For the week of 3.2.06 

It is difficult not to heave a weary sigh when standing in front of a magazine stand these days. The politically correct consciousness of the 1990s has been overtaken and replaced with a new culture of greed and unapologetic lust. Nowhere has this been better illustrated than in the annual Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair magazine and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Several years ago, Tom Ford was catapulted to fame when he revived the flagging house of Gucci with his leather mini dresses, metal-heeled stilettos and smoking jackets. Gucci ads during these years took on a noticeably violent and misogynistic flavor. Models wearing the skimpiest of underwear would appear to be having fights, receiving sexual favors or passed out, as if from an overdose of some sort. Rather than keeping with a tone that celebrated talent and artistic achievement of the featured actors, Tom Ford brought the same tired and depraved aesthetic he honed at Gucci to the Vanity Fair photo shoots as guest artistic director.

                  "I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day"

                                                                                      ~W. B. Yeats

In the Editor's Letter of the Vanity Fair magazine Graydon Carter writes "If I could boil the Tom Ford experience down to a single element for you, it would be the yellow Post-It note I found stuck to a photograph of Angelina Jolie that was pinned to the wall of Vanity Fair's planning room. In small handwriting were the words "Leave in butt crack.TF." With twenty two women nude, semi-nude or degradingly depicted in this issue, this Post-It ends up speaking volumes more about the "artistic director's" attitudes towards his subjects, than the quote from Yeats between Scarlett Johansson's legs.

                "... an over the top orgy of self-love, misogyny and idiocy"

                                                         ~ Rebecca Traister, Salon.com.

Inside the magazine actress Sienna Miller lounges on a chair and smokes while wearing only a black thong and a bracelet. Peter Sarsgaard dangles from the ceiling tied up in Japanese bondage ropes. Jason Schwartzman lies on a bed in a suit while a nude woman stands beside him. Angelina Jolie's bare buttocks are visible as she lies on her stomach in a tub. That 70's Show star Topher Grace stands over an otherwise unseen woman whose feet are resting on his shoulders while Pamela Anderson and Mamie Van Doren, cleavage abundant, laugh over champagne. Actress Joy Bryant poses completely naked (unless you factor-in some massive jewelry) with only her hand to cover her crotch.  Cosmetic surgeon Garth Fisher poses on a golf course next to what appears to be a giant breast. And finally, George Clooney is featured in a two-page spread as the director of a movie featuring 15 women in flesh colored underwear who stand in a pool of water taking orders from him.

Tom Ford is not alone in his twisted newsstand misogyny. The annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is also pushing closer and closer to the edge of pornography.

"Heidi Klum Wearing Just Paint!" boasts the cover, which also has women wearing only bikini bottoms on it. In a question and answer interview, singer Kid Rock is posed the question "Any impressions of swimsuit models you'd care to share with the public at large?" to which he responds, "Swimsuit models would be a lot cooler if they were strippers." In one photo, model Noemie Lenoir lies naked on a bed with only the bottom of a bikini dangling from her toe while model Ana Barros lies on a beach wearing only a few strategically placed flowers. Heidi Klum, as promised, poses as a 1940s pinup girl wearing painted-on bathing suits. Las Vegas actress Molly Sims models a 30 million dollar bikini. In a picture that pulls out like the centerfold of a pornographic magazine, she is wearing a "bikini' that essentially consists of a few large diamonds that cover her nipples and pubic area.

In an effort to try and capture people's attention more and more sexual violence and pornographic imagery is seeping into mainstream magazines. As Advertising Age's Scott Donaton recently observed magazines are resorting to using "shock to hide the absence of a real idea or something meaningful or relevant to say." The image of Sienna Miller smoking in a thong or the cosmetic surgeon next to a giant breast on a golf course conjure up images of the self-destructiveness that Tom Ford tried to glamorize during his stint at Gucci. The images of the nude models in the Swimsuit Issue and Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightly's Vanity Fair cover almost look pedophiliac in nature while Angelina Jolie and Noemie Lenoir look as though they are being viewed through the eyes of a voyeur. The influence of porn is unmistakable in both Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair, and when all is said and done, the pullout spreads of Heidi Klum, Molly Sims and the infamous unfolding Vanity Fair cover combined with the graphic nudity that permeates both issues are as close as any magazine can hope to go before being wrapped in plastic and placed out of the reach of tiny hands.

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