Page 26 - Kimberly Hunt and daughter

Bitchin’ & Moaning

Tabloid Terrorism By Judith A. Habert

Okay, I admit it, I am a tabloid junkie. Part of it is an occupa- and while I am on this topic, have you seen what they are re-
tional hazard: I love magazines of all kinds. I am as likely to ferring to as a baby bump these days? If a Hollywood starlet
pick up a Time magazine as I am a People magazine. I don’t has internal organs it is suggested that she is in a family way.
only read them, I study them. I look at the advertisers, I look The obvious arrow that they point at the tiny non-existent
at the design and layout, and of course I look at the content. bump is supposed to make you see something that is not
I have picked up there. I have stared at
magazines while the bump and studied
waiting for a haircut it like a Rorschach test,
that took me until but to no avail. There is
page 107 before nothing there!
there was any Okay, so the lies do
editorial content at bother me and in many
all. Part of me is cases they have terror-
envious due to the ized my children. I can
high incomes these remember my oldest
magazines must daughter who was about
be receiving. The 5 at the time, staring up
other part is ap- at a tabloid at the news-
palled that a maga- stand which claimed in
zine would have large green letters, “Eat-
its readers ruffle ing too many vegetables
through 107 pages makes girl turn green”
26 of advertising be- It took me months to
get her to consume a
fore they get any-
thing to read. No single green vegetable
matter what town again. One of my other
I am in, or what favorites was when a
neighborhood, famous politician’s wife
my first impulse was accused of carry-
is to find the local ing on an illicit affair with
newspaper and an alien. I must admit
magazine to keep things have calmed down
abreast of what is a bit and I rarely see the
going on around alien or green people
me. I do suppose on the tabloid covers
butchers are very these days, but the ones
cognoscente of with conflicting reports
the steaks they are about celebrity love lives
served at restaurants, and hairstylists can’t help but com- continue to thrive. Yet, I continue to buy them. I continue
ment on the hairdos of those they meet, so for a magazine to read about every celebrity marriage, love affair or baby.
publisher to read every magazine she comes in contact with Whose dress looked best at the Golden Globes, what de-
appears somewhat normal. At least that’s my excuse and signers did they wear and what were they thinking? I know
I’m sticking to it! a lot of it, or I correct myself, most of it is fabricated, but yet I
It has happened though, something I feared over the years: I continue reading. So I have concluded that it is truly tabloid
have become an addict. What am I addicted to? Magazines terrorism which focuses on the fear to not be totally informed
in general, tabloids to be specific. My trip to the supermarket about everyone who is famous. What diet are they on, how
is not complete unless I pick up one of these magazines. I do they stay so slim and what exercises they do is never far
think it is the headlines that attract my attention, or perhaps from my consciousness. They have taken control of me and
the desire to find out how the publishers could have the I fear I may never pass through the supermarket lines again
sheer audacity to print such obvious lies. When you stand without a tabloid in hand. I suppose as long as I know that
there and read about the hottest stars on two different maga- what is on the pages of these tabloids isn’t all true I am okay
zines and on one they are on the brink of divorce, while on to continue with my addiction without making apologies. I
the other they are suggesting that a baby bump is visible and guess it could be worse. My career related addiction could
they are happily awaiting their love child. So which is it? Oh, be a lot more uncomfortable if I was a funeral director.
Issue 1, 2009