Girls and Boys

Bust or Jane? what the hell is that? I find that mens magazines are far better than womens.

I understand what you mean, though hasnt ever bothered me in the least.

[QUOTE=Minuet]Bust or Jane? what the hell is that? I find that mens magazines are far better than womens.

I understand what you mean, though hasnt ever bothered me in the least.[/QUOTE]
bust is a relatively good, content heavy women's magazine that focuses on the art/writing/music-interested type while still having a fashion section. i'd parallel it to gq, on a more indie level. jane is a glossy but smarter, slightly more ironic fashion magazine. (i can't give a direct parallel to maxim - that would be a cosmo-type, and there's no content in there anyway.) you're right - many mens' magazines ARE better, but that's why i suggested what i'd consider to be the best among the mainstream women's fashion mags as female alternatives.

truth is, i don't read maxim and playboy for reasons i've discussed elsewhere in the forum. i think they foster sexist values and cater to a low common denominator. so, when something that WOULD interest me - chuck, obviously - turns up there, it's an anomaly that i will unfortunately never see.

You have a very good point here. I've picked up on that gender divide deal as well, but more on the way critics tend to respond. Laura Miller in Salon on [I]Diary[/I]. Janet Maslin on [I]Haunted[/I] in NYT last week. Both of the make condescending remarks about how Chuck's material appeals only to teenage male gorehounds who aren't getting any sex. As I recall Miller's review goes on at length on how if you are female and dare to state you don't like this or that in a Palahnuik book, you will be told it is because you are female. "Girls don't get it."

Perhaps if there were a means of building a solid bank of great reviews from female critics, the demographic would open up more. I mean it was a girlfriend of mine who read [I]Diary[/I] and said to forget the reviews; read this guy.

Sometimes it feels as though America approaches its arts with the same expansive appreciation and welcoming of difference as one would find in an 8th grade cafeteria at lunch hour.

Do girls outnumber guys on the cult? Sometimes it seems like out of the regularly posting members there are more girls.

Isn't there an essay in which CP explains how the biggest reading demographic is middle aged women and he wanted to get more young men reading? That could be why he's going for the mens mags.

Hey, at least Men's magazines are cool enough to still [i]publish[/i] short fiction along with their near-porn.

Incidentally, it was a lesbian waitress (with her own subscription to Maxim and a couple similar mags) who introduced me to the Fight Club movie and Chuck. And I thank her for it.

Younger males (late teens/early twenties) are the generation to tap in to, hands down. Walk into any dorm room, across any campus in the US, and you will pretty much find a carbon copy. Playstation 2/XBox/Gamecube, Computer/Laptop, Nice stereo & television, Scarface/Jim Belusi [I]College T-Shirt[/I] /Hot Girl of the Moment poster, playing cards & poker chips, blah, blah, blah. It's almost a guaruntee that you will find more empty beer cans/liquor bottles with the water and the highlighter dye than you will books that they didn't have to buy for classes (which they only bought because their parents were with them...or they could be the leftovers that they hadn't brought back for beer money)

If you walk into any of those rooms at any given time you are almost guarunteed to see Sportscenter on, or an Adam Sandler movie that they've already seen three thousand times before.

Whatever the case may be, insert your own vice into the equation but the fact is that males don't read anymore than they have to at that age. They have too many other things taking their attention away (girls, of course, are #1, 2, and 3). These magazines in question all cater to that attention span.

Chuck, and some other writers, tapped into that and a lot of men caught on. Fincher's movie, I think, had a great deal to do with that as it seems almost everyone I've talked to who has read more than one of Chuck's books came to them through the movie. But the movie plays to that mindset too. It's got action, it's got blood, it's got stuff blowing up, and it's got sport. It's also got a pretty kicking fuck scene. Equation=success.

