Fug The Cover

Here at GFY HQ, we'd gotten a few emails over the past month regarding Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover of Good Housekeeping. There was a lot of,  "SERIOUSLY. She looks TERRIBLE," and "No, for real. Someone at GH HATES her." And it wasn't that we didn't believe you, because we did, but the true horriblosity of the cover can not be truly appreciated until you see it in person. I mean, here it is:

It's not good, but it's not like she looks like death refried or anything.

OR SO YOU THINK. Because last weekend, Heather and I went down to the newsstand to pick up our usual selection of periodicals (you know: Soap Opera Digest, Lucky, Entertainment Weekly, Juggs, Vogue -- the usual), and we stumbled across this very magazine and OH MY DEARS. It is much worse than you can tell from the scan. So very much worse. For one thing, the picture appears to be totally out of focus. So that's not good. For another, the person responsible for SJP's make-up has clearly been harboring a terrible grudge against her dating back to Square Pegs, because she looks O-L-D old. Old, and weird, and just not attractive (and, for the record, although I know a lot of people think Sarah Jessica isn't good-looking, I disagree. She's not CONVENTIONALLY good-looking, but she's interesting looking, and she makes it work. I admire her for not making her face look like everyone else in town, and I actually think that's helped tremendously when it comes to her career longevity. She's unusual and original, and there's something to be said for that. Anyway.).  And as for wardrobe, that pink washes her out, and the cut of the dress does nothing for her great body.  She just looks ROTTEN.

I can't imagine there was a great, thrilled fanfare in the Parker-Broderick manse when this arrived in the mail, either. Instead, I'm imagining that someone may have referenced the Sex and the City episode where Carrie is under the impression she's going to be on the cover of New York Magazine's "Single and Fabulous!" issue, when, in fact, she is the hung-over, makeup-less cover of an expose titled, "Single and Fabulous?".  I suspect someone may have made a bad Bad Housekeeping pun.

Which I appreciate, actually, because now I don't have to do it.

That intoxicating aroma wafting through the air is, we at GFY News Service have confirmed, the smell of desperation emanating from Camp Simpson.

But first: Consider for a moment the last time Jessica Simpson appeared on the cover of Maxim. It was in 2004, she was still pretend-happily married, and her father was still gleefully exploiting her as the sort of sexy blonde angel-next-door.

See? They're working the whole virgin/whore, "You want me, but I'm taken," rumpled princess thing. You almost get the impression Maxim wanted her more naked but she and Joe were able to say, "No, that's not her image, and you need us more than we need you, so go along with it."

But now, what with her being a rumpled princess of a different sort, Jessica is in a different situation. She's being painted more often than not as a selfish little sinner who cuckolded her husband with a series of utter man-whores, she's completely boring, and she's being forced to hawk some humiliating wigs that are so mind-bendingly atricious, even Cher, or Dolly Parton, or hell -- Dame Edna -- would sooner strap roadkill to their heads than wear her pseudo-coifs.

So what happens? Maxim comes knocking, and her knockers knock back:

This cover just reeks of C-list "look at me, look at me!" desperation. It's the sort of blow-up-doll approach to publicity that a person would take when she thinks she's on her way up, not when she's been at the top for a few years based on her sweetheart image, raked in millions, dominated the tabloids, and stirred up a national obsession with her marriage. What makes it more pathetic is that she's still stuck with that disastrous, tacky fright-wig of a mop on her head -- unless she is actually wearing one of the titular creatures from the promised "World's Most Horrifying Pets" story, in which case, that's savvy art-directing.

As such, the whole package is less "portrait of an untouchable fantasy" than "chick with the nice rack who works at Dairy Queen and won an online cover-girl contest." How Team Simpson let this happen is beyond me -- it's almost like admitting defeat -- but perhaps there's some truth to the idea that Ashlee gets the royal treatment now and, until she can redeem herself with a movie and/or a respectable romance, Jessica is relegated to clawing her way through any old publication that will tell her she's still got it.

So what's next, Jessie? FHM? Jugs? Wicked-Hot Chicks Monthly?

This cover is mind-bogglingly unattractive:

It is fug on a Peldon-shaped platter. It is the festering volcanic pustule on the chin of the Fugtown Express's oily conductor. I do know that it's hard to compete with cover lines of such stunning genius as "My Designer Vagina Transformed My Sex Life," and "Leeches Stopped My Nipple From Falling Off." Really, I sympathize with Fergie, because outshining those gems is an uphill battle. But the fact remains that, if this photo is to be believed, Fergie needs to stop worrying about her heart so much and start phunking with her estrogen levels.

Somebody must really hate Scarlett Johansson:

Don't get me wrong -- this person clearly isn't enamored of Ewan McGregor, either, because it's not his best showing. He looks like an orderly who is really not that thrilled about having to clean your bedpan, because he just had to give Old Woman McGillicuddy a sponge bath and it was nearly the putrid death of him, but he's going to breathe through his mouth the whole time and smile, by gum, because it's his job not to be disgusted by other people's waste matter.

But this photo of Scarlett Johansson makes her look like a stoned ogre. Her eyes seem to veer off in different directions. Her facial expression is stiff and forced. And it's the worst angle on her nose. Can this really have been the best frame of the lot? Or was someone with a ScarJo vendetta going through the proofs? Is this really the type of cover art that would make everyone at the magazine say, "Yes. We have done it. This is the one," if they didn't secretly hate ScarJo with every fiber of their beings?  Has EW hired Soon-Yi? Are the Scientologists getting revenge against her for turning down the Tom Cruise contract -- er, I mean, for not being alluring enough that he would fall in love with her on-sight?

