It’s no secret that I am a feminist of the femme variety. I’ve already explained my interest in beauty products and high heeled shoes, and admittedly, my feminine obsessions translate to my newsstand purchases as well. I’m a magazine circulator by profession, so I buy and read a lot of magazines, many of which are thoughtful, intelligent and culturally relevent: Bitch, Ms., Utne, Venus, and of course, Shameless.
But every girl has her fair share of guilty pleasures, and mine was my beloved Jane Magazine. Every month I would relish in the relaxation that was page after page of witty full colour fun. While being informed of new sunscreens to buy and basking in the glory that was cute belts coordinating with cute skirts, I’d also get the occasional informative article on American politics, STD prevention and practical investment strategies for women. Last month, Jane even taught me that my boobs were perfectly normal.
Well my friends, Jane Mag is no more. The staff at Jane cleared out their desks today and the “subscribe!” link on the Jane Mag page is redirecting me to Glamour, because now I’m supposed to care only about bronzers and fad diets and not about my cervix, the health of my breasts, and taking a cross country road trip.
It’s a sad day folks. Even if you thought Jane was fluffy, trashy and vacuous, you have to admit it did offer a mainstream alternative to vapid articles about sex positions that seemed to only benefit “your man” (heterocentric anyone?) Jane was birthed out of the teen glory that was Sassy mag (before it got shut down by the Christian right for giving too much truth to teens,) and in my books any friend of Sassy is a friend of mine.
Now Jane had it’s fair share of content troubles, and was often criticized for not pushing the envelope far enough to differ itself from the media soup of shopping, sex and shoes that is other women’s glossies. Having said that, the demise of the magazine marks an important trend in the media landscape: mainstream corporate mags no longer need to cater to a woman’s mind. While there remains some thoughtful reads for women in an older age demographic, anyone under the age of 35 should make sure they don’t put their thinking cap on when they head to the newsstand.
Jane, you will be missed. Bathtub reading won’t be the same without you.
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nine comments
Bitch magazine has a critique of Jane magazine that says some of the things I think about Jane, so I'll link to it for those who haven't seen it:
http://www.bitchmagazine.org/archives...
While some of this may seem, um, bitchy, and easy targets for a fluffy women's mag, keep in mind that when it launched, Jane presented itself as being radically different from other women's mags. See item #10 from Bitch's "Then Things To Hate About Jane":
10. Jane made some promises it couldn’t keep. "I didn’t want to create a magazine that would make women feel bad after reading it. I didn’t want it to be a manual for all your flaws and all the things you need to fix," Pratt commented in a New York Times article that accompanied the magazine’s release in September 1997. One of the standard criticisms of women’s magazines is that they present their readers with a completely unrealistic idea of what a woman’s life is/should be. Smart women know it’s not all about curling irons and bikini waxes and dog-earing your copy of The Rules and cooking the right kind of soufflé to impress the hunky guy in Marketing. It’s this knowledge that is supposedly the engine behind Jane.
But Pratt and her cohorts probably shouldn’t strain their arms patting themselves on the back. It’s true that you won’t find diet plans, calorie breakdowns, or dopey self-discovery quizzes within Jane’s heavy, well-designed, matte-finish pages, and less of those things in the world of women’s mags is always welcome. But much as Jane would like to believe that retro typefaces and bleeding-edge fashion styling make them the anti-Cosmo, it ain’t so easy. In plenty of the ways that count, Jane is just like any other women’s magazine (see items 1, 3, 4, 5, 6). There might not be an article on, say, how cellulite makes you a less valuable person, but Jane’s premiere issue’s road test of cellulite creams featured Pratt herself remarking that she hid her tube of something called Chanel Multi-Hydroxy Cellulite Complex "so no one would think I cared about something so superficial."
...
