Maxim vs. Cosmo

Cosmo

Being that I have not read a Cosmo magazine in years, I had forgotten how poorly women were portrayed. The cover really says it all. There is a picture of a voluptuous celebrity in a trendy, revealing dress with attention grabbing titles surrounding her. What caught my attention was the placement of certain titles, like “Mind Tricks That Melt Pounds,” place conveniently on her waist. All of the stories and “articles” revolved around how to know what men really like, or what they really think about during sex. A majority of the content was information on how to better cater to men, and the dos and don’ts of relationships. Firstly, why should anyone listen to a magazine for advice on his or her relationship? What made my mouth drop was a side column entitled “Sentences He’d Be Psyched to Hear.” Some of these included, “Boy, nothing helps me wind down after a long day at work like giving you a blow job.” Really?? The column also listed sentences like, “Mind if my girls’ volleyball team showers at your place?” Or, “It feels like you’ve put on a lot of weight… in your penis, I mean.” Maybe I am biased because I have a semi-feminist viewpoint, but why should a woman go out of her way to excite her man with such hyperbolic phrases especially if she doesn’t feel that way? What disturbed me was how women were made to be these figures who should focus on better sex, melting pounds, beauty tips, and what to say and do to please their man. It made very clear that these were issues that every woman needed to know in order to be more desirable. It is magazines like this that many women begin to feel insecure and thus more driven to look and act more like the airbrushed women they see on the pages.
The advertisements strengthen this concept. Images of beautiful women promoting make-up, trendy clothes, jewelry, acne cleanser, perfume, hair products, deodorant, low calorie food and so much more flood the pages. The last few pages reserved solely for advertisements also promote breast implants, cosmetic contacts, psychic readings (in order to reveal “true romance”) and weight lose plans. These ads may not seem harmful at first, however once we realize their relationship to the ideas throughout the rest of the magazine we can see how dangerous this is can be to a woman’s self image. These advertisements are so powerful and dangerous because they are able to subconsciously make you think you need these products to make you look better.
Aside from maybe one article on the dangers of alcohol, there were really no pages with substance. That is unless you consider “Sexy vs. Skanky” imagery and pointers substantial.



Maxim

While looking through Maxim, I noticed a few things right off the bat. Women are more objectified throughout the magazine. The imagery and text is much more vulgar. On the cover the woman is more of a sex object than in Cosmo, wearing only a bikini. Although a majority of the titles on the cover are not even about women (“13 Most Unintentionally Scary Movies, The Next Great Super Car, and Brewing Our Own Beer”) the titles that are sex driven are pretty forward and crude. Surrounding the nearly nude woman are other titles saying “Queen of the Hills (The Empress Has No Clothes),” “Sexiest Beach Hotties of 2009- It’s a Treat-o For Your Speedo,” and “Waitress Sex.” On the contents page there is a half naked women with revealing underwear and a hose between her legs spewing water. Following this I turned to a page of jokes where I was kind of baffled and amused at the stupidity. One joke read, “What do you call a lesbian with fat fingers? A: Well-Hung.” Another read, “What sexual position guarantees the ugliest baby? A: Go ask your mother.”
The vulgarity did not stop here. On the opposite page there was an advertisement for Maxim Celebrity Beach Watch showing only the body of a woman in a bikini straddling the ground. It’s not surprising that they would just cut off half of her head, but it’s kind of unsettling realizing that this is apparently only what men really want to see. The most exposing imagery was that of “Audrina’s Dirty Deeds.” These shots involved her posing in skimpy outfits eating strawberries, sitting topless on a washing machine, and straddling a bed. Other advertisements included tapes of “Girls Gone Wild,” steroids, Viagra, party lines, beer, cigars, cologne, television shows, and my favorite, an axe ad with a woman mounting the male she can’t get seem to get enough of. As you can see women here are looked at merely as sex symbols. The images show how these women fuel male desire. Their personalities, faces, and intelligence are not required here and are often left out purposely.
Cosmo and Maxim are similar in that they both aim to make the man or woman feel like they need certain material things to embody their sex even more and be more desirable to the opposite sex. This is seen when we look at the advertisements in both magazines. Cosmo also promotes beauty and physical perfection in order to gain male acceptance, and Maxim fuels this by showing such high interest in these airbrushed women.

