Cross-posted at Audrey and the Bad Apples.
Those cheeky monkeys over at Zoo magazine have done it again!
Pushing the envelope with his ‘dare to be different’ competitions, Zoo’s editor Paul ‘Show Us Your T*ts’ Merrill has come out with this response to those pesky (and, it has to be said, hairy) feminazis who got their big granny knickers in a knot over the Win A Set Of Big Ones For Your Missus competition advertised a few weeks ago.
Displaying the plucky can-do attitude we’ve come to know and love him for, Merrill brushed aside tiresome suggestions that his Boys Like Birds With Funner Fun-Bags comp was generally a bit insulting to women fat man-hating dyke lesbo humourless femmos. Once again demonstrating superior understanding of the female psyche, Merrill figured out that what we feminists are really upset about is not having our very own misogynistic competition that we can proudly be part of. But look! Now even those amongst us who favour ‘sensible shoes’ (feminist = lesbian) and are too busy battling inequality to buy deodorant (feminist = smelly) can be assured that, when it comes to getting your kit off for a lad’s mag, possessing progressive politics won’t stand in your way.
THE men’s magazine which sparked outrage when it offered a $10,000 boob job as a competition prize has responded to its critics by launching a search for Australia’s sexiest feminist.
Zoo Weekly magazine angered health and women’s groups when it urged men to “win” their girlfriend a boob job by sending in shots of her cleavage.
The lad’s mag today revealed its new competition - a search “for the hottest girl in sensible shoes” - promising the winner a year’s supply of deodorant and a sexy photo shoot.
“If you hate men, we want to see photos of you in sexy lingerie,” the ad reads.
The thing that really makes me furious about this pathetic stunt isn’t that it was syndicated to all News Ltd outlets yesterday as if it passes for real ‘news’. It’s not even necessarily the continued insistence of Zoo to disregard women’s outrage at the sexist and degrading way they both treat and promote femininity. What really gets me here is the predictable and tired joke that’s being had at the expense of feminism, and the slap-on-the-back encouragement that you know is coming from the greasy neanderthals that staff these kinds of offices.
Merrill’s response is indicative of the worst kind of disregard for women. I’m hypothesizing here, but I would say that Zoo exists because it celebrates a particular kind of femininity dominant in the pr0n industry. Zoo would have you believe that these women are compliant, malleable, sexy, sexually available, sexually adventurous, sexually assertive, sexually willing and sexually explicit when it comes to their personal tastes. Their assertiveness is packaged in a strict space and is acceptable only so long as it isn’t being displayed negatively against men. The attraction lies in these women being so ‘sexually empowered’ that they are willing to fulfil their audience’s every fantasy and desire.
There’s nothing wrong with having sexual fantasies that involve the complete submission of your partner. Men can fantasise about women crawling all over the floor waiting to service them all they like – I don’t think it’s any less valid a fantasy than any other. The difference is how some men respond to women who don’t behave in a coquettish and submissive manner in real life - that’s where Zoo irrefutaby falls down. By virtue of the fact that it so vehemently seeks to desexualise any woman that expresses opposition to their practices, Zoo demonstrates complete and abject disdain for the rights of women to coexist outside of this fantasy world.
The message is simple – women are okay as long as they’re playing by the men’s rules (which basically amount to not putting up a fuss about being considered ‘f*ckable’). Dissent is possible, but only if expressed in a cutesy pie, not-really-serious, isn’t-she-hot-when-she-pouts-I-just-want-to-bend-her-over-and-give-her-one kind of manner.
Stray from these strict guidelines all you want, but expect to feel the full force of derision - and often violent attempts at humiliation - wafting from the Smoking Room. Worse, expect to be told that your very valid objections are indicative of a complete lack of humour, a determination to ’spoil it for the boys’ and a total absence of femininity and sexual attractiveness.
Indeed, “Feminist!” has become the rallying attack cry from the armies of men that refuse to acknowledge that a woman’s greatest aspiration isn’t uniquely connected to how much men want to f*ck them. Its hissed utterance has become ubiquitous for a host of inaccurate and lazy ideas that only serve to crudely mask the speaker’s own ignorance and disinterest in directly engaging with those he seeks to demonise.
Rebecca West really had it right when she said:
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.
