Censorship

This post will focus on censorship in the 90’s especially with Life magazine. In overlooking all of Life magazine covers, I made an observation. Only two women in the time frame of the 90’s graced the cover of Life magazine more than once.
These two women were Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor. Princess Diana graced the cover in August 1992, February 1993, November 1997, and January 1998. Elizabeth Taylor appeared on the cover in February 1992 and April 1997. (All images in this post are from http://www.2neatmagazines.com/life/1990cover.html)

 

 The obvious censorship issue is that women were censored from being on the cover too much. On most of the Life magazine issues if a woman did grace the cover it was with another man, a child, or interrelated with aging, body issues, religion, the miracle of birth, the image of an American family, or their occupation. (The order the image appears correlates in order with the analysis.)

The first two images are of women and their jobs, in March 1990, a female gymnast and February 1996, a female astronaut. In the magazine, the women discuss how hard their journey was and the sacrifices they had to make to accomplish their dreams. In the issues, obviously, the media does well with sheltering women readers and telling women that to accomplish great things; they must sacrifice multiple things and deal with criticism along the way. Almost hindering any thoughts they might have to break away from the average “American Family” life, which is promoted in the media and appears on the April 1991 issue. The “American Family” is clearly stereotyped, promoting a mother, father, and child, with the mother holding the child, encouraging that is where her job lies, with the child. The October 1990 issue does the same. The woman showcases her complete happiness with her child. Here, they deal with interviewing accomplished women, yet making them seem like they suffered to get to where they are, censoring the positives of an independent woman and highlighting being a mother. This is displayed all throughout the 90’s era in Life magazine. They highlight the amazing cycle of being pregnant with a child and being a mother. For example, the December 1993 issue is all about the miracles of birth.

Life magazine also represented women when it came to body issues and aging. The February 1995 issue answered 28 questions about body fat for women and the October 1992 issue addresses the infamous question, can aging be stopped. The image is of a woman whose face is half aged and half young. The magazine addresses the concerns of women becoming fat and aging. If this was not the main concern of women, then these magazine issues and disturbing photographs made it a concern for women. Here, it seems the media censored any other concerns of women, and made obtaining your image an ultimate concern.

Life magazine highly repeated covers of religion to readers. It appeared on the December 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1999 issues. (Pictured: 1990, 1992, 1994.) (1995, 1996, 1999 are unable to be posted, however, 1995 issue has an angel on it, 1996 has the Virgin Mary, and 1999 depicts the scene of the birth of Jesus.) Almost making it seem like anybody who read Life magazine had to worry about religion in their life.

 Life magazine in the 90’s era quietly censored the boastfulness women had about their accomplishments by interviewing how hard their journey was to get accomplish something so magnificent. However, the non censorship they displayed is what really influenced women and what they should be involved in and worry about. These worries were having the “American Family”, children, the amazing process of having children, not getting fat, trying not to age, and being an advocate of religion. It basically promoted the ideal life of a woman, the only time, Life magazine allowed for a fantasy life, was when they interviewed women who could break the norms, the two women who appeared on the cover more than once, Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor. These two women were women who did not lead normal lives and were role models for women everywhere. In conclusion, the representation of women in the media in the 90’s were to be the perfect wife for the “American family”, bearing children and religion, and the only women who were exempt from doing so were the women of a higher society in the world, and if you tried steering away from this American life, there would be challenged and roadblocks during the journey.

~Krystale