• Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
  • Search Site

Polari Magazine

  • Home
  • Up Front
    • Editorial
    • Clementine: The Living Fashion Doll
    • Polari Safari
    • WTF? Friday
    • Bulletin Board
    • Polari Facts
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Features
    • Gallery
    • Opinion
    • Heroes & Villains
  • Community
    • Oral Histories
    • Coming Out Stories
    • Relationships
    • IDAHO
    • LGBT History Month
    • Blogs
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Film and Television
    • Music
    • Stage
    • Visual Arts
    • Classics: Books
    • Classics: Film and Television
    • Classics: Music
  • About
    • About Polari Magazine
    • Contributors
    • Contact

You are here: Polari Magazine / Features / The hypocrisy of Attitude’s “issues issue”

The hypocrisy of Attitude’s “issues issue”

08 Sep 2010 / Comments Off / in Features, Opinion/by Christopher Bryant

Two weeks ago I read an interview with the editor of Attitude, Matthew Todd, in the Observer. Todd was talking up the magazine’s latest issue and how it addressed the “taboo” of gay men’s mental health issues. This is how Todd summed up the message: “It’s about low self-esteem and the self-hating gay man. But the time has come to find the strength to face it and realise that, while it’s not our fault this has been inflicted on us, we do need to deal with it.” My first thought was that it was a bit rich for the editor a lifestyle magazine to defer the blame for low self-esteem in so cavalier a manner. After all, the mainstream gay press is dominated by the muscular physique culture and this inevitably promotes low self-esteem in a great many people. But on second thought I decided this was rather uncharitable, and that it was nevertheless an important issue to raise in a mainstream publication. I didn’t think any more about it until I saw the cover of the “issue’s issue” and read Todd’s editor’s letter.

The edition, Todd writes in this letter, is “the most important we have ever published”. Its cover features the topless Danny Miller, a young straight actor who is playing gay in the ITV soap Emmerdale. According to Todd, this is because young readers “relate to his difficult storyline”. Really? That is not a reason; it’s an excuse. If this is their most important issue the cover should by necessity reflect that. Why not run with an interview with someone like, say, Stephen Fry, who has been through his own mental health issues? It’s not as if the cover has to feature a topless celebrity. The unappealing mug of David Cameron was on there for the election special after all. Todd then states that there are interviews with six gay men between 17 and 60 on the subject of happiness. He congratulates himself with the claim, “I make it my business folks, that we don’t just feature buff models and celebrities – tell your cynical friends”. This is disingenuous. The identity of a magazine is not defined by its occasional articles. It is defined by the cover image, the features, and the photography that dominates its pages. In other words, buff models and celebrities. And the line “tell your cynical friends” is nothing more than a smokescreen.

An editor’s letter is invariably about selling the issue, which is fair enough. Attitude is a commercial magazine. So what of the main article, ‘How to be Gay & Happy’, also written by Todd? “We live in a commercialised world where all the messages suggest you have to have a perfect body, be a superhot sex machine, be famous, be rich, be better, always climb higher and be in constant competition with everybody else.” Well, that pretty much sums up the modus operandi of the mainstream gay press for a start. Todd then goes on to say that, for gay men, the question of happiness is “a particularly prickly subject as our enemies have always spread the disgusting hateful lie that you can’t be gay and be happy”. What? This isn’t addressing the issue. It’s juvenile whining. It’s somebody else’s fault. We’re the victims.  Etc. At some level everyone is victim to the demands of mainstream culture, whether they are gay or straight. What matters is how one manages that. To claim victim status is to avoid responsibility for one’s actions, and surely claiming that responsibility is what this should be about?

The word happy is used throughout as an idealised goal, but it is used as if there is an agreed upon meaning. At no point does Todd feel it necessary to address what it actually means. Instead he summarises a few books on the subject and translates the conclusions into some sort of armchair pop psychology. Own the problem. Heal yourself. Why is this a problem, you might ask? It is a problem because in the end it is not about living your life, but instead about adopting an alternative lifestyle defined by bullet points. The devil is not in the detail but in the overall message. The key part of the feature article is the “things you can do” list at the end. Take responsibility for yourself. Accept your body. Move on from being a teenager. Stop being so judgemental. What it should say is ‘stop reading the gay press because it condones all these things’.

The whole enterprise is, ultimately, meretricious. It only matters if you take it at face value. Attitude, like GT, is essentially a teen magazine aimed at grown gay men. Its emphasis is on dating, teen-pop and fashion. The occasional article on politics or adoption does not negate this fact. Perhaps that is why the article ends with a laid-back defensiveness: If you think it’s twaddle forget about it or toss it. This is further smokescreen to forestall criticism. This is a serious issue and it must be taken seriously and not at face value. The very idea that there is an ideal state of being called happiness is an unrealistic objective and therefore self-destructive. The article consequently exerts precisely the sort of pressure that Todd criticises when writing about our “commercialised world”.

It is all too easy to play the urbane sophisticate who accepts that this is what the mainstream gay press is all about. Perhaps to work from inside the belly of the proverbial beast is the only way to get one’s message across. Attitude has certainly broadened its scope under Todd’s editorship and he should be congratulated for that. But an issue such as mental health should lead an editor to call in the experts instead of rehashing talk-show clichés. The only really helpful page is the one that lists which groups to contact should you need help. The “issues issue” of Attitude is an irresponsible approach to a serious problem. It is ultimately a placebo.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Tags: attitude magazine, danny miller, emmerdale, matthew todd, mental health

Search Polari

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

About Polari Magazine

Polari Magazine is an LGBT arts and culture magazine that explores the subculture by looking at what is important to the people who are in it. It’s about the lives we lead, not the lifestyles we’re supposed to lead.

Its content is informed & insightful, and features a diverse range of writers from every section of the community. Its intent is to help LGBT readers learn about their own heritage and to sustain a link between the present and the past.

Polari is designed to nurture the idea of community, whether that be social and political, or artistic and creative. It is your magazine, whether you want to read it, or whether you want to get involved in it, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer.

Polari Magazine is all these: it's a gay online magazine; it's a gay and lesbian online magazine; it's an LGBT arts and culture magazine. Ultimately, it is a queer magazine.

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

Twitter

Tweets by @PolariMagazine

Archive

  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
© Copyright - Polari Magazine - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at
  • scroll to top
  • Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Website Privacy & Cookies