a feature on women over 40. I haven't seen
>the issue, but I'd be willing to bet that there are very few women in
>there who look 40. From what I've seen PLayboy is willing to feature women
>of any age as long as they match the totally unrepresentative airbrushed
>ideal of the Playmate. That's not what I'd call openness to many body types.

   Yes, Playboy features women, attractive to the majority of its
readership. So when they feature women over 40, of course they
feature some very attractive women. What, if I may ask, is your 
point? Womens magazines tend to feature men attractive to the majority
their readership. The men featured tend to look a lot more attractive
than...oh...for instance, me.

   I wish you had quoted me. What I said was: compare the damage that
Playboy it supposed to cause, in its three pictorals and various small
images per issue to the immense damage caused by the vast number of
fashion/beauty magazines. 
    
     The anti-Playboy argument seems to be:
  Men look at the images in Playboy, etc. and get a distorted view
of feminity, because these women are air-brushed and presented as
paragons of female beauty.

     My anti-fashion magazine argument is:
  Women look at these images in Glamour, etc. and get a distorted view
of feminity, because these women are air-brushed and presented as
paragons of female beauty.

   Playboy is not marketed to adolecent males (they usually have to
steal copies from their dad or older brother), and don't tend to
become regular readers until they are old enough to buy it themselves.
The fashion magazines, on the other hand, present a template to
their female readership of *exactly* how a woman is supposed to look,
with detailed instructions for achieving that look.

   The "message" of Playboy's pictorals is no more sinister than:
"Wow! Look at this sexy woman!" The message of the various fashion
& beauty magazines (from "Sassy" and "Seventeen" to "Madimoselle"
and "Vogue" and "Glamour" to "Women's Day" and "McCall's") is: "*This*
is what you are supposed to look like! And *here's* the diet, make-up,
exercise, clothes and dating strategies that you have to use!" (Of
course there are a few equivilant male magazines like "GQ", but without
the same impact on their intended audience.)

   (A weird sidelight: Vickie and I are sitting around as I write this,
braiding each other's hair. I have pig-tails at the moment.)

                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)