Harry Styles is not only famous for being apart of the boy band 'One Direction' but he is also famous in the younger generation of girls for being good looking. The picture on the front has a little sticker down the bottom saying: "This image was supplied to us retouched." This photo was obviously photo shopped showing Harry with no stubble, plush plum coloured lips, not a hair out of place and perfect smooth-looking skin. Harry is 20 years old and is made to look like he's 16 so he attractive to younger girls.
The front of this magazine has the hot neon pink colour that feature a lot in the writing. This colour pink is more appealing to younger girls and makes me think that this magazine is aimed at younger girls even though majority of the articles in the magazine are about things that should not be viewed by younger members. The stories featured on the cover of the magazine are about how to be popular and stories from the 1D boys themselves. Even before you look inside the magazine, just by looking at the cover, you come to assumption that girls are constantly trying to be cool and popular, and that they're boy obsessed.
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| February Cover of Girlfriend Magazine |
As girlfriend magazine is an Australian magazine, you would expect to see a lot of pictures that relate to Australian teens - even New Zealand teens as Australia and New Zealand are such close countries. But majority of the content in the magazine is about American teens, so Australian and New Zealand teenagers can't relate. And not only are all the pictures of American girls but they are also Photo shopped, so the girls can't live up to those unrealistic expectations. One of the pages in the magazine has an advertisement for makeup and says, if you have all of those products then you = gorgeous! However, if you look at the prices for all the products it adds up to almost $200! Suggesting that 'it costs to look beautiful'.
Statistics from the magazine:
Number of advertisements for:
- Make-up: 9
- Skin care: 1
- Hair products: 2
- Clothing/Jewellery: 20
- Technology: 3
- Health: 2
- Entertainment (books, movies, radio stations): 5
Number of articles about:
- Beauty: 15
- Fashion: 4
- Friendship: 5
- Boys: 9
- Advice: 20
- World Affair/Politics: 0
- Sex: 1
- Diets: 3
- Celebrities: 16
- Readers stories: 4
- Others 5
Looking at the statistics from inside the magazine the same assumptions could be made. Teenage girls are boy crazy and wanting to be cool/popular but it also now suggests that girls are always wanting to change themselves and make themselves look "more beautiful" by putting makeup on and changing their fashion sense to look like celebrities. It shows that this kind of thing is what a normal teenage girl is like.
In this magazine, unlike many others, there are stories about people with disabilities and with cancer. However, there are very few photographs of people with dark skin. But if you look at the other issues of girlfriend magazine there are no stories about disabilities or illnesses and there are no photographs of other ethnicities. So maybe you could see this issue as a one off kind of thing.
This stereotype about teenage girls is not portraying a positive message of teenage girls because as the articles and advertisements suggest, girls and superficial and boy crazy although over half of the girls I know aren't like that at all.
Since every girl is different, the advertisements and images could affect you differently. Obviously if you are insecure, you will take what the magazine says seriously and want the products that its advertising. However, for some girls they might just see it as a form of light-hearted entertainment and just ignore the pressuring advertisements.
Since every girl is different, the advertisements and images could affect you differently. Obviously if you are insecure, you will take what the magazine says seriously and want the products that its advertising. However, for some girls they might just see it as a form of light-hearted entertainment and just ignore the pressuring advertisements.
Do you think that the magazine offers a realistic portrayal of teenage girls? Do you think that teenage girls buy into all of the adverts and the images that they see in the magazines, or, do you think they treat teen magazines as a form of lighthearted entertainment and don't buy into the messages and values?
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