The Impossible Identity

Inventing the Cosmo Girl was an interesting article in that it surprised me.  I read Cosmopolitan almost religiously and I doubt that I will ever look at the magazine the same again.  I understand that the crude sexual content has its purpose, but I never really looked behind the lines at the creation of each article and the targeted audience of each segment. 

Brown promises her readers “a girl-style American Dream.”  She creates this falsified or fake girl that is dolled up in order to be something or someone that they are not.  While reading the article I found it almost impossible to not recognize that all the aspects of her journalism revolve around the idea of changing yourself or “bettering” yourself to suit someone else’s response, in particular a mans response.  To change your looks to attract a man, to change your job to meet men, to act as if you are wealthy in order to attract a wealthy man. Even the covers of Cosmopolitan display an altered women who is always 1. skinny 2. beautiful 3. airbrushed. (FAKE)  

All of Browns idea center on a women’s identity on the basis of upper class ideals (126). Brown dwells on the idea of consumption making you appear to be in a particular class, the desired “upper class.”   A number of her articles try to teach women how to be more “proper” or have better etiquette. She teaches girls this screwed up idea of the American Dream, a screwed up version of what men desire and what girls want to be in order to please them. 

This article reminds me of the textual analysis that I just finished for our Paper 1.  Both this article and my advertisement demonstrate the idea of women trying to be multiple things at once and trying to possess some traits that they may not have, in order to attract a particular audience. Brown is at the roots of these teachings and her articles have helped make create this skewed version of women should be to get men.