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.