Heat Magazine, you're BORING me. (Heat Magazine)

Member Name: LadyAudley

Product:	Heat Magazine
Date:	15/01/08 (139 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap trashy read

Disadvantages: Cheap trashy read

When Heat Magazine first hit the shelves, it looked fresh and fun. Its irreverent American-style take on celebrity culture looked lively alongside other magazines of the time, and its practice of tearing stars down from their pedestals represented something a bit new and exciting in the UK magazine market. "How great!" I thought, "a rag that is trying to destroy the beauty myths that leave so many women feeling inadequate and ugly, by showing that it's all smoke and Hollywood-style mirrors, illustrating that stars are just ordinary people too."

These days I'm not so sure. The trick has been pulled so many times now, it feels tired and repetitive. How many times do we need to be told that stars can gain weight, have cellulite, have mental illnesses or messy love lives? Are we really that entertained or shocked by finding out that they're just normal people, like the rest of us? Didn't we already know that?

I'm not even sure that these magazines are actually tearing down beauty myths. It seems more like they're criticizing stars for being only human, and thus upholding the idea that they should somehow be perfect and have fallen short. I've come to regard them with suspicion, as a part of the celebrity-obsessed culture we have, where we seem to enact, ad nauseum, a little celebrity epic drama. We establish a cultural idols, revere them to a ridiculous degree for no apparent reason, then tear them down a few weeks later and trample on the bloody remains for the next ten years. Why do we love to dislike these people so much, and why do we allow them to line their purses with our obsessive loathing, making them rich off our hatred?

It's not that I want people to LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! Stars make huge amounts of money from publicity, even bad publicity. More often than not, they're complicit with the system, profiting from all the attention. I'm just not sure why people are so fixated on talking about Paris Hilton. Sure, she's talentless. Yes, she's annoying. But she's also really, really boring. Can we move on and talk about something more entertaining and interesting now?

Apart from the celebrity features, which I've criticized above, there's little to this mag. There's a TV guide, and the occasional beauty page, but if you really want either of those things, you're better off buying the Radio Times or Vogue.

Summary: Heat Magazine, you're BORING!

Summary: *Yawn*