Did
anyone else catch this nice little interview in the Guardian with Cosmopolitan
editor Louise Court. If not, you’ve spared yourself at best, a frustrated sigh,
at worse, a full on rage attack, palpitations and all. The main crux of the
article is that Court is somewhat frustrated at the fact that many young women,
in being faced with the monthly bullshit machine that is Cosmospolitan
magazine, are unwilling to call themselves feminists. It’s much like Gepetto
being frustrated at the fact that Pinocchio has turned around and said “I don’t
want to be a real boy, FYI, I’d like to stay a puppet.” And you wonder why,
Louise, they aren’t feminists? Clue: We are feminists, and we think Cosmo is
basically the evil patriarchal personification of a beauty pageant leader
screaming “TITS AND TEETH” at you every five minutes.
Writer
Emine Saner describes the magazine as having given “its female readers more knowledge about how to find their way
round a man's body (but more importantly, their own) than anything else.” I
don’t know, maybe we missed the ten page pull out on masturbation techniques
for the vaginally possessed (mount a pillow, fuck an electric toothbrush, go at
yourself from behind.) Maybe.
When asked what
legendary Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown might think of the magazine in its
current incarnation, Court indulges in a little bit of wishful thinking: “[she]
doesn't have input on a monthly basis, says Court, "but I'm sure if there
was stuff we were doing she wasn't happy with we'd be the first to know, but it
hasn't happened yet." Again, maybe.
Or maybe she’s too busy trying to get to the front of the Dignitas list because
all this 500-ways-to-please-your-man bullshit is an affront to the sexual
liberation movement of the 1960s which she so represented. But then this is also the woman who said, "If you're not a sex object, you're in trouble." Who knows?
Anyway, says Court,
probably a bit uncomfortable now, it’s wrong "to say we're purely about
sex – the biggest content, about a quarter, is fashion and beauty.” Whoopdee
fucking DOO. Glad to see that she is dedicated to providing women with informative
coverage on the issues that matter. So, for the first three quarters of the
magazine, you can read all about turning your man into a geyser of sticky white
love piss, and in the final quarter, how to feel shit about your body whilst doing
it.
Court then goes on
to describe Cosmo’s forthcoming feminist campaign. It seems ironic that they’re
making t-shirts about it and campaigning for equal pay whilst running cosmetic
surgery advertorials (see here), but hey ho (you’re the ho). She ends by saying
that Cosmo is a force for good. Good? Evil? Same diff. Thank Satan that this
interview was tucked away in the ‘consumer magazine’ division of the media
section, where all the real feminists at the Guardian can’t see it.
