This Rag Needs HEAT Applied To It! (Heat Magazine)

Member Name: GramiWay

Product:	Heat Magazine
Date:	25/06/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One or two interesting features or interviews

Disadvantages: See the review - too many to list

In my honest opinion Heat magazine and all it's little galpals should be cleared from supermarket shelves and burnt in a huge pile for all to see. These 'rags' are a pollution to society and I'd always known they were bad through reading my dad's ex girlfriend's copies but I'd blocked the horror from my memory until I picked up a stray 'Heat' on the bus recently.

You see to me, these are just a more 'female' version of 'The Sun' taking out all the actual news of significance and sport and boring us with the tales of Z list celebrities, rumours, various pointless diets and just various features to make the average woman feel insecure about her body. But still people continue to read them in droves and it baffles me. But anyway ceasing my full rant mode...

The magazine at the moment costs £1.65 and was first launched in February of 1999. A new issue is released every week and you can also catch up with all the latest news on the recently launched website heatworld.com. 'Heat' describes itself as a 'general interest magazine for women'. The huge red letters on the front of each edition and the scandalous stories that often turn out to be nothing at all are all part of the buying attraction. The magazine gives plenty of column space to the various reality TV shows that bombard our television sets, in particular Big Brother and The X Factor. There are also features on the latest huge celebrity news stories and by 'celebrity' this could be anybody from Jade Goody to some drunken woman off Britain's Got Talent. The A Listers are frequent column inhabitants also with the magazine's favourite victims being Britney Spears, Posh & Becks and Brad and Angelina.
Most of the articles are poorly written with sloppy language and are just full of 'speculation' or something a supposed 'pal' or 'source' has said about the celebrity in question. Pictures do seem to take up an awful lot of space.

The magazine sometimes has features on what female celebrities wear and look like. This is one section I was simply repulsed at. The issue I had was some sort of swimsuit special and some of the women in question were ridiculed if they didn't have an amazingly toned body. Maybe it helps the readers to feel better about themselves but I just found it extremely inappropriate that the skinny bimbo types are praised. This is a large reason why teenage girls develop eating disorders in my opinion.

It does seem as if advice given about make up and other beauty tips is genuinely helpful, making it the only part of the magazine to be so. There was also a very nice few pages dedicated to the latest fashions which didn't really appeal to me as a male, but I can see why this section of the magazine would attract Heat's target audience. There are reviews towards the end section on the latest entertainment releases like books, DVDs and CDs. Whilst these are short in quantity they offer a very accurate description of the latest available products though most of those covered tend to be geared more towards the female market. P

The magazine also includes a seven day TV guide which isn't exactly as in depth as buying a separate guide, but is still a pretty valuable resource as are all the puzzles at the back. These include crosswords and word searches and various other obstacles to sink your pen into. Finally there is also a horoscopes segment.

Minus the celebrity nonsense, this magazine would actually be a really worthwhile purchase but naturally Heat knows that it's not going to sell copies on normal everyday business alone, so cue a load of nonsensical and pointless stories about people we think we have a claim on because they're in the public eye. So unless you really do enjoy reading stuff like this I'd recommend you steer clear of Heat if you don't want to hear about some Big Brother idiot's night on the tiles with a chinese hooker when he was 17 or some such, or any of the other pap they spew about celebrities that are further down the social ladder than us ourselves. For the price and what you get, I just don't think it's worth it. If women really want something to read to entertain themselves, I'd suggest one of those 'real life' type magazines. They have all the same features such as health, beauty and puzzles, are cheaper and have real and heart warming stories.

Shoving my feminine side away now!

Summary: A waste of money plain and simple