Chapters 3-7

What I found to be particularly interesting within these chapters was the discussion about the power that music had on culture and identities. I can’t even imagine what life and culture would be like if music did not exist. Music shapes our identities and, as the text says, it comforts us through transitions. I find it amazing how sound and music developed and began the rise of popular music and many other genres to follow. The spread of popular music developed much like newspapers, and books. What sparked its growth was the ability to mass-produce the sheet music. This allowed for music to change from being a rarity to something common and easily accessed. With this came the Jazz movement, which was significant because of its integration of many different musical styles such as African beats, blues and gospel. This enabled the development of even more styles of music such as rock and roll, which also combined various elements of music. With this increased interest of music different cultures started integrating with one another and became exposed to different lifestyles and voices. Music also served as a way for people to cope with the stress of current events, such as the atomic bomb, the Cold War, and the red scare. What is amazing is how music had the ability to blur boundaries between races. It also blurred the distinction between “high and low” culture, masculinity, femininity, the country and city, and the north and south. Music was and is a way to voice oneself and respond to emotions, events, politics, and so much more. During the rise of popular music, groups did just that. Today such vast majorities of people own an Ipod or music player of some sort. Many people use these devices to drown out other noises in city streets or just to zone out and enter a different world. Thinking about where we came from to how we developed now is incredible and kind of scary when you think about how much of a hold it has on us. It has almost become a necessity to obtain and listen to music. It is also incredible to think about how much music there is and how much noise we’ve made and continue to make daily. All of this would not be possible without the efforts of modern technology.
Throughout the chapter on television, I could not help but feel annoyed. I am not a supporter of T.V. for many reasons. I feel that the representation of “reality” is extremely out of touch and detrimental. I cannot stand how the required attention span for any given program is really not very long, due to the fact that there are constant interruptions with advertisements. I feel that if you are going to watch something and get involved in the story there cannot be these interruptions. To be actively thinking about what you are watching and getting absorbed into a film there cannot be advertisements about tampons, or cleaning solutions for the kitchen. Also, I feel that it is completely impossible to compare a book with watching T.V. So few children read these days that it is depressing. I fear that there will be such a small amount of imagination left in the youth because visual information is just handed out to not only them, but everyone for that matter. It is as if we are too lazy to create these places in our minds, which I believe is where the true images lay. When we create images in our head we tend to make it exist with what we know (or don’t know) and what we’ve experienced in our lives. This makes the story more real and personal to me because no one else can access what world you create. The textbook argues that even though it has its down sides, it has provided a great deal of information to us. I’m not sure if one can even say that information has been truly valid though because of the different opinions of those reporting it and choosing to have others report. News is often biased in some form, and is often dramatized. I find it so hard to trust anything anyone says anymore.

Chapters 1, 8, 9, 10

While reading chapter 1 in Media and Culture, I became aware of the true definition of “medium.” It was defined in this book as “an intervening material or substance through which something else is conveyed or transmitted. It is capable of producing worthy products or pandering to society’s worst prejudices and stereotypes.”
I believe this summation is on point. While the media has its up sides, it can be very damaging and has the ability to lead society down a road of discrimination and into turmoil. It holds such a great deal of power because so many fall victim to believing what they hear and see. The combination of visual and audio information is extremely powerful. Also, how the news is represented and the slant that the reporter/writer/newscaster has makes an impact on ones opinion. It is nearly impossible today to escape the media. Even if you do not take part in watching the news, or reality T.V. shows, there are still advertisements and images, not to mention all the people talking about these shows, stories, and events all around us.
Throughout the reading, I was reminded of how drawn human beings are to narratives. In a sense, it is almost as if we exist to tell and hear stories. This has been with us since the beginning of our existence. We are constantly relating situations of our own to someone else’s and vice versa. People have become so dependent on hearing these stories that they have become addicted to mass-produced media. In turn, many have become less in touch with reality and their ability to distinguish and challenge social inequities has diminished. This all seemed to be an issue with the rise of newspapers. While the newspapers have significant advantages, there were times that the public could not decipher the truth. During the ages of yellow journalism, newspapers were made with a sensationalistic, dramatic style. Corruption, conflicts, and other news was dramatized. The public tended to believe that the printed text was true in totality, which was often not always the case. The sensationalistic stories of today are still in existence, but through the form of T.V. shows like Access Hollywood, magazines, and other tabloid papers.
Pop culture has also been the cause of the diminishment of higher forms of culture. The lines between information and entertainment have been blurred. This is very unsettling in my eyes because it shows how much power all of this “information” has over people. So many of us are consumed by stories in the news, and T.V. shows and cannot tell the difference between a show and reality. The text talks about how high culture is exploited today. It is almost as if we are trying to reinvent different ways of grabbing ones attention, and money, by dramatizing it and making it more exciting. This is seen with the reproductions of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. The original novel talked about serious themes like abusing science, and judging physical appearances. However, with the recycling of the story into forms like the T.V. show The Munsters, and Young Frankenstein(the movie and the Broadway version), the themes seem to get lost and the story is simplified and turned into more of a comedy.