So I forgot to mention in my intro blog that I've never actually opened a Cosmopolitan magazine. I've seen them at the pet hospital where I work (only women work there), but never got the nerve to open one. For the first time, I looked up Cosmo articles, feeling a tremendous amount of guilt while reading them. It could be my "religious" up bringing that made it feel wrong, but seriously in my mind those articles were equivalent to porn. The Albertson's Library had every article from every issue since July 1989. The first few articles I looked at were from the October 2009 issue and were titled "Sexy vs. Skanky", "The two hottest things you can say in bed", and "The ultimate sexy-ass workout," and those weren't even the worst subjects. The few articles that weren't about actually having sex, were about how to look sexier with your clothes and make-up. A few articles were about health (sexual health of course), money, power and some celebrity gossip, but that's about it. Wikipedia says that Cosmo was originally a family magazine, circulation reaching 25, 000 in 1888, but the original editors went out of business so a new editor took over. Sales were declining, but when Helen Gurley Brown became chief editor in 1965, circulation went from thousands to millions instantly. The cover of the magazine usually consisted of a young model in skimpy clothing, and the articles talked openly about sexual issues (and still do). So does this mean sex really does sell? Why are people, women in particular, so interested in reading about sex and how to make themselves look better? I think problems with intimate relationships stem from issues regarding woman's self esteem, way before they enter into a relationship. You've all heard of the dove adds portraying a young girl going through life with the fake models on magazines, billboards and television adds. Fashion, make-up and sex is being thrown in her face everywhere she turns. She's wondering, why don't I look like that? How can I look like that? Why don't boys like me? How can I get boys to like me? So she turns to these magazines with distorted views on sex and how to better yourself, but no matter how hard she tries, she never looks or feels like the models in the magazines. This is because it's NOT REAL. So throughout life she continually reads these magazines, watches the TV shows with the advertisements and looks and the billboards, and what is the result? A confused girl, actually a bunch of confused girls with very low self esteems. Now you might be wondering, how does a Cosmo magazine affect an intimate relationship? They cause low self esteem and distorted sexual views for women. How do these distorted views and low self esteem cause problems in intimate relationships? If you don't have confidence in yourself, you can't give yourself to another person and still feel whole inside.
Check out these dove commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U
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It's obvious that you feel very strongly about this topic that's for sure. I think that because you do feel this way that it's going to turn out to be a really good paper. I don't know of anyone that has ever looked at this issue through the eye of Cosmo before. I think we've all read articles and things where experts have linked self-esteem issues to things like Barbies that girls played with when they were young. But I don't know if anyone has ever looked at it from this angle before. I know your topic is more than just self esteem, but this could be an interesting portion of your paper. Maybe you could look at how young some girls are when they start reading Cosmo and if that has anything to do with the problem.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I really hope this paper turns out better than the last one! It should be interesting to look at it from one perspective of pop culture, and I'm pretty interested to see what types of research help analyze these topics or questions. I think girls start reading or noticing magazine covers at least, at a very young age since they're at every grocery isle. Thankfully, Cosmo magazines are covered in black plastic..ya know..similar to porn magazines, but still moms or friends or sisters could be buying these magazines and then young girls are exposed to them early on. I'm sure it has a negative affect on girls, and it begins early on. Thanks for the advice, thinking about that will definitely help with one of the angles of this paper.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, nice job with the photos, especially the "sex as a weapon" one. It really captures the essence of a major part of your discussion in an intriguing image.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosty, are you worried that your exposure to Cosmo--even though you are approaching it from a critical, well-questioned angle--might influence your future thinking about sex and what it means? This looks like a very promising topic to explore, and a risky one at that.
I'm looking forward to reading your findings.