On facebook, a friend posted what I'm assuming is a satirical Cosmo cover of a veiled Taliban woman. In her tag with the image, the friend expressed what we're all thinking, "truly racist and trashy but a little bit funny." While there have been similar horribly mean-spirited stereotypes passing off as satire in the past, I have been trying to figure out what is the fine line that this pink cover is treading that makes you complicit in a guilty laugh. For example, here below is yet another Cosmo-based satire about the Taliban:
This above "cover" is a good starting point to understand the difference between the black&white one and the color one. The Cosmotaliban is focused only on a demeaning depiction of a women under Taliban rule - they don't speak, Muslim fashion is dull and "same old" and the worst of it, the allusion that this woman enjoys and submits to the "5 favorite unequal treatments." There is nothing funny about this because its primary intention is to be nasty to the woman.
Meanwhile the pink Cosmo cover is able to really poke fun at the Cosmopolitan brand itself. If you look at the Fergie cover, you see the typical issues Cosmo aspires for western women to be interested in - how to make your man happy in bed, how to lose weight (but without much effort), that most pressing question, "why is love harder in the winter" and how to be stressed out without being a bitch (cos god forbid a woman expresses anger or aggression). And then the most popular type of feature - "what is the guy really thinking?" and in this particular research breakthrough "what his hug reveals." The Cosmo about Taliban is able to hone in on these particular cheap preoccupations of the actual magazine. While completely adhering to every possible racist, rude stereotype of Taliban (guns, hostages, stoning, child marriage) it still manages to express it in the utterly flakey, sex-obsessed, heteronormative language of Cosmopolitan - the kind that seeks to empower women while mainly being concerned with making slaves of male agendas and of course, of consumerism.
What do you all think? Weigh in with your comments below...