Zoo’s latest stunt is designed not to, as it argues, appease its critics but to poke even more fun at women who disagree with their pathetic, childish behaviour. Put simply, it’s an aggressive act that seeks to humiliate women through the metaphorical equivalent of a giant turkey slap. Essentially, it’s the equivalent of suggesting to a woman who speaks out against generic sexual harrassment that her disapproval probably stems from jealousy.
Their use of Germaine Greer as a figurehead next to the image of a burning bra deftly reduces the concept of feminism to anti-femininity and the wilfully misuderstood writings of one (amazing) woman (who these days is conveniently written off as being more manly than the men she supposedly hates - HAHAHA not a real woman, ugly etc).
At its heart, Merrill’s competition is just one giant F*ck You to the sexless, smelly, sensible shoe wearing brigade that would dare to try and spoil his fun. Feminists, Merrill is saying, can bang on all they like about inequality and sexual oppression but at the end of the day he’s the one with the power. And as there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of women busting to get their bits out in his magazine, he doesn’t really need to pay attention to the piddling little squawks of protest coming from the gnashing army of women who are no doubt resentful of the fact that no one wants to bend them over and defile them six ways from Sunday.
Real sexiness can’t be bought, and Germaine is smokin’ hot at any age…
Peace out (from a completely hott and sexy feminist who knows her sexiness stems from the fact that she owns it and doesn’t need a man to bestow the honour upon her - and one who thinks believing she’s entitled to respect and dignity only adds to her sexiness, not precludes her from it.)
great post, just a note to say that the rebecca west quote is pretty offensive to radical sex workers, who argue that you can be a feminist and a prostitute.
True - but I think there’s a difference between identifying as an empowered sex worker and being treated like a prositute - because most people’s conception of prostitution doens’t embody a lot of respect.
That’s true, and that’s the reason for the choice of terminology among sex workers and those who don’t think they should be dissed. Excellent post, Audrey - I love passionate writing.
Now we’ll just sit back and await the coming comments of those to whom the mere mention of Germaine’s name is a red rag to a lot of bullshit, I guess.
for sure.
I hate this lame nastiness to Greer. The ageing thing is perhaps the biggest and most cruel double standard between men and women. Few people I enjoy reading more than Greer.
eeeh… i don’t like Greer, but there’s no denying her critics rarely engage with her ideas.
I lost respect for her over her transphobia, not her ‘manliness.’
Perhaps we could steer discussion onto the other points Audrey made into her post, before the usual suspects come along and sidetrack it into a discussion just about Greer?
oops, sorry!
No need to apologise!
V Good post, Mark, and pretty much sums it up, but…
In fact Merrill’s response is a bit of usual pandering to his audience (18-24 YO boys who can’t cope with the idea that potential f**k targets should have any ideas of their own or sense of themselves). It is, after all, all about sales.
Don’t worry about it. Any woman with any sense and an ounce of self-respect would give this sort of bogan attitude the flick within 2 seconds, and if the b**n don’t get it, well then he won’t get anywhere will he?
Unless he’s into actual sexual assault, which is a whole other issue…
Just to clarify, CK, the post is by Audrey. It’s a guest post cross-posted from her blog, and I’m just putting it up using my posting account.
Germaine Greer has always been at the front. In the 60s when SUCK magazine in Amsterdam was (supposedly) trying to be non sexist (yeh, right) the editorial staff decided to publish their own nude shots in the interests of openness & freedom.
ALL the men copped out, only Germaine did it, with a memorable ankles behind the ears.
What is she now, mid 60s? Still is powerful person and looks good to me.
It might be about sales CK, but Merrill is the figurehead. He’s effectively enabling these 18-24 year old boys to treat women like commodities, and ones that should be grateful for the way they are objectified. People who criticise the action are decried as having nothing to offer other than a bit of rampant bitterness spawned from their own inability to make men hot. I’d say that’s a pretty good example of the worst kind of disregard for a woman and her intellectual objections to objectification.
Top post, Audrey! I agree with every word. Though other nodes of the hivemind may have variant views!
Ooh, I look forward to some spirited debate!
Fantastic post audrey!
I think the article which, for me, most incapsulates the the mentality of these magazines was this gem in Ralph a few years back: How to have a half-night stand
Absolutely fantastic post, Audrey, thanks very much.
