Changes at Vogue Aren’t All Apparent
A crucial paragraph in Los Angeles writer Seth Cagin’s story in this month’s Vogue about the new movie “Mississippi Burning” almost ended up on the cutting room floor.
But Cagin said he successfully argued against editing out--for space reasons--what may prove to be his most controversial assertion regarding the widely publicized film about the civil rights struggle in the 1960s.
Namely, Cagin contends that the movie “distorts the truth” about methods used by the FBI to investigate the murders of three civil rights workers and, as a result, may be embraced by the “the racists it intends to condemn.”
Cagin’s experience with Vogue seems to reflect changes that have swept over the fashion magazine since Anna Wintour was named editor last July. Most visibly, Vogue’s cover for November, the first all-Wintour issue, featured a model wearing an expensive, bejeweled French designer sweater and a pair of jeans instead of the usual close-up studio photograph of an unmussed model with pinpoints of lights in her eyes. Newsstand sales were up 11%, the magazine reported.
December’s cover is even more of a departure with two models on the cover, the first time the magazine has ever done that.
However, for Cagin, not a regular Vogue reader, the signal that the magazine is different came from a Vogue editor who warned him against reading back issues to get a feel for the magazine’s style and content. The editor told him, “Well, you can’t make any judgments based on that.”
While several recent articles have noted that “Mississippi Burning” fictionalizes many aspects of the FBI’s investigation of the killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman in 1964, Cagin’s apparently is the only one to argue that the movie resorts to “a dangerous fiction” when it portrays federal agents physically assaulting Ku Klux Klansmen or terrorizing confessions out of suspects.
Cagin can claim expertise in the matter. He is the co-author of “We Are Not Afraid,” a book about the killings published earlier this year.
In a telephone interview, Cagin contended that the movie’s portrait of FBI conduct “served a fictional purpose but not an historical one.” He added, “The FBI is an easy target to slander because they’re not going to defend themselves and they’re not popular.”
In the article, Cagin goes on to argue that “the film significantly downplays the racism and hostility displayed by the average white citizen of Mississippi in 1964.” At that time “Mississippi was a terrorist state maintained by bigots” who justified their actions under the rubric of states’ rights, he writes.
Car Stereo, That’s All
There are car magazines in profusion and stereo magazines in profusion. But how many magazines care about car stereo?
Well, there’s one coming out of Sherman Oaks, Car Audio and Electronics, that’s devoted exclusively to car enthusiasts who can’t leave home without half a dozen or more power amplifiers wired into the trunk and umpteen speakers mounted in the passenger compartment.
This is truly a hard-core magazine. The covers feature shots of lovingly lighted products such as a vent-ribbed power amplifier against a rich purple background. Inside are articles, ads and tests of products, leavened by features on the lengths to which audio buffs will go for perfect car stereo sound. There also are reader service columns designed to help those who want to win contests sponsored by the National Autosound Challenge Assn., or an event called the Car Audio Nationals.
Car Audio and Electronics is the first venture by Curtco Publishing and according to president William J. Curtis there are sound marketing strategies behind the magazine. Most importantly, the wholesale dollar volume of car audio now surpasses that of home stereo equipment, Curtis said. In the last few years there has been “a revolution” in car sound, one important enough to support a specialty magazine, he said.
The magazine, which debuted in July, hasn’t been audited yet, but Curtis said distribution totals about 225,000 copies, including 75,000 to car audio stores.
Next year, Curtco plans to launch a second magazine, Audio/Video Interiors. That publication, Curtis said, will be a mix of upscale interior design and the latest in audio and visual equipment.
Subscriptions to Car Audio are $18.96 a year. The address is P.O Box 50267, Boulder, Colo. 80321-0267.
The Art of L.A.
On the visual side of human perception, Robert D. Crothers, a New York advertising man in the process of transplanting himself here, plans to launch Artcoast magazine next March because he believes other national art magazines have given Los Angeles’ “intellectual culture” short shrift.
This weekend, Crothers will be promoting the monthly at ART/LA88 at the Los Angeles Convention Center with a prototype issue aimed mainly at potential advertisers.
If the prototype is any indication, the magazine will be lavishly printed, have an unusual horizontal layout and an eclectic mix of Eastern and Western art.
A statement in the prototype declares that the magazine will cover “visual culture,” turf it defines as “painting, sculpture, installations, performance, street art, photography, film, books, architecture, design, and any other forms of creative upheaval that strike our fancy.”
Kay Larson, art critic at New York magazine, will edit the magazine. In a telephone interview Larson said she will retain her job with New York but that her schedule has enough “holes” in it to allow her to head up the editorial side of the new venture.
Around the World
For amusement value, Michael Kinsley’s article on how he went around the world in 80 hours in the current Conde Nast Traveler ranks high on the wit scale. Kinsley, editor of the New Republic, set out to answer the question, “Is it possible to circle the earth, get at least a tourist’s taste of its varied sights, and be back within 80 hours?”
He actually made the perfect “Type A” vacation in about 77 hours, stopping in Paris, Athens, New Delhi, Katmandu, Bangkok and Hong Kong before returning to New York.
New Delhi was a typical stop. “India. A land of startling contrasts--wealth and poverty, beauty and squalor, ancient and modern, vast natural spaces and dense human crowds, and so on and so forth. I had about two hours to plumb its mysteries. . . . India was fascinating. I could easily have used another 45 minutes or so.”
Sometimes, though, his itinerary was butchered by flight and other delays. Kinsley, who had set aside an hour and 40 minutes for Japan, never got out of the airport. Thus, he says, his only impressions of that country are from “the view out the window as we circled for a landing at Narita Airport. . . .” Based on that quick look, Kinsley writes that “Japan is a nation of vast open spaces and lush greenery, punctured by picturesque little villages; clearly a society where land is cheap and underpopulated, with a relaxed pastoral attitude toward life.”
