‘Traitor’ lifts lid on US glamour mafia
Magazine queens are selling anorexia and low self-esteem to women,
claims ex-editor
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday March 7, 2004
The Observer
They are the sorority of spin - the media queens whose perfectly
coiffured heads and pencil-thin bodies dictate the fashion and
lifestyles of millions of women. Through their magazines and TV shows
they dictate what American women should wear, eat, and do in the
bedroom.
But now one of them has turned traitor and written a tell-all
confession, sending shockwaves through US media circles.
Myrna Blyth, former editor of Ladies Home Journal, has launched a
scathing attack on women’s magazine editors and the top female
broadcasters. In her book, Spin Sisters, Blyth accuses them of ruining
the lives of women with constant exhortations to be thin, beautiful,
career-minded and still raise a family.
She also says they pursue a ‘liberal’ agenda out of touch with many
women’s beliefs and frequently use scare tactics to keep women afraid
and stressed. The sub-title on her book says it all: ‘How the women of
the media sell unhappiness and liberalism to the women of America’.
Blyth admits she once practised all these dirty tricks herself. ‘I was
a Spin Sister, too,’ Blyth said. ‘I wrote this book for the women of
America to tell the truth about the business I know so well, about its
power and influence, its manipulations.’
Blyth targets the very women she spent her entire career socialising
with as they ruled Manhattan’s media scene. She picks off her main
opponents ruthlessly. Top of the list is Katie Couric, doyenne of US TV
interviews. She says Couric’s trademark ‘just another working woman’
style is fraudulent. Blyth paints a picture of someone who makes $16
million a year and spends $500 on a haircut. ‘Katie loves to play up
the fact that she’s a typical frazzled working mom… with, I guess, a
typical $3m dollar East Side Manhattan apartment,’ Blyth wrote.
She was equally scathing about TV presenter Rosie O’Donnell: 'I suppose
it’s possible to find something phonier than Rosie’s relentlessly
upbeat on-camera person - Pamela Anderson’s chest comes to mind - but
it’s not easy.
Blyth also slams television figures Diane Sawyer and Connie Chung, but
her main attacks are reserved for the editors of America’s leading
magazines. She paints a picture of out-of-touch women leading pampered
lives whose magazines make their readers feel insecure and inadequate.
She picks out former Talk editor Tina Brown and Glenda Bailey, British
editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and also attacks Kate White of Cosmopolitan,
Cindi Leive of Glamour and many others, ‘Magazines and TV tell women
over and over that they are frazzled and frumpy and that there are so
many things they should be frightened about,’ Blyth said.
The counter-attack has been swift and brutal. White called the book
‘boring’ and accused Blyth of just wanting to become a conservative TV
pundit. ‘This is someone over 60 who wants to create a big enough stir
to get on TV,’ White said.
Ellen Levine, editor of Good Housekeeping, said Blyth had not been a
good editor herself. ‘If she knew how to produce a better magazine she
could have done it,’ she said.
Blyth has also been accused of self-loathing and looking back with
anger at a disappointing career. ‘I thought she would be trying to
shine a light on some of our faults, but she was trying to burn down
the whole category of magazines,’ said Leive.
Some believe that Blyth has a point. ‘She has come out of the closet,
and good for her,’ said Robert Kubey, director of the centre for media
studies at Rutgers University. Kubey said that women’s magazines
clearly peddled ideals of women’s health, looks and lifestyle that
could be harmful. ‘There is an obsession with self-improvement. I
opened an issue of Vogue once and if that wasn’t an advertisement for
anorexia then I don’t know what is,’ he said.
Women’s magazines in America are famous for a working environment of
women obsessed with their looks and each trying to outdo the other in
fashion. Freelance journalist and beauty specialist Rachel Weingarten
told The Observer that at one job interview for a leading women’s
magazine she was escorted down the stairs by the editor. ‘She told me I
would never fit the image if I did not lose 20lbs. It was like being
punched in the stomach.’
One reason Blyth’s book has provoked such a strong reaction is that she
has lifted the lid on the dirty tricks magazines and TV stations use to
get celebrity interviews, slant a story or touch up a picture. She
chronicles in exhaustive detail the gifts showered on potential
interview subjects and the promises made to PR executives to secure
front cover pictures of their clients. She tells how the ‘Access
Police’ of PRs and lawyers surround celebrity clients, forcing
magazines to agree to outrageous demands and suck any hint of
journalistic value from their interviews.
‘When they get a celebrity to pose for a cover or sit for an interview,
editors and interviewers tend to give them a free ride,’ Blyth said.
Blyth claims that virtually every photo in women’s magazines has been
airbrushed or retouched. Models are made thinner and taller at the
click of a button until their body types would be medically classified
as emaciated. No wonder, Blyth says, that women feel insecure. ‘Of
course, these models and actresses don’t look like their pictures
either because their pictures are airbrushed to perfection,’ she said.
It seems unlikely that Blyth will be receiving any more of her once
regular invitations to wine and dine with the powers of Manhattan’s
media universe. But she says she has no regrets about coming forward
with her message that American women have never had it so good. She
said they are healthier and happier than ever before - no matter what
their magazines tell them. ‘In truth, this is a marvellous time for
women… that’s really the biggest, the most important story about
women today,’ she said.
Comment:
Western societies run according to capitalism view women as just being an economic commodity to be exploited. There is nothing wrong with most women the way they are, but magazines like to portray a certain image of women, which is impossible for most women to be like and they strive constantly to achieve this e.g gym, diet, make up, plastic surgery etc, all of which fuels the capitalist companies who make billions from the beauty products every year.
In Islam women are not judged according to their looks, but according to their adherence to Islam and hence they are appreciated and respected as a mother, sister, daughter and wife, and not abandoned and rejected once their looks fade.