What a lovely competition - if you are a “feminist”, go ahead and prove that you are nothing but a sexual object and degrade yourself by sending sexualised pics of yourself to a woman-hating mag. Only then may your “feminism” be deserving of attention/reward (in the form of deodorant and a further chance to degrade yourself in a sexy photo shoot).
I also love the stereotype that feminism means that “you hate men”. All us feminists are men-hating dykes, right? Which seems to be ok, so long as we dress up in sexy lingerie for the blokes’ viewing pleasure.
Look, Audrey and your little green apples, yer never ever gonna get rid of big boobs in the media. Even ones like Paul Merrill.
But it would be provocative and entertaining at least to start up a “measuring men’s mag editors’ man meat” competition as well. I mean, it’s just all a bit of fun innit?
I’m not a SNAG, as anyone who’s drank with me can testify (if they can remember), and I appreciate a shapely poitrine as much as the next person. I’m just into a fair go.
So therefore Merrill and co should have their views on society and sexuality equally judged by the display of their primary and secondary sexual characteristics. So flop it out Paul, and then we can all move on…after a good laugh.
-
“…so long as we dress up in sexy lingerie for the blokes’ viewing pleasure.”
Nothing wrong with that. And in return, I’m quite prepared to wear a black leather cummerbund and not much else except tight-fitting cavalry boots for the ladies’ eyes. Though I’d suspect they’d probably prefer Colin Firth in a wet dress shirt.
Reciprocity, respect and high quality art direction, that’s the key here I think.
I have no idea who the f Colin Firth is. But yes I’d prefer him. No offence nabs old chap etc etc
Just what is the demographics of zoo? I’m guessing it’s not just 18-24 year old boys but more 30 - 40 ?
Not me, I thought it was fabulous. if there’s one thing I love more than passionate writing, it’s passionate writing by a young feminist. Yee har.
Audrey, this post is bound to attract hostile, smartarse trolls. Ignore them, except to note that if they object then you must have been doing something right.
The idea of someone like Merrill mattering in any possible way to someone of Greer’s intellect and influence just cracks me up, but Audrey’s right to be concerned about the influence he has over young men of an impressionable age. Then again, if they’re reading Zoo they are probably a lost cause in any case.
Re boobs beautiful and otherwise: can anyone enlighten me about what sort of boobs actually won the “prize”? What was the criterion? If they were tiny then I can’t imagine the Zoo inhabitants giving them a prize for anything, yet if they were pneumatic then presumably they needed no additional cosmetic boost by way of a couple of rock-hard fantasy-shaped plastic lumps. So what sort of girl won? This “competition” makes about as much sense as most of the other Zoo compost.
Nabs, I think most of us would prefer that even to a bottle of Moet or a full-body massage or a generous Victoria’s Secret gift voucher. It’s no disgrace.
No offence taken me old china. I have no urge to see you naked except for leather cummerbund and boots either. At least not without a full body wax.
Thanks Dr Cat. As far as I’m aware (and according to Zoo’s site) the breast competition is still open. I’m guessing the winner will be a perfectly beautiful woman with natural C cups that wants them pumped up to a D or DD - the bigger the better, eh old chap?!
FXH, I’d say the demographic of Zoo is anyone that wants a lad’s mag for a cheap price - but it probably does cater for a slightly younger audience. I can only imagine that they’re the ones who are more desperate to see photos of deformed children.
Also, apparently ’sexy nude twins’ is every bloke’s dream. Bless their faces…
Big and dumb?
Speaking as a worldly if somewhat weird kinda bloke, I’d say the criterion for true gentleman in passing judgement on secondary sexual characteristics is not dissimilar to the preperation and consumption of excellent martinis. Firstly it’s about quality, not quantity, and then about who you’re with with rather than where you’re being served. And when it does come to quantity - well one is great, two are perfect, three are just a little bit too much, four and you’re seeing double, half a dozen and you’re hanging off the balcony exposing your man boobs to the world.
Feel free to make fun of our testicles in similar fashion. Provided it’s genuinely funny though.
It’s a bit by the by, but I’m actually surprised that mags like that have survived the advent of intertubes pr0n. Playboy Australia succumbed to it. I guess there is a market for the blokey text and framing of the soft pr0n pix, which I suspect is something akin to some sort of imagined initiation into a (slightly?) older “man’s” world… So I think the commercial success justifies the claim that Merrill et al do exert a real influence culturally in terms of shaping gendered attitudes. Anyway, I’m also thinking a young demographic.
