I find Britney Spears' lifestyle obnoxious, her "politics" offensive, and her music insipid.  Nonetheless, I have to ask...

What's so bad about the Britney Spears cover?  It's not just that it's her, because she's been on plenty of magazine covers and none of them are being singled out.  Is it that she's pregnant?  Isn't there a happy medium between fetishizing and being repulsed by photographs of pregnant women?  Or is it that she's nearly nude?  Nah, there are many more risqué (or obscene, some would say) magazine covers published every month.  Or is it that it's Britney Spears, pregnant and almost nude?  She was very attractive before, and she was very attractive on that cover, and regardless of how unpleasant she may be as a person, Harper's Bazaar is a fashion magazine, and it's not in the business of printing lists of the personal qualities of admirable people, it's in the business of publishing photographs of attractive people in expensive clothing and accessories.  Of course, there's a great deal to criticize about this photograph precisely because it's so visually appealing. In addition to the work of Spears' personal trainers, plastic surgeons, make-up artists, and photography and lighting experts, the magazine's photoshoppers obviously put in some overtime erasing any sign that this pregnant woman had, you know, been pregnant twice, presenting yet another fantasyland view of human beauty.  Perhaps the selection was intended as a critique of the entire manufactured-beauty-and-glamour industry, but if so, I'm not sure what makes it worse than anything else.

In regione caecorum, rex est luscus.

   Are some of those covers good, and others bad? I guess so. That particular part of my brain is still burned out from a short but intense exposure to the world of magazines-- for a brief time, this little slice of Hell* was part of my job. After sorting and pricing 500+ mags, then stocking them under lights that intensify their glossy covers. "Way too much time in the company of magazines" doesn't even begin to cover it. Thank the Goddess that only lasted for a couple of months . . .
    What's funny is thinking about how ridiculous a lot of the fashion material is going to appear a decade or more from now. Yeah, these goons went out and selected some of the worst the era had to produce-- but if you catch some old movies or TV shows from the 70s,  and the gap between the good and bad doesn't appear that wide.
    Magazines, at least, always have the ready excuse of being produced under tight deadlines. Is it a bad cover? Well, there's only a week or two to make the decision, and that in the middle of many other layout choices. No, the really regrettable choices, IMHO, are those made by editors who put together books-- if the picture is terrible, you know for (mostly) certain that it was checked, rechecked, and thought to be pretty good.
   Which makes the joy of finding hideous old pictures one of the great joys of working with used books. Lileks may put out a selection of the worst the past has to offer, but there's nothing quite like seeing all the raw "footage" in person. Take the entry for Regrettable Foods, and imagine seeing all those picture in context, with recipes to boot. Make you wonder just how appealing those Rachel Ray and Emeril pictures are going to look 15 years down the line, as well as keeping the mind occupied after seven hours on your feet.

   Or maybe I'm just crazy. Yeah, that's probably it.

   *OK, I can't seem to link directly to the image. Go to Tucson East store, and look at the magazine pic, if you care.

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras