Art Or Something Else? Vogue Strikes A Pose

I’m due for a haircut. The reason I’m putting it off is the thirty minutes I have to spend at The Great Clips are boring because all of the magazines are usually aimed at women or gay men. Despite what you may have heard or read, I’m neither, but I think I’m going to find time to hit a salon because the new Vogue is out.

I’m a typical dude when it comes to clothes, hair, style, wardrobe, etc. You know, stupid, uninformed, clueless. But I did see The Devil Wears Prada so I know Meryl Streep was playing someone like Anna Wintour, the mercurial (that’s a nice way to say bitchy), editor of American Vogue. That magazine is about fashion, I think, and really good looking people. Vogue is so cool that they have an International version. This week’s French Vogue has forty-four-year old Supermodel (Do they have a union?) Stephanie Seymour and some dude behind her with the same last name as New York Yankees first basemen Mark Teixeira, getting, as my Grandparents would say, “ornery” with each other.

This cover has created a media firestorm (which is code for bunch of people acting offended) provoking outrage from women’s groups who fear that Vogue is promoting violence against women as romantic art. They have a point. Because the first thought that entered my head was, “dude that’s Stephanie Seymour from the Guns n Roses’ videos twenty years ago. She’s held up well!”. Then the second thought was, “I know that’s a little provocative, but it’s kind of sexy.” Art is subjective. Maybe we should give Vogue an “attagirl” for letting a middle-aged woman make a buck in the fashion business?

Remember, this is FRENCH Vogue. As we found out last week, http://sprocketink.com/frenchboobsroyals/ they spy on people having private vacations and take pictures of them nude to sell magazines. Also, the French, like many other European cultures, are much less uptight about sexuality than the United States. I live in the repressed, hypocritical American South. But I didn’t see abuse in that magazine cover. I saw two ridiculously good-looking folk creating a sensuous picture, ostensibly to sell something. Vogue sells clothes? Perfume? Coupons to Starbucks?

I’ll wait another week to go to the Haircuttery. That should give them plenty of time to order their copy of French Vogue.