I’ve never picked up a copy of the thing, but I imagine you could work out who the target audience are very easily and definitively from the advertising. Mags like this, in a biz sense, are just trash content chasing an audience for advertisers. The content itself is irrelevant, and very low cost, which I think reinforces the points being made about the lack of any sense of responsibility. And also the point about the cross promotion as “news” by News.
Testicles just are funny, Nabs. Face it.
Thinking about this thread theme a bit more, I reckon if the LP hive mind harpies and associated lady commentators want to pre-empt, defuse and derail the inevitable swarm of angry male commentators looking for an excuse to have a swing at women online in order to assuage certain things about their offline lives, then how about treating all penis owners and operators here to some of things that women really say to eachother off the record about men’s naughty bits. Go on, curdle a few scrotums and pre-emptively castrate a few trolls with some really frank observations.
I trust you used the term “face it” metaphorically. But yeah they are intrinsically ludicrious at least design-wise. If intelligent design was a reality, they’d be housed behind a thick layer of bone somewhere in our sternums and well away from accidently sitting on them halfway through a crucial meeting.
Nabs, you’re playing with fire.
And I like it!
Seconded: LE.
Mark, I HAVE bought a copy of Zoo before in the name of research (I wanted a copy of their article on ‘hot prison babes’ for posterity…) - it is packed with inane writing, tired metaphors and euphemisms and general crude comments about which way women like it. Like I said over at the Bad Apples, the eventual winner of their competition for the feminist will invariably have to field the question, “So, does being a feminist mean you always have to be on top? *yuks yuks yuks!*
In the same issue of zoo, they referred to Lindsay Lohan’s vagina as a ‘meat purse’.
Lordy!
In defence of Ralph, it did when it came out have a kind of freshness that men’s mags of the time - Detroit’s Best Diesels! Building Your Own Shortwave Radio! Vests! - sadly lacked. I, for one, enjoyed reading articles on ‘how to drive a haulpack’ and ‘10 most dangerous jobs’ and cached in the blokiness were gentle advice on sex, eating and hygiene. And no more gratuitous celebrity shapeliness than say Black & White.
And there was always this balance of archness and knowingness that eventually gave way to people who took it seriously and imitators who were much less skilled at it. A bit like the difference between The Sex Pistols and the sad postcard punks in Picadilly. I think it was the editor of Penthouse a few years back that said to Ralph - “You will destroy us and then become us”. And here we are at Zoo.
If it’s consenting couples, then they deserve each other; otherwise a handy way of flushing out dickheads.
dribbly dick…. is about it
most of the women i’ve known don’t much discuss penises or testicles unless they have a new partner and/or there is an unusual shape/dimension/blah or there is some joke/story attached… they just dont rate.
sexual performance rates much higher conversationally and general physical beauty or unattractiveness/ and health/weight etc. even more.
and these topics are then usually overwhelmed by discussions about his personality…. or lack of…..
and for longer term couples - the overall useless-ness of many blokes around the house, and the lack of regard/respect - is probably topic numero uno.
penis and testicles are a means to an end for most women. and are about as interesting in themselves, as a steering wheel and accelerator when wanting to go for a nice afternoon drive.
…..worse than being talked about, is not being talked about at all.
MOMO or Sparco, Jo?
exactly anthony,
alot of blokes can’t back the ferrari out of the driveway, let alone cruise at 110 and turn off onto the winding backroads etc - they’d rather spend their time discussing which is the best model and looking at spare parts together.
& i’m really just playing with nabs’s
Bingo! Why are you wasting your talents Ants on a mere food rag when you could be editing a gentleman’s periodical instead? “Miss July infusing morel.”
Yes, the best men’s magazines at the their best (Esquire in the 60s, Playboy in the 70s, Maxim in the 90s) at least put real effort into to justifing the claim “I read it for the articles” and yes, Ralph for a while came up with some very entertaining if not particulary thoughtful pieces.
But nowadays, what with all the really explict stuff available online and the rising cost of paper stock, the Zoos and suchlike just seek the lowest common denominater of titillation that can still be distributed at newsagencies and through the post. And without even the egalitarian exberance of “The Picture” which in its heyday would also publish explicit pictures of its male readers.
