Women Deserve More

By Sheila Gibbons, Women's eNews. Posted March 16, 2004.

More, the magazine that promotes itself as "the one magazine that celebrates women over 40," seems a bit ambivalent for such self-appointed trailblazing.

Occasionally -- in apparent defiance of the cosmetics advertisers that pay the way of most women's magazines -- More actually dares to depict older women, some of them larger-sized, with little or no makeup and without designer duds. Yet a few pages away, readers will readily find tips on how to disguise their true ages and slither into a size 8.

Instead of selling itself to older women, the magazine sometimes just sells them out. And in the process it risks following in the footsteps of Mirabella, another magazine that tried and ultimately failed to address itself in a consistent way to older readers. Even though More "celebrates" an older audience, its mind often seems to be on a younger demographic. Like many women's magazines, what More really celebrates is the inner teen in all of us.

Despite articles that are often appropriate to its target audience, More's cover lines are interchangeable with what you could expect to see in Seventeen or Glamour: "Beauty Secrets: Psst! 59 ways to more radiant skin;" "Style Smarts: Sexxxy Suits-The hottest shoes in town;" "Best makeup, top tricks for a flawless face;" and on and on. The "celebration" of age, with its dependence on "secrets" and "tricks," has an undercurrent of guile.

Many of More's ads, especially those for makeup, skin care, hair color, weight-loss programs and cigarettes, also appear in Self, Redbook and other magazines marketed to younger women. So even when More addresses its older audience in its editorial content, a substantial number of the ad images beam out the young-is-best message.

It's an ambivalence that hasn't escaped the notice of at least one of the magazine's own celebrated subjects. Jessica Lange, interviewed in December on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show, commented wryly about the airbrushing that her photograph on More's December-January cover received. The subtext: Yes, we celebrate your being past 40, but you shouldn't look too far past 40 to pass muster at the newsstand. Lange is 55. Her cover shot depicts a fine-looking woman who looks closer to 33 or 34 than 55.

To its credit, More also publishes true-life stories of interesting women confronting the challenges that arrive with one's fifth decade. These are accompanied by photographs of women who look a lot more like the ones I know than the celebrity cover faces and the models for Clarins, Estee Lauder and Bee-Alive products.

Articles on dating after divorce, starting a business, managing a serious health issue while maintaining high performance on the job, an end-of-year guide to female-themed philanthropic opportunities, are well done. A keeper is former Ms. magazine editor Suzanne Braun Levine's article, "No More Ms. Nice Guy," about how aging has enabled her to give up perfectionist fantasies and terminal politeness.

Perhaps its best-known feature on the reality of the over-40 female image was instigated by actor Jamie Lee Curtis. In 2002, at 43, Curtis challenged More to run a completely un-retouched photo of her. Curtis knew she no longer had the body she'd exhibited in films and wanted to make a point about that.

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