Teen Magazines

Cover Analysis

'Girlfriend' is a magazine written by women for young teenage girls. by the look of the cover and the name it probably has a guide to teenage boys, celebrities and girl stuff. 

The cover girl is Lea Michele from Glee. She is well known for her singing and acting. she has a large smile and a skinny 'perfect' looking body. she has tanned skin and medium length brown curls for hair, and big brown eyes. although she is probably photoshopped in the cover she looks like someone a lot of teenage girls would aspire to look like. 

There are only three colors used on the cover which is pink black and white, all three colors go together and they also match with Lea Michele's body and clothing. the colors were probably used to look basic but eye catching. The color pink normally appeals to teenage girls. 

On the right there are two small pictures of posters that are found in the magazine. One of One Direction which is eye catching for Teenage girls who listen to pop music because they are the big boy band at the moment, there is also a picture of Taylor Swift who is a girl that sings songs about love which is something a lot of teenage girls like to listen about. 

Most of the articles that are set on the cover are about boys and how to interact or deal with them and famous people. These two things are probably the most important things to teenage girls and this is why the editors at Girlfriend have advertised them on the cover. 

Inside The Magazine

Articles:

Makeup : 6
Skin Care: 5
Hair: 1
Clothes/ Jewelry: 12
Tv/ Movies: 2
Perfume:1

There aren't to many advertisements in this magazine probably because teenagers cant afford most of the stuff that they are advertising. They do have a lot of advertisements on clothing because having the latest fashions are more 'needed' then good makeup or skin care. the products are reasonably priced if you are in a medium to high social economic group but if you don't have much money you could only dream of having the clothes shown.

Main Focus'
Beauty; the main focus for beauty is more on keeping your skin clear and reduce spots to make you feel better about yourself rather then using makeup to cover up the faults you may see in yourself. I think its incourging for girls to see this sort of thing because it makes you feel better about yourself and knowing that you can do something about the things you don't like rather then just covering them up and forgetting about them.

Fashion; There is a lot of fashion advertisements in 'Girlfriend' and is probably the second most advertised thing in the magazine. i think its nice to see what the latest fashions are but they should look for clothes that are the same but at a cheaper price so more girls can afford to feel like they fit in. If girls or their families cant afford the latest fashions then girls start to feel down on themselves because they cant fit in with other girls or feel 'cool'

Relationships with friends; Girlfriend has an advice column which is for readers to ask a Adolescent Psychologist about friendship and life problems/ situations which they feel they need help with. Dr Michael Carr-Gregg answers these questions in a helpful way but also in a way for girls of any age to understand. He adds facts in his answers to help girls understand that what they are going through may not be easy but other people out there have been through it and they aren't the only ones.  There are also advice pages through-out the magazine about how to deal with friendship things such as meeting the parents.

Relationships with boys; there is a lot of boy talk in this magazine. in a way its good because boys are a teenage girls main focus. Girlfriend has a whole section on boys. Theres things like facts about boys, What guys really talk about with their friends, answered by 4 teenage boys who go to high-school and how to deal with a break-up. all of this is really good information but some of its not as realistic as what it could be. in the article about dealing with breakups it makes breaking up sound a lot easier then what it really is. it says " ...block him so that he cant see what your up to"  blocking someone is actually a lot harder then it sound be and blocking an ex boyfriend could possibly be a step to far as he might start stuff as soon as he knows you've blocked him, and because you've blocked him how are you going to know what people are saying.

Advice; the advice in Girlfriend has been well done. they have advice about almost anything. Boys, Health, Fashion, Makeup, Family, Friends, Famous People, How to reach your goals. you name it and they probably have it. a lot of the advice is extremely helpful and inspirational.

World Affairs and politics ; There is nothing on World Affairs or Politics probably because this magazine is made for young teenagers who don't really need to worry about the government.

Sex; There is one article in the magazine about how to talk to your parents about sex but other then that there isn't to much about sex. this could be because young teens don't really want to think about sex until they are older.

diets ; Girlfriend bases their health articles on being healthy rather then being on a diet. this is good because too many young girls are becoming anorexic, if more magazines did what Girlfriend does with their health articles then there would probably not be as many anorexic girls in new zealand.

