out with the cosmo, in with the glamour

I was at the airport this last week, looking for something fairly mindless to read on my 7 hour flight. I had already been through this month's Cosmo and since Scarlett Johanson was on the cover in the shot above which is really fun and sexy and amazing(and I have a sizable lady crush on her/wish I was married to Ryan Reynolds((I know the photo of him is gratuitous but...why not I say?))) I decided to give GLAMOUR a try. I've been reading Cosmo for years, not because it's good necessarily...because it's not, and the articles started repeating after I'd made it through about 6 months of my first subscription, but because I like the absurdity of it and it's a magazine I know my way around. Sort of like, when you get really used to a grocery store and when you need a jar of minced garlic you know EXACTLY where to find it?? Cosmo is like that for me. I know where to find horrible sex advice and completely unrealistic fashion editorials. I quite frankly assumed all women's magazines were carbon copies of Cosmo and so there was no point in switching it up. I was wrong. Glamour is still a pretty typical women's magazine with the usual sections on hair, makeup, men, sex etc. However, the stories had...wait for it...substance. And the fashion editorials had some (if not all) clothes that I would really consider wearing, hair styles that wouldn't get me >committed, and health advice that didn't involve comparing calorie counts of a turkey wrap and a turkey sandwich. Also, they are in the middle of what seems to be a pretty legit campaign to have realistic models featured. And I LOVE the way they are going about it. Their article featured a beautiful photo of several plus size models (sizes 10-14) and went on to explain that they don't want to put "normal looking women" in their magazine. Because, none of us want to open a magazine and see an over-worked, stressed out, emotional mess. Magazines are a form of escapism. We want to BE these women. We don't want them to BE us. So the idea is to have healthy, average-sized, BEAUTIFUL women in the magazine. Women who look glamorous and amazing. Women that we are still jealous of but not in a I-better-go-throw-up-my-lunch kind of way. I love the idea of opening up a magazine and seeing a size 12 woman rocking the latest trends because for one-that lets me know that I could wear what she is wearing and look good. And for two, three, and four it's about fucking time. I personally don't think stick thin women are pretty. They gross me out a little and I imagine that having sex with them would be really painful. This is not to say that skinny women can't be beautiful I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that a HEALTHY size 0 woman's vertebrae don't stick out like stegosaurus spikes. Glamour's push for a healthier image of beautiful women came from the attention given to the "woman on page 194" pictured below. It was a small picture but it got a LOT of attention, letting glamour know that there was money in soft ladies. Her photo is NOT airbrushed which is so lovely.

I will not abandon Cosmo entirely. I like to read the sex articles out loud with my ladies and if I need minced garlic I'll know where to go but changes are afoot, people.

So uh, buy glamour. They're not perfect but they're better. I'm going to subscribe...after I get paid of course. I leave you with the photo I mentioned before with all the beautiful women...some of which are actually BIGGER than me. When do you EVER get to open a magazine and be like...wow she's hot. And I'm actually skinnier than her. never, that's when. Click to get the full sexy.