Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I will be buying this book...


I haven't blogged about my love of Sassy magazine before, and I'll spare you all my gushing about how great it was, how I wish there were something like it today (for teens and those of us no longer teens) and how I've met the first Sassiest Boy in America. Instead, I'll just link to this article by the authors of How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time:

Vapid celebrities, too-skinny models, coverlines that promise girls their best bikini bodies: there are plenty of things about teen magazines to criticize. (And plenty of places that do, Gawker and Jezebel among them.) But if you think today's teen magazines leave much to be desired, you should seek out copies of teen magazines from the '80s, when Seventeen still pushed multiple diet stories per issue and college was seen largely as a means to getting a Mrs. degree.

Sassy magazine changed all that. Launched in 1988 by Jane Pratt, who later went on to start Jane magazine, Sassy tried to not make girls feel bad about their bodies or their sexuality; in fact, it was boycotted by the religious right for running informative --but not pedantic-- sex stories. It was also unabashedly feminist and resolutely liberal, with one infamous article bashing Bush Sr.'s drug war. It even had a sense of humor! (A one-star record review meant "I'd rather work for Clarence Thomas" than listen to this CD).

Read the rest...

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