Fug The Cover

October 20, 2009

Fug The Cover: Kristen Bell

So, between Forgetting Sarah Marshall and her recent Q&A thing with Entertainment Weekly, I have decided I totally like Kristen Bell. I mean, the girl admitted to watching Tool Academy. Anyone who shares my obsession with that show -- which yielded a contestant who called himself Matsuflex; the quote, "You may be dead but what's in my pants is very much alive"; eliminates people by saying, "I'm sorry, you're just a tool"; inspires the contestants to get rabid about protecting the integrity of the academy (seriously); and features them coping with anger by tearing off their shirts -- rates highly in my book.

As does this dress:

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I know it's kind of busy, and I know that I can't completely tell what the pattern is because I'm squinting at my laptop screen due to the fact that I'm forced to work at a Coffee Bean that appears to be located on the surface of the sun. The skirt, through my near-closed eyes, reminds me a bit of very cold bumblebees being squashed, although maybe that's just me projecting my dislike of bees. Yes, I've heard they have secret lives, but they also want to violate my flesh, which is NOT OKAY.

Anyway: Regardless of all that, I think this is cute on her. Much more befitting of a girl who seemed, in that EW questionnaire, like she might be fun to hang out with, or whose DVR list at least might resemble mine. Which means that if she walks in here to order a pumpkin ice-blended in five minutes, I can walk up to her and be all, "Dude, what is UP with Hillbilly Tool wanting to use his prize money to buy 200 trailers?!?" and she'll go, "I KNOW, and I totally miss Matsuflex and that other tool whose girlfriend that brought him to the academy got ousted in favor of his ACTUAL girlfriend of six years that she didn't know existed, and who at the reunion show had a THIRD girlfriend who was pregnant!" Sigh. Good times.

Unlike this cover:

October 14, 2009

Fug The Cover: January Jones

Again, much like with Maxim, I get that the point of this cover has absolutely nothing to do with January Jones' face.

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And when you have someone as delicately beautiful as January is on Mad Men, I understand roughing her up and making her edgy and bad-ass because it plays against her alter-ego, and thus Joe Schmoe at the newsstand might buy the magazine because he's pretty sure she's the kind of girl who will do naughty things with his tire iron. But none of that explains why GQ chose this particular angle on her face, which I don't think works to her advantage. She looks menacing, kind of clunky, and vaguely tired, none of which she is -- well, okay, she might be tired. I don't know her life. At least the advertised story on where to find the best coffee in America could help her with that. Hey, wait, maybe THAT'S why GQ chose this angle on her face. Brilliant! Forget I said anything.
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I feel like, for the last several years (about thirty-five, by my best guess), Vogue has been featuring cover models in who I truly could not be less interested: Sienna Miller (SNORE), Renee Zellweger (BLAH), Nicole Kidman (YAWN).  The magazine arrives at my house every month and I read it because it's sitting on my coffee table and I like to read and there's always SOMETHING entertaining in it -- if only a two page spread in which a $150 bikini is presented as a tremendous and life-changing steal -- but if I were standing at the newsstand every month, I suspect I would have no problem passing over yet another Vogue featuring whichever of the seven Wintour-approved actresses was taking her turn on the cover. So the first of my issues with this current issue is: OMG THESE FOOLS AGAIN? (No offense to Marion Cotillard, who I love, and whose cover issue I would actually buy. Sadly, this particular cover has somehow transformed Marion into a Kate Hudson clone, to the point that I actually felt confused when my eyeballs reached the REAL Kate Hudson over there on the right, looking deeply bizarre, slightly confused, and as though she just randomly materialized from out of nowhere.)

My second issue with this cover is that everyone appears to have randomly materialized from out of nowhere -- Planet Botox for at least three-fourths of them, I suspect -- and been Photoshopped together in front of a backdrop painted by a marginally-talented studio artist with a Pre-Raphaelite fetish, despite the fact that allegedly Annie Leibowitz snapped this in Malibu.

My third issue with this cover is....well, you should sit down for this. So, they did a huge feature about the cast of Nine, right? And the ladies in the cast who aren't featured on the cover are Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, and Fergie Ferg. Check it:
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Look, I'm not here to judge whether Marge is crazy to decide to follow in Heidi Pratt's footsteps and pose for Playboy. (I do have to wonder whether or not she's thought about the fact that her goodies are going to be oogled by everyone in Springfield, from Kent Brockman to Supernintendo Chalmers to Milhouse. I mean, the reaction from Ned Flanders alone is going to make inter-neighborly conversation mildly unbearable for at least a month, don't you think? I can't even conceive of poor Lisa's reaction -- horror, surely.) But suffice it to say, I find it bizarre that such a sensible, grounded celebrity as Marge Simpson --  who was once a member of the Citizens' Committee on Moral Hygiene and bulldozed a house of ill-repute! -- would decide to make this career move. Perhaps it was inspired by that time she worked at the erotic bakery? Is she having a mid-life crisis? Does she really need to get Homer's attention (because if so, I hope the pictorial inside involves posing with a donut over each breast)? Clearly, we'll never know. But what I do know is that there is NO WAY the fine people at Playboy didn't have a better option for this cover: Marge is one hot number -- especially for her freakishly indeterminate age -- and she surely could be WORKING this beehive-and-chair look. Instead, I feel like she looks a bit cold and a little freaked out. I expect more hotness from a woman who's been working the same strapless dress for twenty years, don't you?

