Another Men’s Mag Votes for The One
by Christian TotoIt’s time for me to end another men’s magazine subscription. Sad. I thought this one might last an entire 12 issues. “Details” just declared its unconditional love for President Obama with a “think” piece teased on the front cover – “Can Obama make you better in bed?”
The editor’s note accompanying the piece is even more outlandish.
I started to notice other Obama-esque characteristics cropping up in my life. Was I being more direct with people? Calmer? Cooler? Was I being – wait for it – transparent?
The article itself is even more nauseating, detailing the O-effect on men.
It’s rough being a man who leans right and wants to stay up to speed on the latest fashion, style, etc. I’ve tried to read Esquire and GQ but found their liberal bias suffocating. Hey, just tell me which suit to buy and which male actor to emulate. I’ll groove on politics elsewhere.
I even had to say “so long” to “Men’s Health” magazine, and that hurt. It’s the best place to find healthy recipes, articles about things that matter to men over the age of 21 and photos of ripped dudes to shame me back into the gym. The latter also made my wife into a devoted reader. But last October the mag all but voted for Obama with a lovey dovey cover story, and that’s when I said goodbye. The mag’s editors looked down at anyone who disagreed.
It’s easy to say, ‘Hey, lighten up, it’s only a magazine.’ And that’s true, to an extent. And I have no problem with “The Nation” or other lefty publications. Have at it. I read my conservative blogs and always make time to sample CNN.com, The Washington Post and other publications which occasionally veer left. But I don’t want to contribute to a popular culture that walks in virtual lockstep with President Obama.
TV. Movies, Academia. Most major news outlets. If right leaners hope to win back a share of said culture we have to take a stand, even if it’s as minor as canceling a magazine subscription.
It’s why Big Hollywood matters. Because if every media outlet is telling us the new president is cool/honest/hip/Spock-like/etc., after a while people believe it. Who cares if he tramples on every other campaign promise with alacrity?
The narrative will soon be set in stone. And that’s not healthy for politics, or the country no matter who you voted for last November.
So, goodbye, “Details.” I hope I can find another men’s magazine savvy enough to gain my readership – and wise enough not to rub its partisan politics in my face.
Christian Toto is a contributing reporter for The Washington Times, MovieMaker Magazine and boxoffice.com. He blogs about film at whatwouldtotowatch.com and at The Denver Examiner.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
149 Comments
"I started to notice other Obama-esque characteristics cropping up in my life. Was I being more direct with people? Calmer? Cooler? Was I being – wait for it – transparent?"
Oh you gotta be f!@#ing kidding me……
Yeah. Not too long after I started subscribing to Entertainment Weekly, they had a big cover story on Obama (right around the inauguration, I think). What the heck is a president doing on the cover of an entertainment magazine? Ridiculous. I have half a mind to cancel it, since I don't seem to have time to read it anymore anyway. At the very least, I doubt I'll re-subscribe.
Years ago, as an amateur historian of the Third Reich, I had an hysterical laughing spell when I saw a propaganda poster put out by the media in Germany in the late 30's. It was a picture of a noble knight in shining armor astride a horse. The head was Hitler's! I'm not kidding. I just about spewed over the screen when I saw that little Austrian housepainter's head popping up there on top of that armor. And you know what? After I finished giggling, that picture gave me comfort. No matter how low America ever sank in hero worship, I told myself, it would NEVER sink so low as that 'knight in shining armor' stupidity. I mean, we Americans would never stoop to that ridiculous slobbering obeisance, that utter moronic ludicrous pandering to a leader.
Ohmigod! What has happened to us?
Mr. Toto? You are so right in boycotting this insanity. Others may laugh at you but you're doing the right thing. You are absolutely right to sound a warning. Trust me, there is no good end for a 'Hitler on horseback'.
I currently don't subscribe to anything and in that case the question becomes what publication would I subscribe to? Right now? Nothing comes to mind.
the full court press of 'the cult of personality' (a great song by Living Color, too) is on for all to see. As the policies of this bunch are dispalyed in all of their loathsomeness, the only 'prayer' (forgive the use of that word!)
they have for passage is the disconnect between Obama's personal popularity and the disapproval of his administration. It explains the NEWSWEEK cover of the week syndrome- Barry? Michelle? how about both!-
and the silly collection displayed above.
While his landmark status is without question, the obsessive fawning is that from a leftist acolyte press who desparately want the extreme secular humanistic agenda of world governance to come true. They are not newspeople, but propagandists.
Uncle Joe Stalin, when asked what weapon the west had that he coveted the most, answered simply: "Hollywood"
He certainly would be happy with this lot of 'useful ididots'…
and he gave a great interview here…
http://www.threedonia.com/archives/8277
Obama does make us better in bed — Do the poor have better sex?