I certainly hope, for The Island's sake, that the sexy side of sci-fi it purports to reveal is not properly illustrated by this cover. They have as much chemistry as hand soap and pudding. She looks like she is refusing to touch him; he looks like he just realized he forgot to Lysol her belly before putting his hand on it, but he's gritting his teeth and bearing it for the time being. Who at Entertainment Weekly is having such bad sex lately that this is their idea of erotic titillation? Soon-Yi, is it you again? Have you become a photo terrorist?

Adding insult to injury is the shot of Peeping Johnny on the top right corner, all Wonkafied and Wintour-esque.

I just don't understand. If I didn't subscribe, I wouldn't buy this issue -- as it was, it arrived unbidden, so I had to see it sitting on my coffee table without having been sufficiently prepped for the horror. The resulting yawp was one of terror and betrayal.

My only consolation comes in imagining that Ewan and Scarlett's twee rubber bracelets are actually stamped with a slogan that encourages people to stop buying twee rubber bracelets.

Yo, bitches. K Fed here. Some of you call me Cletus. That's a'ight. Listen, Meal Ticket over there made me pose for the cover of fucking Details magazine, dude.  She was all like, "blah blah hot, blah blah not a skeezebucket blah blah something something something." Like I listen. Anyway, check it:

[photo via the always juicy and delicious PageSixSixSix, and the divine Stereogum]

Dude.  I know.  When B saw it, she was all, something about me looking fucking sensitive, or some shit? Something about showing Justin something about her winning something? I don't even know, dude. I just tune out, yo. Wake and bake and tune the fuck out.

The thing is, dude, those bitches at Details? No clue how to appeal to the ladies, right? When you're on the prowl, dude, the facial hair has got to go. Get it all clean-shaven. All David Fucking "You Are So Precious To Me" Silver up in here. The ladies are gaging for D. Silver, dudes. Gagging. You got to get the grease all out of your hair. You got to look all so fresh and so clean.  You got to borrow a puppy from someone but not a little rat ass puppy like this one, like a MAN puppy like a retriever or some shit so you look all wholesome and responsible and shit. Girls love that. Maybe hang out with a baby, too. I told them I should be holding a baby in this picture, but they said something about not wanting to remind people that I was a "serial impregnator" or something? I don't even know what that means, but I told them I didn't have a criminal record except for that one time they got me for possession. But this is so not the look you use when it's time to get your van rocking, if you know what I mean. I look like a serial killer, yo. I look like I'm about to snap that rat puppy's neck and, hells yeah, I hate that dog but I'm not a dog killer, dude. I just lock them in their room and pretend they're not there. One day, I'm going to do that to Britney, too. HAHAHHAHA. I'm just kidding. Not really. Nah, I'm just messing with you. No, I'm not. No, really I am.

Anyway, B has this cover all framed and hung up in her "office" (which is where we keep the weed. I'm a professional toker, dude. Heh. Wouldn't it be rad if that was really a job? I'm qualified. HAHAHAH. Heh. Heh. Where was I?) but I'm going to hide it as soon as she goes out to the pool because seriously? I know. I know. It's retardo. I know.  It's going to totally salt my game, yo. Dude, just because I'm ringed up right now doesn't mean my shot clock has expired and shit, if you know what I mean. I mean, seriously, I just hope Paris Hilton doesn't see this because as soon as I've got B knocked up, P is next. Watch out, Paris, because Cletus is checking into the Hilton. Heh heh. God, I'm funny.

Aw, Christ. B is yelling at me. We're out of Cheetos. Gotta run, dude. Seriously, though, come by sometime. We've got a ton of good shit here. I have a bitchin' Playstation and we've got Pabst on TAP, dude. It's sweet.

Outtie,

Big Ups to Fresno!

Cletus AKA K Fed

This weekend, I was idly browsing at a newsstand when I did a double-take on the following magazine cover:

"Who is that?" I wondered, furrowing my brow. "It almost looks like Brittany Murphy, but she doesn't have a honker that huge."

But then I read the cover line, and learned that -- if the thick white text is to be believed -- that is indeed Brittany Murphy, and apparently, if you photograph her from a certain angle, she does have a honker that huge.

The photo, to me, looks nothing like her at all. Obviously, there is shades of Brittany in it, but on the whole it doesn't resemble relatively fine-featured twig we've come to recognize from posters for Little Black Book, or various pictures at red-carpet events, or that unfortunate time period during which her tongue was never more than an inch away from Ashton Kutcher's face.

She looks... weird. Worse. The photohrapher has taken her already pointy features and found a way to add hardness to them. Her browline looks more severe somehow; her smile, photoshopped from another photo entirely. And her nose has a hook and a girth to it that doesn't show up in any other photo of her that I've ever seen.

Oh, wait -- except for this one, an almost identical cover shot on Marie Claire from September 2003:

This one might a) be even worse, and b) look even less like Brittany Murphy than the current one. I don't know what it is, but it's like her features seen from this side provide an entirely different visual. At first glance, I was, again, wondering if I'd gotten wrong the identity of the cover model.

Perhaps Ms. Murphy pissed off someone at Marie Claire. Or maybe the photographer just thinks her Holly Hunter side is her only good one; either way, she really ought to stop posing for them before every plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills calls and offers her a free downsizing.