I get that whether your face looks good is totally beside the point of a Maxim cover. But come on:

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This looks like it's her a mug shot from being arrested for Public Greased-Up-Itude. Also, what's with the veiled "empress has no clothes" insult? Usually when you invoke The Emperor's New Clothes, you're referring to someone who believes he or she is one thing, but who is in fact less than that. It's only because I know Maxim that I'm confident the editors legitimately are just saying, "LOOK! BOOBS!" -- otherwise, I'd take it to mean that Maxim got her naked and then decided it didn't find her that hot or special, and is using the cover line to snark on her subtly to all its douchey dude friends. Which, gentlemen, isn't the greatest thing to do to a girl when she's taking off her clothes. That kind of behavior gets you a boot to the nads.

At least if you're going to use careless literary references that are accidentally insulting, Maxim, pick a photo of Audrina's face that doesn't look like she's in a police line-up, okay? Give a girl a break.
September 11, 2009

Fug The Cover: Redbook

If you want to do a big story and cover line about looking and feeling your hottest, I think it would be a good idea -- although bear in mind I am not a professional -- to make sure all your cover subjects look and feel their hottest.

So, whoops:

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Alicia Silverstone? Cute! Connie Britton? Enviable! Ashlee Simpson? Cock-eyed, tired, and wonkus. It reminds me of when I was making a version of myself on the Tiger Woods golf game for the Wii, and just for fun I kept inflating all my features to really weird sizes. It is the worst possible angle on her and it makes her surgically streamlined and generally flattering nose look more like a honker of a schnozz -- plus, you KNOW how much I hate makeup that GIVES you undereye bags (see also: Deschanel, Emily). If this cover is supposed to make women in their 30s and 40s feel better about themselves by making them feel way hotter than the twenty-something, then congrats, because that strategy may have worked. Yeah, Connie Britton is shoved in there at a weird body angle but she's hot. 

Then the attack migrates to the thirty-somethings. Look at the picture they chose of Alicia Silverstone for inside the magazine:
September 2, 2009

Fug the Ad: Jessica Simpson

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Seriously. I will send Jessica Simpson $100 if she ever poses for an advertisement for one of her many products in which her mouth is CLOSED. I SWEAR IT CAN BE DONE. 

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Wow, Robin Wright Penn just cannot win: First, she divorces Sean Penn for like the FIFTIETH TIME and now she's got no neck and finds herself caught in a straitjacket of her own arms. If this is More, I feel like she might prefer less.
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[Photo: Nylon: Guys!]

Okay. First of all, if you haven't seen (500) Days of Summer, you really should consider rectifying that. It is honest and delightful and that is rare. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt here is great it in. And he's REALLY CUTE. Like, seriously-consider-having-his-babies cute. So I sort of wish Nylon Guys (I don't know how to punctuate that. Nylon Guys seems as though it is about men made of nylon. Nylon: Guys is probably the most accurate, but I think I prefer Nylon: Guys! because it seems kickier)...what the hell as I talking about? Oh right: I wish Nylon: Guys! had asked him about (500) Days of Summer rather than G.I Joe, but (a) maybe they did and just decided Joe would be a more alluring draw on the cover for male readers, and (b) perhaps no one truly anticipated that G.I Joe would be as wretched as it allegedly is. But you know what I really wish? That they hadn't taken someone so adorable and groomed him like someone who hasn't taken a shower in six weeks and just really wants to talk to you about all his awesome tin cans and how aluminum foil will probably block the government's mind control rays but only if it's Reynold's Wrap. You know what else I wish? I misread that headline on the bottom right as, "David Lynch and Nick Cannon on a yacht with pirates!" and I truly long for that to be made real. Bring me THAT in your next issue, Nylon: Guys!     
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[Photo: Glamour Magazine]
[The photo isn't loading for a small portion of you, so if you're one of those few, you can also see it here.]

First of all: this poor girl. PLEASE please tell me that she has potentially FINALLY learned NEVER ever EVER ever to speak to the press about her love life. Every single time she's slated to appear on the cover of a magazine, she breaks up with her current paramour a week before it hits newsstands all full of woozy lovestruck quotes about how Nick/John/John/Tony/Tony has truly made her complete as a woman. And then we all feel so awkward and cringey.

Now, this cover. Regardless of the fact that I think they've Photoshopped some weight off her -- needlessly, because I feel like it might do the People of the World some good to see celebrities on magazine covers looking the way they actually do in real life -- and I'm not actually entirely sure that they haven't just plonked her head on top of someone else's body, I think this cover is actually pretty good. For one thing, I love her outfit -- I really love that jacket with the jeans - and it's just a huge relief to see her smiling rather than whipping out that godforsaken open-mouthed fish face she make so often. And, according to my jeans, I kind of need the three tips for a flat belly.

On the other hand, the eyeliner....Convince me:


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