I love, love, love getting the mail! Not junk mail or bills of course, but it makes me oh so happy to find a glossy, colorful, flowery-smelling magazine delivered right to my door. Which one is it today? Cosmo, Glamour, Marie-Clare, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Allure, Real Simple, Lucky, InStyle, or perhaps People...and will it satisfy my cravings for...celebrity gossip, beauty tips, entertainment reviews, or the quest to become a domestic goddess? There is a book entitled "Up for Renewal", that I haven't read yet, but wish I would've written. It's supposedly about a woman who writes a book about her life after she reads magazines and actually takes their advice. Yes, I subscribe to several magazines and try to at least skim every one of them each month. No, I don't take the advice verbatim. There is something comforting about hearing other people's stories, their experiences, and opinions and relating them to my own. I do want to know what the latest beauty trends are (Allure), how to make him fall in love (Cosmo), how to organize my closet (Real Simple), and read a review of the latest Broadway musical (Entertainment Weekly) of course it would be nice if I could get all that from one source. I realize these articles come in this glossy, sweet smelling package to entice the senses and sell me several products along the way and no I wouldn't have it any other way.
According to Stevens and Maclaran, "in the 19th century, two consumption phenomena emerged that were to redraw and redefine feminity accorinding to a discourse of consumption" (2005, p.283). In other words, women's magazines and the and department store revolutionalized shopping for women, not only offering "a world of goods, but they also offered women a window of opportunity, enabling them to look at and explore a multiplicity of possibilities and personas" (Stevens & Maclaran, 2005, p. 283).
Cosmopolitan is probably my favorite because it is kind of outrageous. The cover practically screams "SEX!" every single month. It's quite humorous actually. Most of the articles seem repetitive and in fact a comparison of issues will confirm that a similar article ran just a few months prior. Different byline; same message. Despite using lingo including "frenemies" and "OMG" which comes off kind of juvenile at times, Cosmo does have some redeeming qualities. For example, this month there are articles on travel safety, getting ahead at work, dealing with frenemies (friends who backstab), etiquette, and things women excel at over their male counterparts (evolution, living longer, being more recession proof, communication). The magazine started in the 1960s after Helen Gurley Brown wrote Sex and the Single Girl. She was a pioneer for women's magazines, "chick lit", and most likely was the original "Carrie Bradshaw" from the HBO series Sex and the City. Cosmopolitan is indeed a pop culture artifact because although it mainly represents young, single women, if one were to crack open a copy years from now it would show popular trends and women's tastes in fashion, products, men, movies, music, books, advertising, and even humor for the style it's written in.
An actual critical analysis of Cosmopolitan as mass culture was performed using "the methodology of high cultural analysis" (McCracken, 1982, p.30). The results of the analysis looks at ideology-living vicariously, selling a self image; the infrastructure-making money, circulation, advertising, and layout; the mythology-message conveyed by writing and pictures which is meant to exude pleasure; feminist-a look at glamour, image, envy; and semiological-success is in obtaining the right image (McCracken, 1982). The final outcome of the analysis suggests that although Cosmo gives the "illusion of modernity" it really contains "traditional values beneath a sugar coating" (McCracken, 1982).
And yes, sorry if the beginning of this blog sounds like a Cosmo article :)
References:
Benjamin, J. How Cosmo Changed the World: The fascinating story of the magazine you know, love, and can't live without. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://www.cosmopolitan.com/about/about-us_how-cosmo-changed-the-world
McCracken, E. Demystifying Cosmopolitan: Five critical methods. Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 16, Issue 2 (September, 1982) p. 30-42. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://0-journals.ohiolink.edu.olinkserver.franklin.edu/ejc/article.cgi?00223840
Maclaran, P. & Stevens, L. Exploring the 'shopping imaginary': The dreamworld of women's magazines. (2005). Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4,4 282-292. Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://0-journals.ohiolink.edu.olinkserver.franklin.edu/ejc
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I dont receive any magazines in the mail because (1) I would never have time to read them and (2) they seem so expensive to buy anymore. It seems like each and every year, they get more and more expensive. But I do understand the allure of them all because I will browse through them while waiting in the grocery line. It allows people to step away from their own lives and learn about someone else's or learn how to better theirs.
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