Magazines

Our discussion as well as the readings for this week on magazines were quite interesting – and depressing to be quite honest.

It seems like looking at modern-day magazines and comparing them to magazines of the past – especially women’s magazines- shows that the content hasn’t changed much, or the variety for that matter. Apparently women, as they always have been, are obsessed with tricks to get the right man, beauty, clothes, housekeeping, house decorating and shoes. Not that I think it’s wrong for women to have these interests, but I was hopeful that current magazines would have topics with a little more depth and substance.

Also, the ads where 90-95% white, beautiful, young, sex-crazed females that had been Photoshoped to death, giving a little better insight into the ever-growing frequency of teen eating disorders, body-image issues and depression, among numerous others. These are the standards we are setting for our children today?? Pathetic.

The overall theme of every publication came back to materialism. As a society –and I would say women are more guilty of this than men- we don’t feel good about ourselves unless we have things. All kinds of things…jewelry, make-up, clothes, shoes, cars, hair products, MEN, etc. I expected to see these types of themes running throughout the magazines of the 60s, 70s and possibly 80s; but to have it at nearly the same level in 2012 is completely inexcusable for the heads of these companies.