ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 3, 1997 TAG: 9702040014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE WHITE THE BOSTON GLOBE
The February issue of Cosmopolitan magazine is big and fat and fragrant with multiple scent inserts, the Biggest Issue Yet, according to a cover blurb, to celebrate a Special Occasion, the retirement of editor-in-chief and eternal Cosmo Girl Helen Gurley Brown.
A moment of silence, please.
Or maybe not, since silence has never been Brown's style, and she's not really retiring, but moving on to become editor-in-chief of Cosmo's 27 foreign editions.
Brown, 75, has stepped down after more than 30 years on the job. Officially, her departure was a mutual decision between her and the Hearst Corp. However, anonymous sources within the company have let it be known in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that Brown's retirement was forced upon her by Hearst executives who believe she's out of touch with the concerns of the magazine's young readers, who are mainly women age 18 to 34.
This judgment seems unfair. True, Brown has been known to express embarrassingly retro opinions on issues such as sexual harassment and the threat of AIDS. On the other hand, her basic Cosmo Girl philosophy seems very much in tune with the postfeminist mood of the '90s, when women have made a best seller out of ``The Rules,'' a guide to snagging a man at any cost. Some things never change, and a glance at the current issue's table of contents demonstrates that certain subjects are of perennial interest to Cosmo's readers, and maybe to women in general, for example, ``Sexiest Shoes in the Universe!,'' ``All at Once I Had Thin Thighs,'' and ``Autoeroticism: When His Car Excites Him More Than You Do.''
Even those who loathe Cosmo acknowledge Brown's success. She has influenced three generations of women, and it hasn't all been about sex, diets, makeup, shoes, etc. Through the years Brown has espoused a kind of half-baked feminism. In a 1994 piece titled ``Feminism in the '90s. Where do You Fit?'' Brown claimed that the Cosmo Girl has always been a feminist. She wrote that the magazine's format, created in 1965, ``really defined the feminist movement'' when it set out to be ``a magazine for women who love men and children but don't want to live through other people.'' So feminism caught up with Cosmo, not vice versa, according to Brown at least.
Brown became the living embodiment of the Cosmo Girl, and she still is, even at 75. Six years ago she wrote ``The Late Show: A Semi-Wild But Practical Survival Plan for Women over 50,'' a book of advice about how to keep on being a Cosmo Girl into your 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. In it she described how difficult it has been for her to accept growing older. ``I never expected to be such a poor sport about age because I never expected to be old,'' she wrote. ``I expected to go on forever being the jeune fille.''
In a way, she's done just that.
Brown was the subject of a recent A&E ``Biography'' that portrayed her as a remarkable woman who started life with very few advantages, who worked hard for everything she achieved. She transformed herself from a self-described ``mouseburger'' into a glamorous success.
The program recounted a story from Brown's past that seems bizarre, if not criminal, by 1997 standards, but apparently it had a powerful influence on the Cosmo Girl-to-be. When she was very young she worked in an advertising agency where the office ``sport'' involved the ``boys'' ganging up on one or another of the more attractive ``girls'' and stealing her panties. According to the A&E account, Brown was hurt because she was never the chosen victim in one of these panty raids. The implication was that she spent the rest of her life turning herself into the sort of girl whose panties would be prized. And she succeeded, beyond even her own wildest dreams.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT. Helen Gurley Brown will become editor-in-chief ofby CNBCosmopolitan magazine's 27 foreign editions. color.