The reality vs. the purported ideal.

I bought Vanity Fair from the newsstand (really from the rack at New Seasons) because Amy Schumer was on the front and because the issue was about sisters.  I should probably just subscribe, as the subscription is so inexpensive, but I haven’t gotten around to it, plus I would really be committing to the long (long long) articles that are the usual Vanity Fair thing.  And then there are the ads.

I don’t really read a lot of magazines with what I think of as magazine-type ads.  You know.  The impossibly thin and tall women who look nothing like nearly all the women I see and fit into clothing that nearly all the women I know will never wear.  I don’t like what they are selling and I don’t like what they are saying and I don’t like that they are some sort of homogeneous ideal.

And this page sums things up.  Who are you more likely to encounter: the sisters on the left, or the naked ladies on the right?IMG_5578

Other than the ads, it was a great issue.  I spent several days contemplating one of Annie Leibovitz’s pictures of Amy Schumer. I couldn’t decide if it disturbed me or was kind of awesome. Matt had no such trouble making a judgement call.  When I showed it to him, he took one look and said, “That’s awesome!” I finally decided if I had been thinking about it for three days it was kind of awesome.

In other news, I’m bummed I don’t have a sister.