FHM is in competition with emap’s Loaded and GQ, which means that their front cover has to stand out above all the rest. FHM uses the exclusive photo shoot of Samia and the Biggest ever world sex survey to promote their magazine as better than any other. The ‘Exclusive’ shoot of Samia means this has not been done for any other magazine, just for the readers of FHM. The FHM title has been partially covered up by the main image, which suggests that the magazine is well established and no longer needs to show its full identity.
The front cover of FHM has typical generic conventions of a male lifestyle magazine, such as the image of a sexy female, it mentions Becks and fashion which has intertextual links with football and has major sexual connotations with the promise of soft porn (Samia’s sexy shoot). It also includes inside stories on females and sex (girls on the sofa discuss cocks). The red writing adds to the sexy image as red is symbolic of love, lust and sex and it also helps the magazine to stand out.
The FHM magazine fulfils the needs of diversion as it gives its audience the chance to escape from their daily routine through reading about more light-hearted matters such as sex, women and cars. It also fulfils the needs of personal relationships by offering companionship as it identifies with its male audience and helps them to feel a part of an exclusive social group. By using the cover lines Best of British, Mess With Her Head and the mention of Arnie (Arnold Schwarzenegger) it gives the audience personal identity and reinforces the norms and values of masculinity and manpower (Mc Quail, Blumer and Brown 1972).
Male lifestyle magazines can be seen as stereotypical of men and male values. Using the front cover of FHM (September 2003) as an example, it suggests that men are only interested in sex, nude women, football and male dominance as most of the page is taken up by the half naked image of a woman. The features mentioned on the front cover are mainly to do with sex, cars and getting revenge on women. The FHM title is made up of the colours of the British flag and the caption Best of British. This can be seen as patriotic which also implies male dominance as Britain is a patriarchal society (male dominated) and therefore reinforces the idea of manpower.
Male lifestyle magazines can also be seen to portray a bias ideology of women as most of the women in their magazines are very pretty, thin and sexy which assumes that all men who read these magazines are attracted to this type of woman. This is not always true of all men and therefore gives a false impression of the male expectations of women. This representation of women is also not necessarily the true reality of what most women look like and could be seen to pressurise women and men conform to this stereotypical expectation of the perfect woman. This would depend on how the specific audience of these magazines position themselves in relation to the text and whether they took the preferred reading and accepted this to be normal, negotiated what they thought and interpreted it how they chose to or opposed the reading totally and therefore this type of magazine may not appeal to them. (Stuart Hall).
Louise Lungley