I'm not saying that woman, younger women, don't have that same sort of attention span, or that Chuck's books don't impact them as well. I found Chuck's books through a woman--my teacher--actually also. But I think the fact that Chuck is more or less a romantic with a lot of his books, that's glossed over by these reviewers. And to those who haven't read him, from the outside his books don't look like the typical 'something' a girl would want to read...whatever that something is.

Crap...just as I was about to make my point, I must go...more later...

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]But I think the fact that Chuck is more or less a romantic with a lot of his books, that's glossed over by these reviewers.[/QUOTE]

That's it exactly. Thank you. I'd not been able to define why, in spite of all the frat boy pandering in the way these books are marketed, they appeal to so many women. It is Chuck's romantic spirit--not bodice ripper romance but "I am the captain of my own soul" romantics that grab smart women readers, of many ages. Chuck may write as a minimalist but his sense of humanity is vast and compassionate. So yeah, he may be trying to tap into a market that has to be able to blow stuff up to be entertained, but he is also subversively trying to get these guys thinking about bigger problems than how to fit one more piece of electronics into those dorm rooms.

Chucks a skate/punk writer like Ellis, Copeland, Welsh. The few skirts that buy his books are Dyke central, and they dig the tit rags too!

[QUOTE=morey]Chucks a skate/punk writer like Ellis, Copeland, Welsh. The few skirts that buy his books are Dyke central, and they dig the tit rags too![/QUOTE]

I think Morey has semi-hit on it here.

The girls that I have known, personally, to get into Chuck's books, and continue on through reading all of them are also girls who are more inclined to be the type to pick up a Maxim rather than Vogue, or who is more likely to listen to Ani Difranco than to listen to Alicia Keys.

Through the four years I was in college I lived with a total of 4 girls who were strictly roommates. A couple were soriety girls, a couple were country girls. The one constant with all of them was the love of the Lifetime channel. There would be gangs of girls when I'd get back from class huddled around the 20" flat screen watching the same lame story about a husband's infidelity, or a child falling down a well.

I'm not trying to generalize everyone, but it seems that most girls I know tend to "like" (watch, read, write) about what they don't have in life. The girl with the asshole boyfriend is more apt to watch The Notebook and wish about how her man being romantic, blah, blah, blah.

Men are very simple. We like the themes that Chuck uses. And it's done in such a way where we don't have to think about it, even though it's something to think about.

Again, I have to run, but I will try and refine this more letter so I don't seem like someone who is generalizing too much...

P.S. if Chuck showed up in Jane It'd be cause he wrote an even more granny book than Diary!

And [I]everyone [/I]who lives in a "red state" is a fascist, right wing neo-con? This is what I mean about 8th grade cafeteria. Wow.

so some of what i see here is the idea that the young male group is a ripe consumer bed. i see that, and i know that. so my question is, is this purely a mercenary device, and it's simply a matter of making money? most authors i would like are not gender-targeted, and publish their fiction in gender-neutral publications - there are plenty of those out there, too. to make any sweeping gestures about his only female readership being gore-hound lesbians undercuts what i believe is a healthy group of educated females whose sexuality is mostly immaterial. i guess i'm saying, i feel a bit then, that if justinholt's male-consumer-bloc point is what counts, i feel like we're talking about selling cheeseburgers rather than literature.

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]And [I]everyone [/I]who lives in a "red state" is a fascist, right wing neo-con? This is what I mean about 8th grade cafeteria. Wow.[/QUOTE]

Haha...

I can't say for sure, because I thankfully live in a Blue State, but whenever I had traveled into the Nazi..err...Red States, climates are definetely different. God becomes a lot more important, and so does Dale Earnhardt.

I don't really believe in all that jazz...at least all the time...

but a food fight was always fun, and if this is a cafeteria, there's my half eaten pizza chucked across the room.

