12 Year-Old Kiernan Shipka, in this week’s Grazia shoot.
We are getting bored of writing about Grazia. A journalist who was interviewing us gave it to us on Wednesday, and I kept meaning to write about it, but every time I do it, it bums me out. I worry that, for every ‘I’m obsessed’: Jen’s Shock Cosmetic Surgery Confession’ piece of mundane tat I read, a smidgen of genuinely important knowledge such as how to construct an incisive debate on the philosophical bases for socialism, or how to put my shoes on the right feet, will be superseded.
Notwithstanding my impending loss of intelligence, I have a responsibility, nay, a DUTY, to expose this magazine in all its futility to the world. Plus, I know they read these and nothing makes me happier than imagining a middle-class fashion victim trying and failing to politely control their anger (Hi, Grazis! Nothing you do has any meaning in the world!) while subconsciously crushing the pastel coloured macaroon in their perfectly manicured and moisturised fist into a fine, pinkish powder.
I’ll flick past the ‘TOP 15 TREATS to be coveting NOW!’ pages, all of which have been placed by PRs and are indiscriminately vile. Continuing on from the berating emotionally vulnerable women theme of last week’s issue, next up is ‘FRAGILE DEMI QUITS REHAB TO WIN BACK ASHTON’ in which Grazia’s editorial team gloat unattractively over the star’s impending downfall. Choice quotes (some of which are from an ‘impeccably placed source’) include:
” Far from being on the road to recovery, Demi has further yet to fall”
” If anyone thinks Demi has conquered her demons, they are very wrong”
“what Demi really needs is medical supervision”
Thanks, Dr.Grazia. It’s surprising that you spent eight years in medical training only to forgo it to work on a sub-par women’s rag. I wasn’t aware that you all had such ‘impeccable’ qualifications. Plus your pep talks make women feel soooo much better. I’m totes ringing you guys next time I’m out of rehab. You’ll really cheer me up.
Next up, another fart in the face of feminism with “Is a good husband the secret to a woman’s success?” No, I’m not kidding. It’s like they are now tailoring their content to the Vagenda. Shane Watson waffles on for a whole spread about how the time is now to recognise that actually, we do need men and there is nothing anti-feminist about admitting that. As usual, Grazia has taken a total non-issue and tried to frame a completely insignificant debate around it:
” Life is much easier with a good partner to rely on. A bad husband will drag a woman down faster than living in a garret, with a cat, eating soup out of a saucepan.”
Um, okaaaay? This made me laugh because the garret-cat-soup scenario is when we came up with the Vagenda, now a highly successful blog with oodles of hits. It might even have been the day that I woke up with a sore head and immediately reached for a glass of neat gin on the bedside table in the supposition that it was water, before putting my bare foot in a half-eaten casserole dish of potato dauphinoise. Furthermore, we were both dating total losers at the time. Yet now, we might be writing a book (P.S. an “impeccable source” in the publishing world told us that every Grazia writer thinks they have a chick-lit novel up their sleeves.)
But no, according to Grazia, having a supportive partner, a bit like having a washing machine, is an “instrument of liberation”, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg chips in by saying “The most important career choice you’ll make is who you marry”, which seems odd considering she’s at the top of one of the world’s most powerful companies, yet deciding who penetrates her on a bi-annual basis seems to carry more clout. Depressing.
Other stuff that is in Grazia this week includes:
- “Choo! Choo! All aboard the fashion train!” (I was going to make a Grazi fashion ‘death camp’ gag here but felt it was self-evident and also rather tasteless)
- Jen ‘obsessed with Cosmetic Surgery’- turns out that she had a couple of chemical peels which, last time I checked, isn’t cosmetic SURGERY, but what do I know? Unlike the Grazia editorial team, I have no medical credentials.
- “Which Harry Would You Marry?” You have two options: Harry from One Direction, the young whippersnapper who MOST DEFINITELY should not be being lusted after by the middle-aged women at Grazia (creepy.) And Prince Harry, everyone’s favourite posh ginger. Tbh, I would rather take a ride on the Grazia Fashion Train, accompanied by the whole editorial staff of the magazine. Yes, really.
- AND, to top off this deeply mundane and distasteful plethora of inconsequence, we have an interview and Photoshoot with the TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL who plays Sally Draper in Mad Men, dressed up like a fully grown woman in Marni and pearls, with a full face of make-up and, later on in the spread, a skimpy white dress. “Kiernan has the fashion-savvy of a front row regular,” Grazia bleats. This total bullshit-fest makes me so angry that I can’t even BEGIN to start writing about it, lest I develop an anger-tumour. All I have to say about this is: FUCK YOU, GRAZIA. FUCK YOU. Your contribution to society is 100% BAD, and I hope your magazine goes bankrupt and that your lives thereon in are marred by a constant, niggling anxiety (called guilt to normal people) which ultimately manifests itself as a deep, melancholic regret when you lie, as old women, on your Armani Home Collection deathbeds. Because you are really, really, REALLY not helping the cause.
But, if you ARE in a relationship, it is important to have a supportive husband/wife. And that it is an equal partnership..someone to take equal responsibility for household things, kids etc. But you don’t need to jump into a relationship to be successful. I haven’t read the article, so maybe the point I’m making wasn’t apparent in it, but I do think there is some truth to it. Men or women in a relationship need their partner to be supportive. No?
Yeah, I can sort of see what they were trying to say there. I would agree that it’s important to have a supportive partner, but here they’ve only framed it in terms of marriage, and shouldn’t they also have emphasised the importance of a supportive wife to a husband’s success? And said that you can have a successful and fulfilling life without being married?
On the subject of supportive husbands, I think the best example I’ve seen is in the film ‘Julie & Julia’ (which I was surprised by because it had looked like a rubbish chick flick). It was nice to have the old saying “Behind every successful man is a supportive woman” flipped, and to see supportive men behind successful women for once.