Details, Esquire, and GQ are men's magazines?
Seriously?
Huh, I'll be damned. On the periodical testosterone scale, they seem to fall somewhere between the Oprah mag and Martha Stewart Living.
The only real men's magazines have ampersands: Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, Rod & Custom.
A magazine that tells you the four-millionth way to get six-pack abs, how to look post-metrosexual, how to be sensitive to the plight of the _________________, or how to look at pictures of women you'll never meet (let alone date) is, by definition, not a magainze for Men.
My dad used to read True, Popular Mechanics, Field and Stream, et. al., not Girly Man Monthly or Newsweek.
dcase beat me to the punch as this was my thought reading CT article.
Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ5SVDYBNrY
There is only one war mongering, pro-torture ideology in America, and it's yours. We will never forget.
auntie is back after a little layoff to sharpen yon claws… the only war mongers are the Left; it is communist or fascist ideology (which is, of course, left as well) that have propagated the mass killings of the last century. Mass murder and torture are sole provinces of the Left.
So it is you who needs a mirror- providing it doesn't crack upon viewing.
I'm pretty sure all Men's Magazine's should just put Megan Fox on the cover in a bikini – frolicking by the pool. That's just good journalism right there.
(I kid).
Kind of.
To see this in men's magazine is so odd when you really think about. Strictly from a demographic standpoint if you are aiming for the male demographic of 28 year olds and above to be blatantly liberal is counter productive given that demographic tends to be Conservative (this is where the saying that a Conservative is simply a Liberal who has grown up comes from). Though I suppose any magazine with a focus on fashion is probably run by gay men who tend to be overwhelmingly liberal.
I've actually taken to not reading magazines at all because of their making gooey eyes at Obama.
On a side note where is the transparency in saying (or reading) one thing and doing another? Unless the definition has changed I believe that is called lying.
…Soldier of Fortune, AutoWeek, American Rifleman, Boating Life, Sporting News, American Hunter…
Other good selections for the magazine rack: Argosy, The Ring, Stag, True Detective, Peep, The Daily Racing Form, Mad (pre-1970), Wallace's Farmer, Lowrider, Easyriders
That Obama-esque drivel is mind-numbingly pathetic. I would tun as fast as I could from anyone who uttered such nonsense.
It's just shameless….
He's a politician people!! Not a god!!!
they caught plenty of heat for that and issued a mea culpa about his 'cultural impact'. Suffice to say it most likely won't happen again…
Auntie Fascist… how can you forget what you never knew in the first place?
Are you sure these aren't girly- men's magazines? Real men wouldn't waste a dime on such rags.
I gave up my GQ subscription for the same reason–too much Obamania. But let's face it, GQ is a gay magazine that's still in the closet. I'm way more stylish than most of my liberal and gay friends, and yet, to hear GQ tell it, unless you're ogling Obama's abs and thinking what sexy, intelligent, post-post-modern man he is, you might as well be wearing polyester leisure suits. Oh well, remember, he who laughs last laughs loudest.
Can Obama make me better in bed?
Well, if by that you mean lying my butt off and exaggerating my minimal credentials to get a girl into the sack, then yes!!!
Uncle Joe was one shrewd sonofabitch. Paranoid and blood-thirsty but savvy as hell.
Where do I sign up?!?!?!?
Great feedback all (or mostly all). I wish the mag in question was a parody … but it isn't.
God. When I worked in the magazine section of the bookstore last year, during the election, I was absolutely gobsmacked by the media's hard-on for Obama. When I saw the Rolling Stone with Obama (one of three, that year), the one with him (or should I say 'Him') standing before a clear blue sky with a white aura radiating from him, I honestly believed it was some kind of elaborate Candid Camera type put-on. It could not have been serious.
A year later, I know they were serious.
oooohhh… so spooky. Gee, you are a toughie, aren't you? Insults and non-sequiters do not a clever post make. Perhaps when you come out of hiding we can have a real confrontation.
Non violent, of couse… (heh…)
"If right leaners hope to win back a share of said culture we have to take a stand, even if it’s as minor as canceling a magazine subscription."
Great post! You are so right–I've done that with all of my womens' magazines in recent years (mercifully before Obama's campaign). The viewpoint just became unbearably slanted, so after subscribing for decades, I gave them up. Former Ladies' Home Journal editor Myrna Blythe's book from a few years ago speaks to this issue: Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness—and Liberalism—to the Women of America.
Gee auntie, still no pie? That last post sounds like a threat! If so, bring it. Bring yer little craptastic friends wid ya too. But better bring yer own body bags.