(and by the way, Diary did suck ass...)

i disagree that men's magazines are better than women's magazines. Men's magazines suck just as bad. I recall when Dennis talked about Chuck appearing in Playboy and how he was a little embarrassed to have to buy Playboy. A totally understandable feeling. However, Playboy has had some amazing authors and political figures in its pages over the years, and even though the long-standing joke is that nobody reads the articles, they actually DO. Maxim, on the other hand, is a piece of garbage. I'd be more embarrassed to buy a Maxim than a Playboy!

It would be nice if the "gender neutral" publications, like, oh, I don't know, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and others would actually publish cutting-edge fiction. The reality of the writer's market is that many people like to buy and [i]own[/i] what they consider literature, but very few people actually [i]read[/I] the stuff. I've spoken to a lot of people about the New Yorker, for example, and even the people who are trying the hardest to sound smart and educated, when you corner them, will admit that the almost never read the fiction pieces in these types of magazines.

The name of the author that is more important than the content for the big "literary" magazines. They'd rather have some average, unmemorable story by Norman Mailer or Jhumpa Lahiri than a great story by Chuck Palahniuk.

Playboy and Maxim are probably the only places where Chuck can publish and make the money and treadership goals that he is accustomed to.

my question is, why is it about making a bottom line, if that's what it is? has there been an attempt to publish in gender neutral publications? is that a relationship that has indeed been explored? that's what i'd like to find out. why all the mens' magazines and nowhere else?

[QUOTE=vidalia]my question is, why is it about making a bottom line, if that's what it is? has there been an attempt to publish in gender neutral publications? is that a relationship that has indeed been explored? that's what i'd like to find out. why all the mens' magazines and nowhere else?[/QUOTE]

5% of all new magazines that are started go on to make money and last more than three months.

i am sure that there have been many attempts at that type of magazine. but it doesn't sell.

magazine sales in general have dropped drastically because of the internet. why pay to read something that you can read for free?

the magazines that sell the best are the tabloids, and Maxim, Vogue, whatever are just extensions of that. what strikes me as the biggest contradiction in this country is that people eat that t&a shit up, but then in the next breath say god is righteous, no gay marriage, blah, blah, blah.

tabloids and skin mags are just basically train wrecks caught on paper. and snuffy's assertion about quality versus name is right on. but these magazines want to sell, and name outsells quality every day of the week.

how long has jerry springer been on the air?

i think all of this ties back in to the original demographic arguement. it's all about money, and younger males are the ones who have money, are willing to spend money freely without too much rationalization, but are also nihilistic enough to get the crux of what chuck is saying without having to think too much about it.

i can't speak for girls because i don't know. most girls i know are a lot more well read than the guys i know. but that well read includes a lot of steel, a lot of vogue, and a lot of star. they are quick to spend money on the mirror than just as quick to criticize what reflects in it. they are more inclined to know who ben is dating, or who is fucking who, or whatever. men, well most of us like short answers that we don't have to think much about. we like to watch the same sportscenter at least three times just to be sure we get everything. we like watching scarface, or the godfather, or rocky over and over again.

chuck's writing fits all of the things that fit us as guys. a lot of girls get 'it' too, but like i said before, that crowd is glossed over because it's not the one with the loudest voice.

i remember taking a women's lit class where there was literally 34 women in the class and i was the lone guy. half of the women were outright feminist nazi's who i know had their sniper eyes sighted in on castrating me. we read everything from dickinson, to gilman, to oates, to lamott, to angelou in that class and i learned a helluva lot. there were a lot of great discussions that i learned a lot from, not only from literature, but from hearing a woman's life perspective on it. but if you would have taken that same crowd and threw 'choke' on the must read list, i'm sure at least a third of the class would have enjoyed the hell out of that book, maybe more. but that feminist half would have red flagged the hell out of it before even opening it because of the reference to sexual addiction on the back cover.

elonged point. fuck it. ignore the demographics and read what makes you smile. if we all stopped worrying about things like demographics they would disappear, or at least be re-written to include the 'doesn't give a fuck, just make them happy' bracket.

that would be nice for a change...

