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?
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.
What is that ad even selling? Does Stuart Weitzman design shoes? Ah yes, I see that he does. Regardless, most of what I think when I look at that picture is, “I know they’re probably wearing those nudity patches they wear for sex scenes in movies, or maybe they had on underwear that was edited out, but all I can focus on is that woman’s bare lady bits up against the other woman’s bare butt.”
I don’t think I’ve ever missed having a sister. I feel like female relationships are complicated, sister relationships more so.