All the downmarket print mags like Zoo and co are left with now as a niche in the 21st century media market is basic sneering smut catering far more to the anger of men left behind than the entertainment of blokes who still feel aspirational.
Go jo!
Nork ‘em!
I forgot the gear knobs.
oi! I can barely think of a more manly food mag this side of Manly Men’s Food Monthly for Men and besides, if we’re talking ’bout bun cakes - let’s just say double-muscle T E X E L - Pics!
i dont think you’re the first, but at least you might be able to locate them.
ok, enuff…
btw: what was that tv show that was on one of the commercials last year - men’s world?? it was a late night program - with the exact same content as zoo - hotrods, hottest pole dancer comps. & pig shooting etc
Wasn’t it Ralph TV or something? The ultimate in cross-media promotion between different branches of the (then) Packer empire…
“ingredients”
“Simmer”
“…peeled”
“Tongue”
“Stuffed”
“Egg”
“sauce”
“stir”
The concept of a smart, professionally-informed, witty and stylish media entity (with many commercial spinoffs) that deftly whisks together foodie porn and high-style erotica is out there just waiting to happen isn’t it Ants? Especially initially emanating from a country as pragmatic about sex, as world leading about synergetic cuisine and as as tongue in cheek as Australia. Plus we have excellent access to some really high quality raw materials.
That was “Blokesworld”, which was originally a show on CH 31 before they went commercial on Ch 10.
It now appears to be on the Aurora Community Channel via Foxtel.
http://www.blokesworld.com/
Blokesworld
It’s separated from Zoo et al in that it had a real sense of humour, a strong self-deprecating streak (ie: it took the piss out of itself) and why yes there were lots of hot pole dancer/swimwear model pieces but all the segment hosts were cheerful, genial blokes who politely and quite thoughtfully interviewed the talent (both male and female) without any sniggering purience. In short, there was a spirit of bawdy mutual good humour about it far removed from the simmering misogny of Zoo.
What else can you say about a show with a regular segment called “Burnout Love Dedictations”.
If you gonna do a late night no-frills TV show for Aussie blokes who like sexy women, booze, hot machinery and making cheerful dickheads of themselves with backyard shed inventions or hand feeding our more dangerous wildlife then you could do much much worse than Blokesworld. It was gonna happen anyway. At least it’s funnier and smarter in its own laconic way than all that MTV shit like Jackass, Pimp My Schoolies etc.
I caught an episode of Blokesworld about a month ago late one night. mr tog and I were anthropologically agape with fascination.
It’s a simple formula: muscle car with dog/poledancing babe/fishing trip in muscle truck/bikini babe/interview with larrikin and stirring mates holding beers/poledancing babe/lather/rinse/repeat.
Laconic larrikinism with cheesecake. The usual caveats about objectification apply, but as you say Nabs, at least it’s cheerfully appreciative rather than misogynistic. Definitely the world could do worse.
Onya Audrey, what a pack of silly sausages the boys at Zoo Weekly are.
One word, two syllables. “stuff ‘em”.
gotcha nabs, editorial meeting at noon.
Hmmm like this Darlene?
This really is a predictable response to ‘bad press’, I think, in terms of addressing and cultivating a particular audience. I’m not sure if it actually contains a message to feminists, or even to women, at least at an intentional level. Audrey is probably correct about the implied messages, though.
As a gesture towards a particular kind of homosocial relation (ie between men), Merrill is attempting to draw in ‘feminists’ (or rather, a stereotype of feminists) as a mediating object, and into the same economy of desire that many actual feminists would reject and critique. Within those terms, Audrey’s critique can only be read as confirmation of the stereotype, and will therefore feed back into the homosocial desire being cultivated here. There is little or no space for Audreys argument within that relation except in those terms. I don’t agree that this ought to be the case, but I suspect that it is.
Where are the men who are actually interpellated by Audrey’s critique?
Tee hee, that comment went up to eleven, Anthony.
Nabs and jo have scared them off….
They can’t read, Adam. They just like looking at the pictures.
Your high-theory language there is gonna get you into trouble, and I’ll give you three guesses with whom. [Grammar.]