I always found it ironic these so called "mens magazines" had all these buff dudes yet these mags have ALWAYS had a wimpish ideological stance i.e. leftist. If you want to read a MAN's magazine pick up a copy of S.W.A.T., Leatherneck, etc. Obama is one of the biggest wimps I've ever seen. And to honor that and want to emulate it makes the emulator a bigger wuss.
To antifascist, how is it you have a right wing user name but you're a leftist? NAZI is short for National Socialist! That sounds like a leftist organization. The Nazis were fascists. The left are the ones who support "mass killings", government control, persecution of religious folk and silencing of the opposition.
you bet. And he was right about Hollywood's importance as well. At the time no one really understood what he meant. We do now…
"We will never forget."
Auntie I bet you just can't wait until the Obama Brownshirts are up and running can you? I bet you shiver with glee at the prospect of not just throwing pies at Ann Coulter (because we all know you can't bake pies) but taking a nightstick to her instead huh? But hey kudos to you for having the most ironically contradictory screen name in the history of the universe.
(and now my regular log-in doesn't work either, the day gets better and better)
Go wash clothes Auntie.. your moron-in-chief is still sending troops over.. maybe you should confer with him.. whiney-bytch..
'auntie' is an ideological clown; a bomb thrower who gets perverse glee from entering a conservative site so he/she/it can do what they do best- hate. They get off on it. You are correct about fascism but you'll never get a lefty to admit it. They were fine with Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin and the tri partie of the 30's but as soon as Hitler showed he hated communists with the support of fellow fascist Franco they turned on the National Socialist movement and have been trying, for the better part of 60 years to align the fascists with the Right.
Didn't work then, won't work now…
Details, Esquire, GQ – I bet they're all on John Edwards' coffee table.
well.. the welfare leeches dont bother working or procuring food, shelter or caring for their brood (or is it a litter?), so they have plenty of time.. whenever they're not attending a "Blame whitey/hate America" rally.
Believe it or not I have had a Yankee Magazine Subscription since the 80's I recently canceled for the same reason
There is only one racist, pro-group think ideology in America, and it is yours. Have a nice day.
Did you have a slice of pie yet? Today's flavor is Humble.
Mr. Toto was correct to cancel his subscription. Obama was never "the one' or "messiah" or what ever else the Left said he was. I sure hope America comes to its senses in time for the next presidential election to kick Obama out of the White House.
In fairness to Esquire, there was a time when it was actually pretty cool — circa 1941-1945. During that war Esquire thoughtfully included pinups of Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake and Betty Grable, and fantasy girls from Vargas, to help keep up the morale of GIs. By the early 60s it had repositioned itself as a pseudo-intellectual journal for Madison Avenue eggheads and prep school dandies. Today, it's a perfume sampler put together by sexually ambivalent Park Slope hipster douchebags. Alberto Vargas is spinning in his grave.
we'll give you a thumbs up anyway…
Auntie got a 3 for 1 subscription.. 66% off with his Nambla and Boy's Life Subscriptions..
I recommend joining the NRA and getting "American Rifleman." There's a men's magazine!
Shotgun news!!
nyuk, nyuk, nyuk… although we're not sure if auntie is a functioning human- so aspiring to pedophilia might be more like it…
tun = turn and run..?
[...] At Big Hollywood, Christian Toto looks at the groupthink identikit politics of men’s magazines (including Details magazine, which ran the above quote on their latest cover) and concludes, “Hey, just tell me which suit to buy and which male actor to emulate. I’ll groove on politics elsewhere.” [...]
YOU LIES TO ME!!!!
He forgot to remember to forget..
Can he make you better in a Limo?? Ask Larry Sinclair!!
“Can Obama make you better in bed?”
Well, unemployment does cause people to stay around the house more often. So yes.
This "hip/cool" facade with Obama need to be demolished sooner than later.
Uh…haven't we met before?
I can't wait till we get these clowns out of office.. the number of investigations will be staggering..
overstepping bounds left and right..
Shutting down Chrysler dealerships BECAUSE THEY CONTRIBUTED TO GOP CAMPAIGNS..
WTF are they doing looking at contributor lists anyway.. dirty bastards!
BUT THEY DONT HAVE ENOUGH SENSE TO PROTECT STATE SECRETS SUCH AS WHERE THE NUCLEAR BUNKERS ARE!! Morons.. one and all.. only thing worse are their sycophantic infantile supporter/enablers..