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]5% of all new magazines that are started go on to make money and last more than three months.

i am sure that there have been many attempts at that type of magazine. but it doesn't sell.[/QUOTE]

i'm talking about the many, many established magazines that do not cater to a gender-idea or another.

[QUOTE=justinholt]how long has jerry springer been on the air?

i think all of this ties back in to the original demographic arguement. it's all about money, and younger males are the ones who have money, are willing to spend money freely without too much rationalization, but are also nihilistic enough to get the crux of what chuck is saying without having to think too much about it.[/QUOTE]

and my point is, i think it's a little offensive if this is what's true, because the writing life demands too much passion and sacrifice to become a mercenary endeavor.

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]half of the women were outright feminist nazi's who i know had their sniper eyes sighted in on castrating me. [/QUOTE]

as an aside, this is a silly thing to say. don't paraphrase limbaugh. i am fairly certain none of the women in the class wanted to cut your balls off just because they feel slighted by the marginalization of women in modern culture.

maybe its been pointed out. i dont believe its Jane or Bust or some other chick magazine that approaches Chucks stories, like Playboy, GQ, Maxim does.

I was thinking about how it would be cool if Rolling Stone would take up on that, too.

[I]`behind Chuck's approach to audience demographics`[/I]

I dont believe Chuck is targeting or focusing on the male gender with his stories being in mostly man mags, just that they approach him, and Bust doesnt.

(a magazine titled BUST sounds like something a guy might look at, not something a girl would read)

bust is an ironic title. i believe their slogan is "for women with something to get off their chests"

anyway, my point was to try and offer female alternatives, if we had to go that route. there's plenty of content in that one, so an interview at least has plenty of space somewhere like that. yeah, rolling stone is a very good example - mainstream, pop-culture, gender-equal.

is it that they approach him? that was my question, something i was hoping one of the people on the site closer to the business end of things might know about. i can say that as a public radio producer for years, had we heard from him, i would've lobbied like hell to put him on the show, and i think it would have been a damn good time.

[QUOTE=vidalia]
as an aside, this is a silly thing to say. don't paraphrase limbaugh. i am fairly certain none of the women in the class wanted to cut your balls off just because they feel slighted by the marginalization of women in modern culture.[/QUOTE]

no...i actually had women tell me this--more or less--at the end of the class, that their first impression of me was along these lines, but by the end of the semester, they were glad i was there.

as for the assertion that popular magazines should break the trends...again, it's tied into sales. if the masses wanted that, they would do it. but they don't.

[QUOTE=Minuet]maybe its been pointed out. i dont believe its Jane or Bust or some other chick magazine that approaches Chucks stories, like Playboy, GQ, Maxim does.
[/QUOTE]

I'm pretty sure the publicist sets up these being featured and whatnot.

I think the hiring out phase would come more when Chuck writes articles for the magazines, or does interviews and such. That is when the magazine approaches them, as opposed to the publicist approaching the magazine to see if they would be interested in running a story, or novel sample.

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]no...i actually had women tell me this--more or less--at the end of the class, that their first impression of me was along these lines, but by the end of the semester, they were glad i was there.

as for the assertion that popular magazines should break the trends...again, it's tied into sales. if the masses wanted that, they would do it. but they don't.[/QUOTE]
well then, they're idiots. no intelligent feminist would ever fortify this stereotype or feel this way in the first place.

[QUOTE=vidalia]well then, they're idiots. no intelligent feminist would ever fortify this stereotype or feel this way in the first place.[/QUOTE]

you are correct.

a good amount of them went into that class, i'm sure, with the line of thikning that it would be one class they were guarunteed to be rid of men. and then i showed up and pissed on their parade.

either way, we were all there to learn, and in the end, all of us did.