I take your point if part of what you mean is that any judgement from outside the value-system of the Zoo World will be automatically rejected by said world no matter what terms it’s couched in, but you seem to be arguing that by saying something critical Audrey is just making it all worse. Surely the logical conclusion of that would be that nothing critical should be said, by anyone, ever?
But the fact that the editors and readers of Zoo will never read it, and even if they did it would only confirm their worst fears (operative word there, ‘fears’) about their fantasy of ‘feminists’, surely doesn’t preclude this kind of analysis? I would have thought observations like this post were crucial, if only to go on making sure there are women in the culture who understand exactly what, in the culture, is working against them, and are able to say so, and to say why. Women like Audrey who have the critical wherewithal to able to say ‘I see what you do there’ are the difference between now and the 1960s.
Of course the ‘interpellated’ men aren’t going to read Audrey’s post. But other men are, and are going to think about it, and are going to take those thoughts with them when they go out into the world to write or teach or negotiate their social and emotional lives.
(Also, surely this bizarr-o fantasy of body odour and ’sensible shoes’ is not only a myth but also now decades out of date? How old is this Merrill dude?)
Jessica from Feministing enters the contest:
http://feministing.com/archives/007668.html
Which is perhaps the most frustrating thing of all. The power that Zoo has to function as a magazine with a huge readership means it doesn’t have to accommodate the arguments of objecting women. It’s archaic bullshit, and they’re demonstrating to younger guys (who may yet grow in other ways) that it’s okay to dismiss dissension from women because they’re probably not ones who’d be okay with you jizzing all over their norks anyway. Yet their antics are brushed aside by most people (and news outlets) as being the behaviour of raffish, red blooded young men with a sense of humour that feminists and do-gooder academics are too uptight to appreciate. The onus is on US to change. We’ve got to ‘lighten up’. It’s basically the same as putting out a magazine devoted entirely to portraying black people as our servants and telling them they needed to ‘find the fun’ when they got a bit uppity about it all.
The Uncle Tomming of the women involved only serves to justify their sexist, rank attitudes.
Such a delightful turn of phrase, Audrey.
Adam, If you want clearly defined utility, you’d be hard pressed to justify about 99& of blogs and political critiques. I do think analysis such as this has some practical trickle down effect eventually. It gradually develops a knowledge base that may help target political strategies. But even if it is simply the cathartic letting of legitimate anger, what’s wrong with that?
Greer certainly wouldn’t be running off to read Merrill, but he is just one link in a cultural chain of nastiness to her. Unfortunately, as I think a lot of autobiographies show, even great people eventually get jaded by incessant personal attacks, even if it comes from ants to a giant.
Interesting post, Audrey, and lots of food for thought. But I wonder if the level of purity, so to speak, of the mag’s readers and intentions, is as high as you’d have to assume it to be in order to start becoming truly worried. Do these sorts of magazines have dedicated repeat readerships, or are they more casual readerships, blokes who buy the thing only once or twice a year depending on who’s on the cover, flip through it for half an hour while watching a ball game, then chuck it onto the coffee table where it rests undisturbed for about a month, then finally consign it to a stack of various things-you’ll-get-around-to-reading-eventually in the guest bathroom.
I agree that the discourse you’ve outlined would be (is?) worrisome and toxic if it were indeed the dominant mode of a man’s inner and outer life. But I think it’s more likely for most healthy people that this kind of writing and publishing is just sort of a toy or a little mental vacation from the complexities of the world, rather than a map of existence. “Hey, look, they made a bad joke about feminists in between the two pages of cool car ads. Anyway, back to translating these legal documents.”
I don’t know any men, none at all, whose mental furniture is arranged in a way that’s congruent to what a ‘purist’ reader of Zoo/Ralph/Maxim etc. might look like. Just as I know plenty of women who enjoy flipping through Cosmo or the other women’s mags once in a while, but whose actual lives are constructed in a way that’s far too complex to worry about what’s in Cosmo for very long.
Then again, maybe I’ve just become a boring old fart, and I have no idea what the yoof are up to today, what with their crazy ipod machines and skating-boards.
Just an aside on Adam and Dr Cat’s comments, isn’t it ironic in a way that literary/cultural studies employs the term “high theory” when so much of its recent drift has been towards disrupting the distinction between “high” and “popular” culture? I reckon we could make a case for doing some “low theory”!