I cannot handle seeing his face anymore. Please can we have an Obama free day? Please. No news, no hearing his sing song baritone, no listening to his soaring rhetoric otherwise known as bs to be fed to the sheeple who voted for him. Just one day a week! I know SUNDAY! (think on that.) Sunday heretofore shall be named an Obama free day. AWESOME! Anyone wanna join the movement?
I found a box of Vargas stuff from the early 50's once.. I was about 14/15 they were tearing down an old house and I found it in the attic.. wish I'd kept them..
LOL I guess that would depend…
You forget Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and many of the other hunting magazines. I love seeing guys I have met on the cover of Men's Health and know in reality they are wussy metrosexuals who have no clue about what being a man is all about. And yes Obama is a wuss. Look at him. His wife is more masculine than he is.
You are correct about Mens Health. I got a cheap subscription from Amazon promotion last yr. When I saw the Obama cover I flipped. I called to cancel, but the promotion was locked in through a third party. I did notice the letter to the editor. I agreed with it totally. I just received my last issue. They keep sending me notices about my sub. ending. I send it back with a letter telling them to stick their magazine and Obama up their ass. Maybe by now they get the point. I don't care, I will not buy another Mens Health Mag. I have stopped reading the other magazines for yrs now. Just Liberal dribble you get everyday on the networks. Waste of time.
The news media and pop culture in this country reminds me of what the N. Korea media must be like. Lock step with their leader. No questions asked. No dissent. Just glowing pictures of THE ONE!!!!
I love how they picture our new Boy King with two white bimbos.
Gawd forbid they'd include a black women to spoil their precious Mandingo fantasies.
I get the Economist, but that's about it.
A friend of my once signed me up for a free subscription to Entertainment Weekly (as a joke, I'm told). It was so pathetic that I almost drove 200 miles to slap the person who signed me up.
We could call it "Scantily Clad Monthly"
Obama is anything but "cool." And that goes for all his "conformist" followers.
He's a hard-core, by-the-book leftist, and there's nothing "cool" about that.
We have an overgrown, petty little kid for President.
Where's Lenny Bruce when you need him (now that would be cool).
I agree completely with this post. I cancelled Esquire because the only articles they ever had about the military focused on how screwed up we all were. Ditto GQ, which is an Obama love fest. As far as Details goes, well, I could only slog thru half the article. I've been getting tired of these magazines anyway- I can only read so much about rich people who like to dress poor or how investment bankers spend their time online.
"Can Obama make you better in bed?'
I don't know, I've never tried making love using a teleprompter.
"I uhh… I'm not sure…uhh…what to do next….umm…Are you…..uhh….cold?"
SQT. As for magazines, I get the Economist and ESPN. I also get the FT delivered.
Here's a list of magazines that are decidely conservative/moderate.
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/gettinginvolv...
"I started to notice other Obama-esque characteristics cropping up in my life. Was I being more direct with people? Calmer? Cooler? Was I being – wait for it – transparent?"
I can't take three years, seven months, and three weeks more of this. (throws up in mouth)
Cool now I have something to replenish my supply of toilet paper. Recycling is a good thing.
I'm not certain, but I think "Field and Stream" endorsed Jean-Francois Kerry in 2004. Or, it may have been "Outdoor Life". Or possibly both of them. I quit reading them at that point (how in the HELL could a publication about hunting favor the gun-grabbing Kerry???), so I don't know what their stance was on the Dear Leader.
If I am wrong about F and S or OL endorsing Kerry, I humbly apologize in advance and plead faulty memory…but I know at least one national hunting and fishing mag. did so.
I'd like to brag that I cancelled my subscription to Rollingstone during the Kerry Presidential run. I called the subscription office up and told them to cancel it…I'm sick of reading about Kerry in a supposed rock magazine and I I'm sick of the biased reporting. I used my back issues as kindling for the fire place till they ran out. I donated the saved money to the RNC!
If I'm lyin I'm dyin…..
what was the question??
"His wife is more masculine than he is."
That's not really saying much…..
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You owe me a new keyboard….
My disgustingly racist, black-hating uncle, who is also a big-time gun and hunting enthusiast. loves Barack Obama. Some cognitive dissonance there… He also believes all guns should be locked in government lockers, keeping them out of the hands of their owners when not checked-out for strictly-regulated hunting and target-shooting periods. Weird.
I think that newspapers (the ones that are left, at least) and the mags have gone so overboard with the Obama lovefest that I believe it will backfire. Obama overload. A headline that says, "Can Obama Make You Better In Bed?" will only succeed in registering a gag reflex in most people. After a while, who can take them seriously?
Where else are Obama's glistening pecs going to offer advice? President Obama's popularity will fade when his programs implode, stagflation returns, & unemployment remains high. This is a very brief moment in time.
