Hi. Now, I’m a girl (you’re just going to have to just trust me). As a girl I am prone to girlish things, like saying the word ‘girlish’, and putting make-up on my face. I also wear dresses, and high heels, and sometimes I squeal. Very rarely, but I’m not going to lie, it has happened. I also have been known to watch Sex and The City – actually that’s not the right way to put it, since I really hope I’m not known for watching Sex and The City. That’s one of the worst things to follow someone’s name surely:
“Have you met Cheryl?”
“No, what’s she like?”
“Umm…She’s known for watching Sex and The City”
“Oh. Right. I see.”
“Yep.”
“How much longer are you going to put stuff in speech marks?”
“I dunno it looks a bit weird doesn’t it, I just wanted to make it clear they were having a conversation”
“Who’s they?”
Anyway. What I’m trying to say is that I am just as fallible (and wonderful – You Go Girls!) as any other member of the fairer sex. So sometimes I find myself reaching for, and buying, copies of women’s magazines. Obviously these always get read after me by men that I hang around with, but they’re not allowed to admit it (another weird turn of phrase, making it seem like there’s this big gang of hairy-knuckled men I knock about with, who also like reading Vogue and plaiting my hair). Now. Some women’s magazines are honest about what they are. They get Real Talk about the fact that inside their pages you will basically find a catalogue of couture pressed alongside little tidbits of news events, photos of sweets/chocolate/cupcakes in some gloriously decadent ‘if you’re gonna eat, do it properly’ way, and perhaps an interview with a sleb. Reading it you don’t feel like you’ve been cheated, perhaps really poor, really ignorant about fashion, and start fancying a finger of icing, but there’s no deep seated anguish kicking in.
But woe betide your sweaty little fingers make the mistake of grabbing Grazia from the Newstand. Here’s why:
1. It’s just Heat dressed up in a sexy-but-dull-wolf-who-likes-prada’s clothing.
At least Heat is funny. At least Heat has interviews with people it really shouldn’t, where they ask about their last text message, and encourage some sort of 1950’s sexual innuendo to go alongside the blurb about their new book/album/fart. Also, as annoying and stupid it is to point out who is fat and thin each week, with Heat they swap between the two regularly. So you know that while you might feel a bit shit this week, next week you’ll feel great. Grazia meanwhile has policies about only warning us when someone is shockingly skinny, and the photos are accompanied by a weird article where they talk vaguely about problems that person may or may not have. So you end up feeling like you’ve just read the literary equivalent of candy floss. With Heat they would have tried to get hold of said troubled girl, and then printed the exact transcript of their conversation with the press person in a hilarious manner. Grazia has no sense of humour, and instead deals with it all in this kind of tilted head, nodding sympathetically way. Which terrifies me.
They’ve also ripped off a lot of Heat’s GENIUS (kind of) ideas. The circle of shame/what were you thinking vibe is pretty vile - I want to make it clear that Heat is very much the lesser of two syphilitic devils – but it’s clumsy and camp. With Grazia they ask people who are fashion professionals to start bitching about what someone is wearing. Lame. Basically, Heat is in your face with how obnoxious and ridiculous it is, while Grazia tries to trick you into thinking it’s something that it’s not. Dangerous.
2. Its really odd News Stories
Each week Grazia tries to bring it’s readership the ten biggest News Stories. The key word here is tries. It’s like the dappy but loveable News girl resolves to trawl the web for the most important issues that every Grazia reader needs to know. Unfortunately everytime she has a tea break she finds herself looking at Popbitch, or just wandering through pages and pages of photos of Suri and TomKat. Then by the end of the day, when the Editor is standing over her desk demanding the week’s big events, she jots down the one actual News story she can remember, and random things to bulk it up. The Editor reads them, rolls her eyes, and then ruffles loveable News-girl’s hair, “What are you like eh?” Cue scores of sitcom laughter and a hot window cleaner walking past while both women exclaim, “phwooarr!” To illustrate my point further, here are Grazia’s Big Stories from the week of 7th December this year.
1. Jedward.
2. Hermione from Harry Potter goes to an ice hockey game with a Spanish popstar.
3. Grazia has discovered that Jewellrey is what makes an outfit, “It’s more important than ever”.
4. Some transcripts of text messages sent on 9/11 (err WHAT?)
5. ‘What’s Happened To Cameron’s Face?’
6. Photos of the new daughters of rockstars who are now old enough to go to premieres. E.g. Lily Collins, Phil Collins’ daughter.
7. Foxy Knoxy
8. O.M.G. John Corbett AKA Aidan is spotted on the set of the new Sex and The City movie (this one is actually REALLY important).
9. Some lame ass t-shirts
10. Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie are gonna be in a film together which the Grazia team predicts will cause an end to both their respective marriages.
Brilliant.
3. Its fashion stuff is ridonkulously expensive.
I know absolutely nothing about fashion, but I would have though that if you’re going to be talking about Jedward as the biggest story of the week, surely you shouldn’t also feature clothes over £300 quid. It’s like the fashion people think they’re working for a different magazine, sticking their fingers in their ears and la la la-ing when dappy News girl (starting to really love her) is in the meeting waffling about who she can get to argue whether or not Katie Price ‘has got what she deserves’.
Now obviously girls who are into fashion are probably also into whether or not KP has got what’s coming to her, but to be so blatant about that seems a bit odd. Likewise the fact that in every issue there’s a new diet plan - I thought the whole point of fashion people is that they don’t need actually do diets. They’re all just born that way. Right? I’m not going to say much more on this in case I really embarrass myself by starting to try to understand couture/clothes/money/Katie Price.
However, what really makes Grazia beelzebub in gloss form is this:
4. I will still buy it.
I know there will be a day when I’m waiting for a train, and I’m bored and it’s cold, and Grazia’s looking up at me expectantly with a juicy picture of Jennifer Aniston on the cover. It will probably be sometime next week, to be honest. In fact I keep getting distracted while writing this by its devilish pages. I hate that, I hate my own fallibility. I know it is bad for me and the magazine itself is disposable and confused, but I will still spend money on it. Afterwards it leaves me empty and ashamed, but I don’t learn my lesson. It’s the Chris Brown of weekly lifestyle magazines. So please someone, save me from myself.
