The winsome, ineffably wonderful world of women╒s magazines is well charted ╤ a cocooned bower of Beverley Winnies, anonymous damsels in distress, Julie and Mark, her handsome boss, stuffed marrows and bliss. A domestic dream that never withers, a succulent base for pop psychology.
Until recently, though, the archetypal little woman has had no male counterpart. It is a publishing omission which is being rapidly and profitably repaired. Male magazines, all over the world, are a growth industry; and the growth sticks rigidly to formula. The proliferating stack of masculine glossies are so wedded to a few set themes that Woman╒s Own seems a form of enlightened liberalism by comparison. In Britain it is Town ╤ without the early ╥Man About╙ but with a lot of new pretensions ╤ which, within a few years, has established a clear dominance. And Town, for all its grainy pictures and slabs of hired intellectuality, follows the formula slavishly. In the latest number, for instance, there is information about Zubrowska, ╥a yellow coloured vodka flavoured with bison grass.╙ There is jazz, Cyril Ray and his perpetual scoff and ski-ing. There is a piece on body-builders (╥Delts, pects, lats ╤ under workaday suits they dream of Michelangelo╙); on a new stool ╥with built-in heating pad for scattering around at cocktail parties╙; on a girl who has garishly bared shoulders because she╒s trying to get a bunch of grapes into her mouth at a gulp. There is Robin Douglas-Home, tattling from one of his endless parties that ╥Several women had come in black tights and hoods as cats, which confirmed my suspicion that under every feminine facade lies a cat clawing to get out.╙
The pattern is familiar and basically American. In America the magazine spectrum has developed more fully, its preoccupations more overt. At one end is the all-conquering Playboy, the field-leader, which juxtaposes Jayne Mansfield and a profile of Jimmy Hoffa without a smirk. Playboy reeks of success and has no intention of altering its blend; there is no need. Farther down the league, however, competition, and thus content, gets hotter. Cavalier, ╥the new magazine for the new man,╙ has drink, fashion, night clubs, big type, a mechanical toothbrush which works off a torch battery, plus the mandatory dash of culture ╤ ╥An eminent British author, observing John Bull caught with his pants down, finds him stupid, conceited, narrow-minded, debauched, sordid and hardly worth the saving.╙ The eminence is Colin Wilson.
But Cavalier can never forget its competitors. The nudes are a little more bluntly nude, the jokes ╤ ╥some men like wives made to order, while others prefer a ready maid╙ ╤ a little staggier, the advice a little brusquer. ╥If you play The Game with just the right amount of cruelty you can tear the heart out of a girl and shatter her soul ╤ all you need is her innocent co-operation.╙
There isn╒t far to fall after this before one hits the all-girlie whirl of Caper, Escape, Monsieur. Topper ╤ ╥expressly tailored for the young man╒s taste╙ ╤ hovers uneasily in the twilight zone. It has ╥wild winter parties at a mountain retreat,╙ cars, a ╥Guide-book for Gourmets,╙ erudition on Fanny Hill, Pete Seeger and the masculine toilet routine ╤ ╥The hipster of to-day rises and heads directly for the shower. He washes with a virile soap (no lie), squirts, sprays, pats or rubs a deodorant under his arm-pits, then shaves with a special soapfoam or paste ╤ slaps on an after- shaving concoction, then perhaps a cologne. He pomades and combs his hair, puts talcum in his shoes, and leaves to face the adventures of the day.╙ But Topper is not overawed by its intellectual twitch. It gives the game away quite cheerfully ╤ and all along the line. ╥What are the burning issues on campus to-day? The Freedom Riders, the Bomb, the Communist conspiracy? Hell, no. Now, as in the past, Sex rears its perpetual head and the problem is how to make it with the chick in the front row.╙
So far Britain has nothing to match this and, in the context of our publishing framework, the first attack will probably come up from the girlie deeps. Like Adam, the monumental French glossy concerned only with ╥les jeunes: terriblement chic,╙ our candy-stripe confectioners are fighting shy of too much burning issue. In, the latest British contender, seems in fact a pale derivative shadow of Town. This, it says, ╥is the magazine that sets the trends.╙ And the trends, to no one╒s surprise, are David Frost, the Look of Leather, fashion, travel, cars, and dozens of stark advertisements, mixing almost indistinguishably with the copy.
But In at least emphasises two things. First, the staccato, savourless style of magazine writing; compare its profile of Frost, a basilisk-eyed, grasshopper figure, with bony features; a thin mouth made more for the grimace than the smile, an angular British body that with fame has learned relaxation and an odd grace,╙ with Town on Carl Foreman: ╥He is forty-nine, looks less. Chain-smokes relentlessly ╤ ╘I don╒t smoke cigars╒ ╤ and drinks cups of coffee, each meticulously primed with saccharine. Soberly, not to say drably, dressed. His voice is modulated; frequently, at moments of intense cerebration, dropping below the threshold of articulate speech.╙
And then there is In╒s typical, fearless outspokenness. The marijuana piece concludes resoundingly: ╥What ought not to happen is for the present state of affairs to go on. Direction, not drift, is necessary.╙ In hastily points out that ╥this article is controversial.╙ It doesn╒t necessarily reflect their opinions. A recipe for lemon meringue pie fills up the rest of the page.
In may find itself out unless the vapidity is better cloaked. But it has some of the fundamental ingredients and will doubtless scavenge the rest. A brisk course in Bond might help, for Fleming is an accurate mirror of the male magazine network╒s passions ╤ Playboy indeed published his last book whole. While wives dream of ginger biscuits and getting the children over measles, husbands wander away towards brutality, girls, perfumes, instant knowledge. It is a theory which holds up well in commercial practice.
╥007 flicked the bison grass from his Zubrowska, adjusted the green-leather waistcoat, and pre-heated his stool. Life had gone flat since the last ski-ing encounter. The cat woman entered silently, smoking a marijuana, grape juice staining her white shoulder. ╘Existentialism is such a bore,╒ she said. ╘I╒m hungry.╒ James scooped the half-eaten steak (medium rare, with paprika) and French fries from his plate into the latest issue of ╘Roundhead ╤ for cavaliers with puritan instincts.╒ He pushed the cone towards her. ╘Have a chip,╒ he murmured. ╘They taste so much better in glossy paper.╒╙
