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Rating: 
Summary: Misguided over-analysis
Review: I subscribed to SI for years and stopped last year because the swimsuit issue was offensive to me. However, this book takes the swimsuit issue "phenomenon" way beyond its limited influence and tries to use it as a scapegoat for everything that is politically incorrect in popular western culture. Of course the magazine exploits women and sends the wrong message about what women's bodies should look like. But there are countless other popular media "franchises" that do the same thing, perhaps even more so (Playboy, Girls Gone Wild, American Pie, and how about the multi-billion $$$ porn industry? What about Cosmo and Vogue for that matter?). Is SI being singled out because the author can read the magazine without being subjected to blatant sexual content? She purports to give an in-depth analysis of the SI bathing suit issue, but basically states the obvious in a pseudo-scientific manner: the pictures show young female models in very skimpy swimsuits, the models say they are told to look "sexy" during the shoots, the photographers say they are trying to bring out the model's sex appeal, and on and on. So here is a stunning conclusion: the SI swimsuit issue is all about sex!!But it doesn't stop there--not only does the mag degrade women, but it also perpetuates racism, since a disproportionate % of the women are white. Wait a second, I think there's some faulty logic here: it's not ok to show scantily-clad women in your magazine, but it's also bad that you don't have blacks or latinos either. If SI had the correct distribution of America's ethnic makeup represented in the issue, would the author retract her statements about racism? I really doubt it. To top it all off, the author also takes issue with the magazine's shooting locations, which are often resorts in 3rd-world countries. To her this is a clear indication of the colonialist attitudes of SI's management. Even if you have misgivings about who profits from SI's promotion of the beach resorts, I think the author's conclusions here are way out of line. What disturbs me the most about this book is that it is done under the umbrella of "academic research". I have no problems with thorough, systematic examinations of popular culture to see what it says about our society as a whole and how we might want to change things. But this book starts with a conclusion and tries so mightily to find anything it can to beat a dead horse. As such this is bad research--not only is the evidence presented only to hammer home the author's premise, but no alternative hypotheses are considered (like maybe SI is a mirror of our culture, but it's relatively mild on the spectrum of exploitative media) or opportunities given for opposing views.
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