Identizine

I loved this project! This was a really fun thing to work on. It was slightly challenging to have to define my own gender, which is strange. Finding words, pictures and phrases that fit my own unique gender was challenging but I enjoyed doing so.

I went with the title, "Metropolitan" because I wanted to do a play on words. I have been an avid reader of, "Cosmopolitan" for several years now, and I think that magazine has shaped the way I view other women, men, exercise, food and shopping. It's a very fun but influential magazine. I think it carries a lot of weight, no pun intended, in how women see themselves. The articles that are published in that magazine are read by millions of teens, young and older women all across the United States. It has a large impact on how feminine gender is seen. That is why I wanted to showcase, "Cosmo" and do some of my front page article similar to the ones I've seen within their pages. I dug out some of my older subscriptions and literally clipped headlines from the pages. Looking at the headlines out of their magazine context was a bit eye-opening. Most of the stuff was about loosing weight, finding a guy, loosing a guy, and being independent. It was interesting to see what key words kept popping up within the several copies I had that I'd never noticed before.

I can see now that magazines are surely one way that popular culture can influence how people see the world, and how genders are shaped.