F.U., GQ

I loved reading magazines when I was in high school. I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, and whenever I had the chance I would pick up issues of Interview, Rolling Stone, and Blender (which I haven't thought about since high school, and apparently no longer exists). Part of my enthusiasm for magazines came from the fact that I wallpapered my bedroom with pictures torn from these magazines, but in general I liked them because I found the articles entertaining and was better able to concentrate on them at swim meets than on books. Plus, the words-and-pictures aesthetic of those particular magazines appealed to me, and still does, hence the layout of this blog.

Since high school, however, my interest in magazines has gradually waned to near-nonexistence, for a variety of reasons: Interview has become too esoteric; Rolling Stone's and my music tastes diverged a long time ago; and Entertainment Weekly has, of late, become far too concerned with seeming hip and snappy, like a hard copy version of their website. I think, overall, that the type of writing featured in entertainment magazines simply doesn't appeal to me anymore -- the best magazine article I've read in years was one on Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas in Sports Illustrated -- but I will still occasionally buy Entertainment Weekly if it's featuring an actor/singer/writer I like, and the same goes for GQ, which I rarely bought even in high school. Aside from an interview here and there, GQ literally has nothing to say to me, which I used to think was because I was younger than its target demographic, but now that I'm slowly but surely inching my way toward 30 and it still doesn't have anything to say to me, I think the reason is because I don't live in a big city or have extra money to spend on $500 steel grey sweaters with whale bone buttons, harvested from the icy waters around Nova Scotia. GQ is the granddaddy of rich white guy magazines, and I am unfortunately missing the key adjective in that description ("rich").

That's not to say I begrudge GQ -- or any magazine -- for catering to its core audience, especially in these waning days of print journalism. Yes, some of the more expensive aspects of GQ's fashion advice seem a little ridiculous in today's economy, but if Neiman Marcus can still publish their Holiday Catalog with a straight face, GQ can certainly recommend a $1,080 Marc Jacobs sweater along with the teaser line "The NFL's number one draft pick, Cam Newton, is...a guy like yourself who looks good in one of our favorite fall trends." A guy like whoself they don't say, but somebody out there must have a spare grand lying around to drop on a bold-striped sweater. The point is, GQ has always catered to the privileged while still being available to the masses, and they shouldn't change their game plan just because I or anyone else can't afford to take their purchasing suggestions seriously.

What I can begrudge GQ, however, is being a big old fat hypocrite and ridiculing its core audience with articles that seem better suited for a magazine like Maxim. Case in point: in the July 2011 issue, which I bought because it has Chris Evans on the cover and I sort of like him, although maybe not as much as I think I do, since I've hardly seen any of his movies, there is, in addition to a five-page profile on Michael Bay (!) and an argument that Obama is unbeatable because he found Bin Ladan (July seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?), an article entitled "Are You a Pussy?" (Actually, the cover advertises the article as "How to Tell If You're a P%$$Y," and the article itself uses a photo of a kitten in place of the operative word, but I'm not even going to get into the irony involved in calling something "Are You a Pussy?" and then being too much of a pussy to write the word "pussy.") Let me say, first and foremost, that the article is supposed to be funny, and I know it's supposed to be funny, and it starts out promisingly enough, with the writers saying, "Just the other day, we were nursing a hot water with agave nectar while waiting for Water for Elephants to start, and we were like, 'We need to write a quiz to make sure our readers know how to spot all the tight bitches up in here!' And, you know, to find out if we are one of them. Because after we color-coded our underpants, we started to get a little worried."

What follows is a "quiz" in which the writers juxtapose two polar-opposite archetypes, the 21st century metrosexual and the ultra-masculine alpha male, while poking fun at both, with questions like: "They don't have the loose Darjeeling available at the Bookbinder Cafe, so you: 1) Just get a tea bag; it's cool, no biggie. 2) Order a Coke slushie instead, and add some crushed Bugles for texture. 3) Get out your own tin of loose-leaf Darjeeling and that pewter infuser you keep next to your writing quill. 4) Wrestle the barista to the ground and show him your tea bag." The idea is sort of clever, as far as humorous magazine articles go, but it misses the mark on two key points: 1) the quiz is definitely more anti-metrosexual than it is anti-alpha-male, which would be fine, except 2) the article is in freaking GQ, the Bible for metrosexual males, and the very next page after the quiz features recipes for "Panko Scotch Eggs" and "Blood Orange Espumas." If the quiz had, in fact, appeared in a magazine like Maxim, I wouldn't have an opinion on it one way or the other, but GQ can only poke so much fun at fussy, high-tech men when the magazine is otherwise dedicated to promoting the fussy, high-tech lifestyle. It's like if Vogue published a quiz entitled "Are You an Anorexic Snob?"

Plus, the whole quiz purposely avoids the real elephant in the room when it comes to GQ, which is that their readership might trend more toward "metrosexual" than "alpha male" for reasons other than the magazine's own influence. Take a look at the editorial spread from the same issue as the quiz, featuring True Blood's Joe Manganiello:

No straight man -- including Joe Manganiello -- would ever dress like that in real life, or fantasize about doing so; furthermore, I doubt many straight men have any interest in looking at Joe Manganiello dress like that in the pages of their magazine. The reason the editorial staff at GQ has him half-naked is because they know -- though they would never admit to such a thing -- that a significant portion of their readership is gay, which is why a quiz that champions the stereotypical alpha male seems doubly awkward for all parties involved. I'm not saying gay men can't be alpha males, or that plenty of straight men don't read GQ, but when you equate being a pussy with drinking prosecco, listening to Iron & Wine, and liking Fried Green Tomatoes (all of which feature in that quiz), you're definitely casting aspersions toward one type of person over another -- and that type of person could easily be gay. I don't find the quiz in the least bit offensive, but I do find it hypocritical and remarkably lacking in self-awareness, like a person who makes fun of the things they like because they're embarrassed to admit they like them. I'm all for self-deprecating humor, but, you know...don't be a closet case, GQ; the world doesn't need another Details.