Personal Opion

I think that Girlfriend magazine is a good magazine for young teenagers as it supplies good articles about things that teenage girls worry about everyday. it tells girls how to handle everyday situations properly. It encourages girls to be themselves and be proud of who they are, it also encourages them to live a strong and healthy life. all the articles in the magazine have some significance of living a positive life which i think is good because as girls start turning into teenagers they sometimes forget how to be happy and reading some of the articles in the magazine makes you feel better about yourself. I think that other magazines such as Creme and Dolly should start doing what Girlfriend does and write more inspirational things to help lift the self-esteem of teenage girls in New Zealand.

Easy A

In class we watched 'Easy A', it was a really good movie and it showed representations of teenage girls really well. the story line was the same as most other teen movies, girl makes mistake and the boy of her dreams flies to her and saves the day but in between that it showed the reality of teenage girls a lot better then other movies such as 'Mean Girls'. There were two main representations of teenage girls (Sluts and Goody Goods) in the film and these were shown through the characters of Olive acted by Emma Stone and Marianne acted by Amanda Bynes. Olive plays an extremely smart girl but also the school slut. she's also seen as someone who helps unpopular male students, by doing this she pretends to have sex with them to help them gain socially.  Marianne on the other hand is complete opposite to Olive, she's a good Christian girl who goes by every rule in the book and will do anything to remove people who aren't. 

Marianne and Olive

(Amanda Bynes and Emma Stone)

In the picture above we see the contrast between the two girls in their costumes, which ultimately shows the two stereotypes of a Slut and a Goody Good. 

In a movie such as Mean Girls, there is a huge difference between the gossip that happens in the two movies. In Mean Girls, gossip in the school only happened between the girls and the boys normally stayed out of it but in Easy A everyone in the school got involved with the rumors and gossip. 

Woman in the 1950's

Woman of the 1950's were stereotyped more as slaves of men rather then people who should be aloud to express their own views and thoughts on things. 1950's was one of the worst time for sexism towards woman. a lot of advertisements produced by the media showed things like woman doing chores such as cooking and cleaning, it also showed men being the 'boss' who gets what ever he wants. The stereotype of a woman was that they would stay at home and do things for men such as cooking and cleaning, if woman didn't live up to these tasks they would be dealt to. An example of this is an this advertisement for coffee: 

Cheese & Sanborn Coffee 1950's Advertisement 

Rules Of Girl World

Girls have a lot of secret rules that sometimes give us bad representations  in the media. the rules of girl world is shown really well in the movie Mean Girls. Regina George, Gretchen Wieners and Karen Smith go by rules everyday.


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxpI9mLvgGY&feature=related

In this clip, Gretchen tells Katy how to dress and which days to dress. we also find that if you break any rules you are excluded from the friendship group. this makes people in society think that all girls are like this. the way that the rules are shown makes teenage girls seem a lot more unreasonable then what we really are. Teenage girls do have a lot of secret rules in their friendships but they are not as over the top as what the rules in Mean Girls are.

The three 'Plastics' wear their normal Wednesday 

outfits of pink clothing 

Stereotypes

What does stereotype mean?
An idea that you have on someone based on what they dress like people who are seen as 'nerds' normally wear glasses and clothing that isn't very 'fashionable'. what they look like people who have dyed their hair black or have black hair that goes over their face are sometimes classed as an 'emo' and people who have blonde hair are classed as a 'dumb blonde'. the things they do in their own time. if you smoked or did drugs you are stereotyped as a 'stoner' or if you go to party's a lot you could be seen as a 'party girl'. The people they hangout with, if you hangout with people who all have black hair and listen to different music are classed as 'emos' if you have a large group of friends who everyone knows and you all do everything together you are seen as the 'populars'

The stereotype for Barbie is 

perfect and beautiful and girly 

Why do we stereotype?
We judge different groups of people because of the things we read about, what we have viewed in movies or on tv, and past experiences. So say we are walking through a park late at night and we are walking past a group of elderly people wearing fur coats and had walking sticks, we may not feel as threatened as if we walked past by three high school-aged boys. Why is this? Because we have made stereotype in each case.

The stereotype for this guy 

would be an Emo because he

dresses in black and has black hair.

Why does the media use stereotypes?
Reporters, writers, producers, directors and editors use stereotypes to group people together.  Stereotypes are useful for the media because they provide a quick identity  that is easily recognized by in society. meaning that the public viewing or reading what the media has produced can relate to it. The media influences the way people view each stereotypical 
group because they have the ability to persuade an individuals view on a group of people. 

A stereotype of this man could be a

terrorist because of the way he looks, the

color he is and the country he lives in.