I haven’t written in a while, because I haven’t been gaming lately, and I’ve been busy with school. And yet, there are times I come across something that demands I speak up and speak out, which brings me to the GQ Magazine covers for this month.
First, here are the three covers I found at work:
As you can clearly see, this is their multi-cover Men of the Year (and one hot woman) edition. The men are depicted close up, looking powerful and intelligent, and Rihanna is shown as a full, mostly nude, body. Ben Affleck has grey in his hair, giving a sense of experience and class. Channing Tatum is smirking in a business suit and tie. This is problematic at best. Here are a few more examples from inside the magazine:
There is a huge disparity between how the men are depicted and how a woman is displayed here. And, yes, that is Rihanna’s nipple.
Compare the strong face of Philip Seymour Hoffman to the young bare body of Rihanna as she blocks her face by removing her shirt. Even Usain Bolt, while shirtless, is shown staring down the viewer, appearing strong and virile. He’s also portrayed in black and white, for a more textured, contrasty shot.
I won’t pretend all of the women in GQ are nearly naked.
If you’re Amy Poehler or worked on NASA’s Mars Rover mission, then you’ve earned a small but respectable appearance in Men of the Year 2012. Just keep in mind that Rihanna, listed by Forbes as the fourth most powerful celebrity of 2012, has a two page spread here that shows her ass twice the size of Poehler’s cubicle, and the tattoo beside her breast is about the size of Erisa Hines’ face. Even one of Poehler’s costars, Aubrey Plaza, is being sexualized by feeding herself Reddi-wip from the canister.
This is a magazine for men, but how is it encouraging them to treat women? This is how it reveres men:
Please consider these points before supporting this magazine.
maiaeala
There is also a smattering of homophobia here, though not of the Westboro Baptist variety. I used to read GQ every so often, and there are a lot of very handsome men in there, as well as style hints and fashion pointers for the young man about town. In light of this, I think it is likely they want to stick some scantily-clad ladies in there as a reminder of how very very straight the editors presume their readers are, and also to keep the bros who spend way too much time self-policing themselves for signs of gayness from tossing the magazine entirely.