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]
as for the assertion that popular magazines should break the trends...again, it's tied into sales. if the masses wanted that, they would do it. but they don't.[/QUOTE]

yes, but- i'm part of the masses, and so are a lot of other women. and i will not see the many chuck-related features, interviews or excerpts, because they are constantly showing up in playboy. and i don't know many women, castrating bitches or otherwise, who appreciate what that magazine does for gender relations, so we're left out. i don't feel targeted.

[QUOTE=vidalia]yes, but- i'm part of the masses, and so are a lot of other women. and i will not see the many chuck-related features, interviews or excerpts, because they are constantly showing up in playboy. and i don't know many women, castrating bitches or otherwise, who appreciate what that magazine does for gender relations, so we're left out. i don't feel targeted.[/QUOTE]

well i'm not debating whether playboy is right or wrong for the empowerment or advancement of women...

what i am saying is that if those who are in charge of the magazines in question felt that women (the majority) wanted to read a chuck article, story, whatever, then they (the publisher) would publish it. their pulse is charged by dollars, and their pages represent what sells. if enough women said "we want a chuck palahniuk article" or better yet, stopped buying the magazine because they wouldn't run a chuck article i guaruntee that there would be seven chuck pieces in the next issue.

[QUOTE=JustinHolt]well i'm not debating whether playboy is right or wrong for the empowerment or advancement of women...

what i am saying is that if those who are in charge of the magazines in question felt that women (the majority) wanted to read a chuck article, story, whatever, then they (the publisher) would publish it. their pulse is charged by dollars, and their pages represent what sells. if enough women said "we want a chuck palahniuk article" or better yet, stopped buying the magazine because they wouldn't run a chuck article i guaruntee that there would be seven chuck pieces in the next issue.[/QUOTE]
i sort of am debating that, because it's become a central non-cult place to get chuck content, and that bothers me. people have a choice where they appear. but maybe if it's just that if it pays the piper, it doesn't matter where it turns up. i'd buy a magazine that i don't normally read just to see a feature i like - i do it all the time. but i will not pay a cent to playboy.

[QUOTE=vidalia]i sort of am debating that, because it's become a central non-cult place to get chuck content, and that bothers me. people have a choice where they appear. but maybe if it's just that if it pays the piper, it doesn't matter where it turns up. i'd buy a magazine that i don't normally read just to see a feature i like - i do it all the time. but i will not pay a cent to playboy.[/QUOTE]

well, personally, i wouldn't buy a playboy either. the only playboy i ever really had was one an ex-girlfriend of mine bought for me because cindy crawford was in it and she thought i'd like it.

i definetely know what you are saying, that people such as yourself--or women, more likely--are handicapped because the only place you can find chuck's work are skin magazines. but everything always comes back to money and what sells. if vogue could move 'x' amount of units by including 'guts' in their pages, they would do it in a heartbeat.

playboy, i think, is a little more subjective in that it doesn't really matter one way or the other who they fill their pages with (creatively). sure, someone like chuck might sell 'x' amount more issues for them because of his fan base. but it's not the same flux as if the olson twins, or britney spears, or katie holmes were to appear even halfway nude.

sex sells over literature, but for those who might be interested in the literature, magazines such as that suit sales the best i guess...

and it's suiting the sales that saddens me.

[QUOTE=vidalia]yes, but- i'm part of the masses, and so are a lot of other women. and i will not see the many chuck-related features, interviews or excerpts, because they are constantly showing up in playboy. and i don't know many women, castrating bitches or otherwise, who appreciate what that magazine does for gender relations, so we're left out. i don't feel targeted.[/QUOTE]Why do you even read magazines goofus? And by the way we are talking about cheeseburgers not literature, are you sure you've read his books? You can tart it up all you want but a cheeseburger will always be a cheeseburger.

i read different magazines for different things- bust for fun culture bits, humor, music capsules, interviews, the new yorker for high quality analysis, essays, etc.

and

ha, you have a point. about the cheeseburgers, that is.