Cosmo Girl and today

Inventing the Cosmo Girl by Laurie Ouellette tells the hegemonic tale of Helen Gurley Brown and her building up of the contemporary woman through the women's magazine, Cosmopolitan. It goes through the thought process that Brown went through with the standpoints that Cosmo wanted to play to. From her teachings came the idea of the Pink-Collared work place, which ends up basically being a secretary. This was one of the best jobs for a woman according to Brown, since you could meet a variety of men ranging in power, wealth, and looks. At the same time there was also an emphasis on the idea that can be the "Beautiful Phony" as Oullette calls it. They can be beautiful if they use these little tips on how to make themselves more desirable (Vaseline?). It is also said about how Brown emphasized how women should make themselves to be looking the part of the elite, rich, ritzy, or however you want to say it. The main point behind this was the ideal of seemingly trying to break the boundaries of class by looking like "them" and getting a rich male to like the woman.

Ok, so there is one film that is soooo hard not to think of when reading this article (if you have seen the movie that is). That movie is Down with Love. Starring Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger is about Renee's character Barbara Novak and the effect she has on the women of the world with her book "Down with Love". Skip a few chapters and she is the head of a women's magazine called "Now" as opposed to McGregor's character Catcher Block's magazine "Know".

This movie generally feels like it was a direct allusion to Brown and her life. If you would like a better understanding of the movie you can go here
clip taken from youtube.com