Maybe our expectations of Jane were unfair. Maybe it’s our own fault for forgetting that anything run by a major media conglomerate (Jane is owned, ultimately, by Disney) can hardly buck the ad-driven culture of women’s magazines that literally depends on the product plug for its revenue stream. There was a reason, after all, why Sassy went down the tubes. But why insult intelligent women by instituting hypocrisy from the start? Sad as it is, we’re used to women’s magazines making us feel that we’re not thin or pretty enough or rich or well-heeled enough, and that’s why many of us choose not to read them. But it’s far worse to be smugly informed that what we’re getting from Jane is different, when in fact the only difference lies in the pitch itself. Jane’s snooty, preening reality is that much more painful for having the initial premise—and Pratt’s own promises—dangled before us. Good design may allow Jane to assume the pose of an alternative to the usual crop of women’s magazines, but the end result is nothing more than, to cop a phrase from my high school math teacher, an old friend in a new hat. An old, advertiser-smooching, beauty-product-hawking, celebrity-ass-kissing, skinny-model-filled old friend in a new, faux-iconoclastic, hypocritical, self-congratulatory hat.
Posted by Nicole
July 10, 2007, 7:45 AM
As Nicole has pointed out, not everyone is sad to see Jane go:
http://feministing.com/archives/00733...
I think the merit of Jane is indeed up for debate, as it did have some highs and lows in terms of keeping with a feminist agenda. While I understand the complaints above, I think the good thing about Jane was that it offered an alternative within the mainstream (the lesser of many evils if you will?) and as one commenter points out on feministing, it was a lone mass produced voice of reproductive rights, pro-sexuality and lacked the moral judgement and issue side-stepping of some of it's comtemporaries.
I think, based on it's economics, it had to compromise. It sold stuff on skinny models while it educated about cervical cancer because that's what is necessary to stay alive with advertisers: sad thing is, even Jane wasn't enough mainstream fluff and that's why it's been canned. Looks like if you want to work at a magazine that talks to women about real issues, you can't expect any stability.
Posted by Stacey May
July 10, 2007, 8:11 AM
Doesn't Bitch, in fact, have an anti-Jane sidebar in pretty much every issue? It kind of cracks me up, like when your stoic Feminist Economics professor suddenly announces she has a vendetta against Nicole Kidman. You know?
Posted by anna
July 10, 2007, 9:49 AM
Yes indeed, the "Jane Petty Criticism Corner!" That indeed will be missed. As the title suggests, Jane is always up for debate in terms of whether it hurts or helps the average reader.
By the way, I thought it might be relevent to mention that according to Gawker reports, only one Jane staffer (a male staff member, incidently) knew on Friday that everyone was getting the boot - everyone else learned yesterday, the day they were asked to vacate the office and never come back.
Now, for a magazine staff made up primarily of women, isn't just a little bit disgraceful that these magazine professionals got turned out on the street without warning?
Rumour has it they got theirs by stealing all the clothes and beauty products on site....
Posted by Stacey May
July 10, 2007, 11:05 AM
Having once been the target demographic for Jane Magazine, I turned staunchly against it (we always hate the things that we were the most...) when my politics took a turn for the radical. Still I get your point Stacey May, that even if it wasn't that different, it still was a little...and so that's kinda sad that they went under. Geez, if a high gloss, ad-stuffed, pseudo-feminist magazine can't make it, what can??
Posted by Thea
July 11, 2007, 2:01 PM
Thea- so you know, "It had a total average paid circulation of 706,561, according to the latest data on the company's website."
So that's failure in the high gloss, psudo feminist world.
Posted by Stacey May
July 16, 2007, 7:13 AM
I am definitely a fan of Jane... I thought that it was slight more intellectually stimulating than COSMO or GLAMOUR, all of which reduce women's interests to pleasing their man, or which shoes match which purse. Jane had a little bit more substance, and I'm sad to see it go.
Posted by Sahar
July 17, 2007, 10:18 AM
I to am sad to see Jane go,not for myself but for my daughter who is at an age where magazines are bibles and yet not old enough for the real stuff. Jane gave me an alternative half fluff half reality read to purchase for her. I haven't decided what to purchase as a replacement. any suggestions? please keep in mind she is only fifteen
Posted by stephanie
August 2, 2007, 1:47 PM
The obvious answer to that question, of course, is Shameless Magazine.
Posted by Stacey May
August 2, 2007, 2:15 PM
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