Any man with more brain cells in his testes than his skull cavity.
Refer to my previous comment. No brains.
I must admit I’ve often taken a second glance at the cover of these mags… not exactly my type of woman but still…. if they decided to put some nice photoshoots in
Foreign Affairs, I’d probably be happy.Oh no, Cliff! You’ve not succumbed to the Dolly disease of thinking Condi sexy? Say it ain’t so!
Amanda at Pandagon reproduces a photo of Simone de Beauvoir:
http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/09/04/6000/
In the short time I’ve been blogging on LP, I’ve learnt a couple of things. Now I’ve lear5nt there’s a girlie mag named Zoo. The last ones I’d heard of before this were Ralph and I think People or some other name. I must be on the industrial scrapheap, not keeping up with these things.
Condi wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I didn’t necessarily mean that the women needed to have anything to do with foreign policy (although a certain CIA agent whose identity was unceremoniously leaked to the public would certainly get on the cover…).
JPZ, I really think it’s worse than that — a mag like Zoo is only one of many vectors through which these toxic stereotypes are disseminated.
Somewhere around the late 1980s I noticed that some of my young female students had begun to begin their sentences with the dreaded ‘I’m not a feminist, but …’
Why, I inquired gently, why do you feel the need to say that? They replied that all feminists were smelly, hairy-legged lesbians (the homophobia was completely unthinking, BTW) in overalls and combat boots and buzzcuts: awful people who hated men and who were usually visible when making trouble in the streets on Anzac Day or some other sacred moment. They knew this because they’d seen it on TV.
I reminded them that what we see on the news is only what someone decides to show us, and asked them to ponder the probable gender and possible motivations of the camerapersons, the copywriters, the directors, the producers, the station owners and the head honchos of the sponsor companies.
Oh, they said. Oh, right.
Kim, that is a fabulous shot of de Beauvoir. Makes one wonder yet again why such a woman would choose to make herself miserable hanging out with that oik Sartre for so long.
Indeed!
Cliff, you’re not helping!
“[…]but you seem to be arguing that by saying something critical Audrey is just making it all worse. Surely the logical conclusion of that would be that nothing critical should be said, by anyone, ever?”
Dr Cat, I don’t think that any such conclusion should be drawn from my comments, but if it seems that I implied that, then I should clarify that it was not my intention. No, what I’m saying is that it is unlikely that Audrey’s critique will disrupt that kind of relation, because there is already a place for it created by the stereotype ‘feminist’ at work in Zoo. In fact, Zoo seems to have already found a way to try and make these imagined ‘feminists’ desirable within its own terms.
“Adam, If you want clearly defined utility, you’d be hard pressed to justify about 99& of blogs and political critiques. I do think analysis such as this has some practical trickle down effect eventually. It gradually develops a knowledge base that may help target political strategies. But even if it is simply the cathartic letting of legitimate anger, what’s wrong with that?”
Absolutely nothing at all. What’s wrong with me supplementing Audrey’s analysis, or must it be either/or? I’m merely interested in the way that this will probably never emerge as an exchange or dialogue, and trying to explain why that might be the case.
I’m not sure how much of an explanation that requires - people aren’t usually interested in critiques of their own practices, and I doubt the Zoo crowd are especially reflexive, or that they care enough about/are smart enough to comprehend the analysis.
Kim, I’m still waiting for an answer to my question about whether there was a good Willow.
I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight unless I find out the answer.
I stand corrected. Clearly this is just a case of knuckle-dragging morons, whose thoughts, feelings and motivations are totally irrelevant.
Now even those amongst us who favour ‘sensible shoes’ (feminist = lesbian) and are too busy battling inequality to buy deodorant (feminist = smelly) …
As a lesbian feminist, I don’t take it as an insult to be relegated to the sensible shoes brigade - I’ll be having the last laugh* when the stiletto-wearers of today have to spend a fortune on podiatry and osteopathy tomorrow.
I would, however, recommend crystal deodorant - now available even in most mainstream chemists.
[*I won’t really be laughing - the sight of women hobbling down the street makes me unutterably sad. It’s the modern Western version of footbinding.]
