Why I Don't Read People Magazine Anymore
Jim Sullivan
I've
enjoyed reading People Magazine since it was spun off from Time Magazine
in March of 1974. That's over three decades now. And I'll admit
that such activity, for me, has been one of life's 'guilty pleasures.'
I
avidly read the human oriented, 72-page periodical because it had several
stories of diverse individuals not only from the world of entertainment
but also from the fields of business, sports, media, academia, and the
culture-at-large.
The
first issue had pieces on Queen Elizabeth, Sam Ervin of Watergate fame,
and Air Force Major Thomas T. Hart, one of over 1,000 missing servicemen
in Viet Nam. Marina Oswald, whose husband had been President Kennedy's
assassin, was featured, along with words from The Exorcist novelist/author
William Peter Blatty. Even Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel, The
First Circle, was excerpted.
Turning
the photo-laden pages of People Magazine to find brief, interesting stories
and pictures about those men and women about whom I had learned in books,
magazines, newspapers, or on TV and radio, in movies, and, in more recent
years, on videos, was a real pleasure.
But
now, People Magazine seems to have become almost exclusively the publicity
arm of Hollywood and the young men's and women's fashion industries.
Week after week, the same celebrities, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston,
Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, George Clooney, Christina Aguilera, Brad
Pitt, Luke Perry, Gwyneth Paltrow, and J-Lo appear on People's slick, shiny
pages. These same folks tend to show up more than once in each issue,
too. Yes, these good looking men and attractive women are fun to
see and read about occasionally, like maybe once a month or every six weeks
or so. However, the stylishly dressed, so-called entertainers, or
stars, aren't all that accomplished, pleasant to read about, or important
enough to see photos of, page after page, week after week.
In
short, though a few people are depicted that aren't celebrities, there's
not enough of them to draw a, dare I write it, discriminating reader to
the publication. People magazine has become just another entertainment
fan and fashion magazine. And it's become a publication fit primarily
for junior high school kids to read. That's okay as far as it goes.
They need material to peruse, too. People Magazine just shouldn't
pass itself off as anything else.
Now,
I do enjoy movie, book, and TV reviews in print. But even they pale
in People Magazine when all the celebrity fluff has to be gotten through,
waded in, and/or overcome.
I
have felt kind of the same way, too, about some other so-called popular,
big name, slick magazines found on the overflowing magazine racks at book
stores like Barnes and Noble and Borders. Leading in my parade of
disgruntlement and discontent, besides People, are Vanity Fair, Esquire,
and GQ Quarterly. I just don't enjoy reading them anymore.
I even feel a bit of resentment building up if and when I do, trying to
give them yet another chance, flip through their pages. I know they
run some good fiction and nonfiction. But the photos they tend to
print are of millionaires or, gulp, billionaires at annual, exclusive gala
parties or at some other elite gatherings. And that tends to irritate
me.
I
still enjoy plenty of magazines like The Nation, Progressive, Mother Jones,
Harper's, Atlantic, and the New Yorker. What bugs me the most about
magazines like People is the celebrities in them. Many of those individu-
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