Blonde v. Blonde: The Ellen Cover of Shape Magazine

The best class I took at Sarah Lawrence was on writing the nonfiction essay with Nicolaus Mills. I was the youngest student in the class, a shy sophomore, but Nick saw potential in my writing and acted as a mentor. For years—never mind how many—I’ve held onto a photocopy he gave us of an article from In These Times by Susan J. Douglas.  Titled "Blonde Ambition," it's an insightful analysis of the very different ways in which two well-known blondes were treated by Vanity Fair in the magazine's September 1987 issue. (Oops, guess I just gave away how many years ago it was that I took Nick’s class.)

Donna Rice--she of the “Monkey Business” sex scandal that derailed Gary Hart’s presidential run--was portrayed as a grasping, slutty homewrecker despite the fact that she was a Phi Beta Kappa with a career. Diane Sawyer, a former beauty queen turned broadcaster, was on the other hand given a fawning profile highlighting her brains and professional success.

I thought of that article showing how the media pits women against each other when I received the May issue of Shape last week. The cover features a fully clothed Ellen DeGeneres leaning over in a goofy pose that has nothing to do with fitness. Every other Shape cover model dawns a bikini, or at least a skimpy two-piece athletic outfit, that would be equally at home on the cover of a men’s magazine. So I found it interesting that her bare feet are the only skin Ellen displays.

On the inside cover Ellen is dressed in nearly the identical white outfit shilling for Vitaminwater. In the profile section is yet another ad for the drink, opposite Ellen in a yoga pose, still fully clothed. On the next page Ellen jokingly holds up her shirt to display a tiny slice of her stomach, alongside a pull quote that reads, “This is more of my abs than anyone has ever seen.”

In the same issue, Marisa Miller, the Victoria’s Secret model who posed for the cover of Shape last June, is featured in the table of contents section. She wears a barely-there pink one-piece while kneeling alluringly in sand on the beach. The photo directs readers to check out her “get gorgeous” tips on p. 68. I turned to that page to see the same photo along with a list of Marisa’s five top beauty secrets under the title, “Sexy made simple.” (Victoria’s Secret cosmetics are prominently featured. No surprise that women’s magazines are in bed with their advertisers, and since they are so open about it, neither this nor Ellen’s preferential Vitaminwater ad placement bothers me.)

What does startle me is how respectfully Ellen is treated compared with any other celebrity cover model in recent memory. She has apparently transcended the need to prove her fitness by baring her body. Even the then 48-year old Julia Louis-Dreyfus, only three years Ellen’s junior, obligingly donned a revealing bikini top when she posed for Shape’s April 2009 cover. 

This is a magazine that cheerfully objectifies virtually every woman in its pages (and yes, I realize I’m complicit by subscribing, but I do find the fitness articles to be well-researched and motivating--even when I can see that the abs in the accompanying photos are sometimes painted on with spray tan).  So why the free pass for Ellen, and the worshipful profile that never once dares mention the “s” word, in sharp contrast to the Marisa Miller piece just a few pages away?  Actually, the Ellen profile does mention "sexy" exactly once, at the beginning, when making it clear that the term does not apply to the person the magazine deems to be the modern version of the girl next door.  The implication seems to be that Marisa, the blonde bombshell model, can only tell us how to be hot, while Ellen, the "cute" towheaded tomboy, has attained an almost Oprah-like stature as she seeks to teach us how to find our inner strength. So a woman can’t be sexy and smart and soulful? Hmm.

I will say that it was a bold of Shape to choose such a different, potentially controversial cover. I’ll be interested to see how well this issue sells compared with the usual bikini ones. (As, I’m sure, will be the magazine’s publishers.)