I’m firmly in the sensible shoes camp, speaking as another lesbian identified feminist. With one leg, so I’d be very silly to be wearing heels! But what suz said…
I recommend Campers btw…
Oh sorry, Darlene, yes there was a good Willow! After her girlfriend was killed by Warren (he wasn’t a good shot), she succumbed to the temptation to use her wicca powers for teh evil. There was also an earlier evil Willow - vampire Willow - and a time warp was involved.
I strongly recommend some dvd purchasing!
I think it maybe possible to do something about this mag,if it really offends,by simply giving a copy to a police officer male or female,and if it offends their sense of law and self.Not laws based on morality but offensive expression,that could litter the place if thrown away.I had a whole stack of Picture Magazines,and well it seems this Mag is a constipated version of that for even cheaper competition.The twins in the Zoo look like a pair similarly named in Picture.On matters of comparison Picture was pretty unsophisticated,but, sometimes hilarious depending on untried or unseen photographic interpretation of reality. Certainly I cannot pretend to say I dont like beauty,and comments at other blogs about whose problem it is and responsibility if one is just male is probably true from the female side,but a bad deal from the male side.That is how did these cards end up with a crosswired understanding. So if some female stirs me up on looks alone,I think to myself, I am still alive.And ,if by chance the admiration is sort of reciprocated, shit, back to being a teenager.Nothing learnt. I didnt by the Picture Mags ,but collected heaps of them at the tip, thinking they could end up as collectors items,or ways to embarass people by recognition in the future. I got rid of them a rats tale if you were able to read it. Zoo is essentially sexless, because the formula doesnt really have anything going for it,accept to target the already offended.And be offended,it a womans right, maybe the only worthwhile morality, when men are failing themselves and badly.
Oh cute! I love my Naots. Can buy new innersoles separately (because the actual shoe is virtually indestructible).
Have you seen some of the stupid shoes some of these women wear?
Ridiculous. What’s so sexy about looking like you’re going to fall in the mud. They seem to be getting worse as well. Have you gals seen some of the ridiculous shoes for summer? Crikey.
As a feminist who identifies as not a straight and not a lesbian, I always wear flat sensible shoes. Mary-Janes, I think they call them.
No update on evil/good Willow. I guess I’m just going to have to watch Buffy.
“Oh sorry, Darlene, yes there was a good Willow! After her girlfriend was killed by Warren (he wasn’t a good shot), she succumbed to the temptation to use her wicca powers for teh evil. There was also an earlier evil Willow - vampire Willow - and a time warp was involved.
I strongly recommend some dvd purchasing!”
Oops, I was obviously writing while you were posting.
Thanks.
They called their magazine “Zoo” after all — they must have a smidgen of self-awareness. Maybe.
Something I find interesting about the way this particular market has changed over time is the split in tone between the old-style “men’s magazines” like Playboy and Esquire, which had a sort of “your eccentric uncle who was in the Marines and married a countess in Surabaya is taking you out for your very first bourbon-and-branch at a hotel bar to teach you about the Ways of Men” air about them; and the crass, semi-literate tone of the “lads” magazines.
My guess is they’re doing it on purpose, not because they can’t figure out how to write with a bit more flair and basic table manners. I don’t think they’re looking at their audience eye-to-eye, expecting them to mimic the boors in print. My guess is that they’re deliberately pitching themselves in a lower, mud-spattered range, so that the reader can feel superior to them. I don’t think they want you to actually emulate their rudeness, or even really agree with it; I bet instead they want you to secretly laugh, but then roll your eyes and congratulate yourself on your superior perspective. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone spend more than about 10 minutes looking through Maxim or Ralph, and it’s almost certainly deliberately designed to be consumed that way.
What the market reason for that would be is anyone’s guess, but one guess is that it’s actually part of a complex (and I’d emphasize ‘complex’) response to some of the here-to-stay prevalence and acceptance of many feminist ideas, believe it or not. The public vectors of feminist thought are not perceived only by women, after all. It’s gonna be an interesting century.
I also favour sensible shoes, as the opposite of these would be insensible. Which is of course exactly what wee women are, little insensible poppets with nary a logical thought floating about it in their dreamy brains.
Tell me why it is that women get lambasted for being irrational yet one of the most unattractive things we can do (according to Zoo types, obvs) is wear sensible footwear?
PS Looooove those campers!
j_p_z, as someone who’s engaged in a spirited a