The true believers will never be convinced. The NYT was writing glowing reviews of Stalin's nightmare even while many were dying. Ditto for Castro and Che.
Somehow I find Obama showing up in Entertainment Weekly to be completely appropriate. He's all show, pretending to be a President. There's no substance to his public rhetoric, and secretly he's much like many movie stars–great public persona, personally a little dictator with a serious need to have society accept him. I'm just waiting for him to have a Christian Bale or Russell Crowe moment where the real personality behind the public relations facade slips out.
Kudos to you Chrsitian Toto for taking action. Locally, I left a long voice mail railling against my local newspaper The NewsHerald of South East Michigan fro publishing a biweekly insert called Obama Watch. They changed the name to Washington Watch, but the bozobama love continues. I have yet to complain about their conduct to any media or press body that may oversee them.
We're even then,"You gotta be f@%&ing kidding me!!" did mine in.
Familiarity breeds contempt. Even the media tire of folk; circa Michael Jackson.
Well said, Mr. Toto. Thank you for your warning… if you can only sway a few people at a time who are still inexplicably sitting on the fence, the warnings about Obama will eventually sink in.
dammit Ahab… you owe me a new monitor and keyboard now!
Making movies singing songs and Fightin round the world!
or in Obama's case, kissin ass around the world
Jeff? Cancel. It makes a difference, trust me. Cancel. I mean, ask yourself – if putting the big Zero on the cover of that magazine makes a difference, than why wouldn't your taking yourself off the subscription not make one? Your cancellation will make a difference. Cancel. Cancel. Cancel.
we all have a crazy uncle or two in the family. It's what gives spice to family reunions.
Why are they glistening? Wait, wait…don't answer. I don't want to know.
Almost forgot. THIS is more of a man's mag and you'll LOVE the pin-ups:
http://www.womenshooters.com/
I recently kicked Wizard Magazine to the curb after buying it religiously for 18 years. They (combined with their sister magazine ToyFare) have done 5 Obama covers in a row. IN A MAGAZINE ABOUT COMIC BOOKS!
The Obama boot lickers may be laughable/scary, but even more frightening is what is certainly around the corner: Michelle for President in 2016!
Thanks, even though the thumbs don't work anymore either. Now I just have my fingers crossed that this works now.
Pravda seems to be a more accurate source of news than US papers are now.
And you have no idea how horrible that was for me to even write since I spent a healthy chunk of my misspent youth training and preparing to go toe to toe with the Soviets.
Canceled Rolling Stone a while ago.
It was a gift from a friend and she kept having it renewed.
I had to call, several times, to get it canceled.
Felt good when it finally went through.
Don't feel bad I had to give up Vogue, Elle and Glamour because over the years the Bush/cheney mccain bashing became intolerable and the love feast for Obama is nauseating. I just got a subscription to ESPN from my son ( yes a girl can do fantasy baseball) and if that magazine keeps it up I won't last to the end of the year.
Again, another pod person is born.
What is it with this man's cult of personality?
NOT YOU HANK! I mean the editor of the Obama rag.
Dear god, this is one of the few sane outposts left.
I've been noticing some Obama-esque characteristics coming out in myself. I want to lift people's wallets (some call it pick-pocketing; I call it "spreading the wealth") and grab their guns. I now get verklempt over the movies REDS and SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO (instead of THE ALAMO and RED DAWN, as I used to), and while I used to think, "Hey, I'd like to be more like that guy!" when I saw a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie, now I think "Hey, I'd like to be more like that guy!" watching GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE and THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. I also find myself striking Mussolini like-poses, saying "uh" a lot, and reacting with pique and irritation when people do not see automatically how great I am.
I had a free subscription to "interview", hardly ever read it. Just left it out on the coffee table for others, or put it in my apartment building's laundry room. But on a Lindsay Lohan cover, there was a Bush attack piece, by that resonable fellow AL FRANKEN! After reading the vile hate this idiot soon to be senator wrote about his commander in chief, I cancelled my FREE subscription.
You tell them why, it matters. It matters to Interview, it matters to Rolling Stone, it's mattering to the New York TImes and LA times. IT MATTERS.
Women's magazines are SO. MUCH. WORSE. The only one I can tolerate reading anymore is "Lucky" and that is because it by and large stays away from politics. The others worship the unholy trinity of The One, Mrs. O, and abortion.
You've got a point. This is the worlds biggest BRO-MANCE! To hear my few male friends (as a straight man, I rather hang with women, they are smarter and smell better), if you don't want to make love to Obama, there is something wrong with you.
I don't have bromances. I have no desire to have sex with Obama. I have no love for any man other than Jesus.
You must be logged in to post a comment.