A ‘lad mag’ moves out of fast lane
A sedate Taylor Swift cover shows Maxim has grown up — but can its readers?
These are anxious times for Maxim readers.
Not that long ago, they may tell you with broken hearts, their beloved magazine was as predictable as a Porsche 911 on a straightaway or string bikinis on a beach in Rio. While flipping through the glossy pages, eyes darting from one scantily clad woman to a fast ride to a scantily clad woman draped across the hood of a fast ride, the Maxim maxim of “Sex Sports Beer Gadgets Clothes Fitness” was a predictable buffer from real jobs and real relationships.
But this week, after Maxim said Taylor Swift will top its upcoming “Hot 100” list, the jaws of many readers dropped and, in the Maxim lingo, “dude, not in a good way.”
On the magazine’s Facebook page, the photograph of Swift that will adorn the June/July cover was met with majority horror. The image, shot by Thomas Whiteside, is subtle, tasteful and artistic, three qualities few would use to describe Maxim. The stark image also forces the reader to look into Swift’s eyes, another anomaly for a magazine that’s spent two decades monetizing T&A.
The sight of Swift from the shoulders up, looking more self-assured than seductive, forced one unhappy customer to take an all-caps stand on Facebook: “i USE (sic) TO LOVE READING MAXIM MAGAZINE BUT I HAVE NOTICED IT BEING NOT AS GOOD AS IT USE (sic) TO BE. I’M SORRY BUT I WILL NOT BE RE SUBSCRINING (sic).”
Another commenter, perhaps relying on mental images, added: “She is not good looking at all unless you like sleeping with a bag of bones . . . she’s not even fit. No butt, no boobs, no confidence . . . NOT SEXY.”
Then there was this from another outraged observer: “Maxim’s new female Editor will now be telling men what ‘sexy’ is . . . less bikini shots . . . fems (sic) aren’t happy with their progress . . . now they want to change what men view as sexy . . . I’m done . . . goodbye Maxim!”
The target of this alpha male backlash is Kate Lanphear. She was hired last fall as Maxim’s editor-inchief. It was a bold move for new owner Sardar Biglari, not least because Lanphear’s CV, which includes “style director” at both Elle and the New York Times Style magazine, with stops at Vogue Australia and Harper’s Bazaar, does not exactly scream “lad mag.”
But this was precisely why she was chosen.
When Maxim launched in the U.K. in 1995, two years before the U.S. edition debuted, it did so as a reaction to the touchy-feely male archetypes that dominated pop culture at the time. Maxim would be visceral, promised founder Felix Dennis. It would be unapologetic in its fleshy and boozy pursuits. It would be an escape for manly men who just wanted to ogle voluptuous bodies and chuckle at the bawdy guffaws inevitable when threesomes and keggers are elevated to higher callings.
Then came the Internet. And with any lascivious image now a few clicks away, men’s magazines started to shutter, including FHM, Stuff and Nuts. Maxim survived the cull and remains the “lad mag” leader with about two million subscribers. But the numbers have been trending in the wrong direction for a long time. And based on the last three editions, Lanphear has pointed her binoculars toward a new promised land. To quote from her first letter to readers, this is a place where “silicone-filled pin-ups have ceded the limelight to a more authentic, self-possessed — if no less gorgeous — generation of women.”
And so, on a mission to compete with upmarket titles such as GQ, Esquire and Details, and maybe even convert female readers along the way, Maxim’s days of objectifying women are over.
Beauty is now about narrative and emotional depth.
Or as Lanphear explained to New York magazine: “My vision is to show women who will be a partner. She’s not oiled up on a surfboard, she’s carrying the surfboard to the back of the truck you’re going to go to Montauk in together.”
It’s a fascinating about-face, one of the most audacious brand reinventions in magazine history. But will it succeed? At a time when the culture has lost fictitious male characters such as Don Draper and real ones like David Letterman, at a time when a summer blockbuster such as Mad Max: Fury Road is denounced by some men’s rights groups as “feminist propaganda,” Lanphear must build a new audience without alienating her old one.
At the age of 18, Maxim is finally ready to grow up. Now she’ll have to convince readers it’s time to do the same. vmenon@thestar.ca