Gay Men and Their Attitude Problem (Attitude)

Name: plipplop

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Product:	Attitude
Date:	08/02/06 (516 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of pictures....

Disadvantages: ... and Not Much Else

In its ever-relentless pursuit of the pink pound, the popular press has spent the last few years trying to publish a credible magazine for gay men. Gay Times has been in production for ever and a day, but has always lacked a trendy image, and has stuck to the basics of politics and classified adverts. Several contenders have come - and gone - but the only magazine that has continued to sell well is Attitude. Published by Northern and Shell plc, Attitude is a glossy monthly magazine that features a selection of articles on fashion, music, relationships and things to do. For all its much-vaunted position of superiority - and innovation - it is a magazine that I only buy occasionally.

Attitude magazine seems to labour under the misapprehension that it is innovative and groundbreaking and sets itself clearly aside from the rest of the "pink press". This really isn't true, and Attitude magazine conforms to most of the hackneyed ideas about gay men and their lifestyle that every other magazine uses - just dressed up with more gloss.

Attitude magazine's speciality is to attract celebrities and television personalities who aren't gay and try and make them seem more homo-friendly. The cover of each issue generally features one such celebrity and the whole concept reminds me of Playboy magazine, where the relentless pursuits of naked celebrities means that each issue is a leg-opening revelation. It's a cunning ploy. There's nothing that the gay populace like to do more than speculate on the sexuality of their favourite celebrities, and by plastering them all over the cover of Attitude magazine, the publishers are simply fuelling the Arthur or Martha debate. Recent cover stars have included Justin Timberlake and that Cristian Solimeno from Footballer's Wives. With a selection of gay-friendly questions, you can almost hear the queens chittering away like old wives. It would seem that it's cool to be queer - but it's even cooler to pretend you are.

So what does an average issue of Attitude comprise? More often than not an issue will have a theme - drugs, sex, clubbing etc. The latest issue at time of writing is a Youth special, and features articles on what it's like to be young and gay. It's a hopelessly contrived ploy to attract older audiences and is rather transparent in its aims. Between the twenty or so pages of cute young gay chaps, flaunting their favourite tops and talking about how liberated they are, there is a short article on the problem of child prostitution. The concept of young people's bodies being sold for the benefit of older men may be utterly abhorrent but it will still sell plenty of issues of Attitude. Oh, the irony of it all!

Attitude is heavily influenced by fashion, and if you wanted to pick up a virtual barometer of who's hot and who's not, an issue of this magazine will do you proud. There are plenty of features on the latest album, video and film releases, as well as pages of fashion and features on designers and shops. There are some good features on city guides, with ideas for places to eat and stay, but you have to bear in mind that 99% of the choices are selected based on image rather than quality, so expect to pay extortionate prices if you take up any of the recommendations. Most of the features and articles in the magazine are quite short. There seems to be an assumption that the readers have a very short attention span.

What was I saying?

There are usually four or five multi-page celebrity interviews, some of which are rather obvious (Erasure, Eddy Izzard) and some of which aren't quite so obvious (the aforementioned Justin Timberlake scoop). The conversation is normally quite facile, but you can expect the discussion to revolve around all matters pink or related to show business. I quite often read reviews with celebrities and can think of lots of questions that I'd ask - but they never seem to come up. To be fair the "Any Queries?" feature each month comprises only questions submitted by the readers, but I've yet to work out how you're supposed to know who's due to be featured. The nominee for most hated feature goes to "How Gay Are You?" in which heterosexual guests are asked a set of cliched questions to give them a gay rating. One of my few pleasures in life is satisfying myself that I obtain a suitably low score every month.

The quality of journalism is limited. I can't help thinking that some of the writers are rather restricted by the subject matter, and there is never anything substantial to be found between the covers. It's a bit like a gay-centred Heat magazine, with slightly naughtier questioning, but it is still dentist surgery journalism. I can happily pick up a copy but I'll be putting it down again pretty quick after a few minutes' worth of page turning. The letters pages can sometimes be quite amusing, but only in the Just Seventeen "I can't believe you said that!" kind of way.

Attitude does its best to appeal to the physical desires of the gay man, and so you'll often find plenty of semi-nude photography and kinky model shoots. Some of it's tasteful and arty - Attitude's continued appearance on the shelves of WHSmith relies on its non-pornographic nature. Some of it's just naff - naked celebrities? Nonetheless, there is no escape from the inevitable classified adverts and chat line telephone numbers and it really is rather disappointing to see yet another magazine about gay men and their lifestyles that seems to be so completely dominated by sex. On the one hand, the magazine tries to steer the discussion away from sex with its talk of clubbing, pubbing and high living - but it still won't decline the revenue generated by those little adverts for Pool Men Orgy, Wide Receivers and Hot Blond Bottoms. It's all very amusing. Think of it as a clash of the credible versus the completely crass and you'll be somewhere there. Mind you, if it flops open on the train, you get some fantastic looks from your fellow travellers.

Attitude's content and value simply isn't justified by its £3.00 price tag. If I want serious fashion or style information, I'd probably go elsewhere, and if I want the usual gay nonsense then Gay Times is pretty reliable. Attitude has always tried to tread the path of making gay people straight friendly, but if you scratch beneath the surface, this magazine is a seething pool of hypocrisy and double standards. I'd rather spend the money on toilet tissue.

Not recommended

Summary: Pseudo serious journalism, playing down the need to be pornographic to sell copies