Read How Sassy Changed My Life Online
Authors: Kara Jesella
How Sassy Changed My Life (9 page)
Girl Culture
Dolls. Dress-up. Slumber parties. Makeovers. First kisses. Saturdays spent at the mall. Gum-chewing. Boy bands. Teen magazines had always covered these aspects of female life with the utmost earnestness. The male mainstream had deemed all these things silly. Second Wave feminists, in their attempt to be seen as equals, had denigrated it all as fluff served up to distract an impressionable population from weightier issues.
Sassy
unapologetically celebrated the pop-cultural ephemera of girls' lives. In the magazine's philosophy, being a girlâand all the mass-market accoutrements that helped define girlhoodâwas good. This ethic was the original premise of what is now known as “girl culture,” the formation of which began with a feminist impulse to reclaim the undervalued artifacts of girlhood as a means of reminding girls of a time when they were powerful and strong.
unapologetically celebrated the pop-cultural ephemera of girls' lives. In the magazine's philosophy, being a girlâand all the mass-market accoutrements that helped define girlhoodâwas good. This ethic was the original premise of what is now known as “girl culture,” the formation of which began with a feminist impulse to reclaim the undervalued artifacts of girlhood as a means of reminding girls of a time when they were powerful and strong.
If it sounds counterintuitiveâthat an eleven-year-old sporting jelly bracelets up to her elbows and dancing around her room to “Like a Virgin” had any kind of larger importâconsider “Why You Liked
Yourself Better When You Were 11,” an article that appeared in
Sassy
's July 1991 issue. In it, the magazine documents the findings of Dr. Carol Gilligan, a Harvard psychologist (and latter-day girl-culture icon) whose ideas on young women's self-esteem are espoused in her seminal work,
In a Different Voice
.
Sassy
paraphrased: “When girls are little, they are true to their beliefs. They speak their minds. If they're angry, they let you know. When someone asks them a question, they answer it with confidence. If they don't agree with what they're told to do, they disobey. Pre-teenage girls are proud of being different, and they know that resisting authority is okay.” But according to Gilligan, women go through a crisis of confidence at puberty, their self-esteem plummets, and they never truly recover. Gilligan posits that this is because America views boys as the norm: girls are different, and their way of being in the world isn't validated. To validate them, to tell girls that who they are and what they are interested in is good, is an intrinsically feminist act.
Yourself Better When You Were 11,” an article that appeared in
Sassy
's July 1991 issue. In it, the magazine documents the findings of Dr. Carol Gilligan, a Harvard psychologist (and latter-day girl-culture icon) whose ideas on young women's self-esteem are espoused in her seminal work,
In a Different Voice
.
Sassy
paraphrased: “When girls are little, they are true to their beliefs. They speak their minds. If they're angry, they let you know. When someone asks them a question, they answer it with confidence. If they don't agree with what they're told to do, they disobey. Pre-teenage girls are proud of being different, and they know that resisting authority is okay.” But according to Gilligan, women go through a crisis of confidence at puberty, their self-esteem plummets, and they never truly recover. Gilligan posits that this is because America views boys as the norm: girls are different, and their way of being in the world isn't validated. To validate them, to tell girls that who they are and what they are interested in is good, is an intrinsically feminist act.
Sassy
recognized the power of pop culture to create girls' sense of self, but unlike the unsympathetic mass media and the disapproving Second Wave feminists, they didn't denigrate it. Instead, the magazine assumed that girls were talking back to the TV, active participants in their cultural interactions, able to call pop culture on its flaws without having to write it off altogether. Thus, Christina could enjoy “Under the Bridge” while railing against Red Hot Chili Peppers' sexist antics. “Girls like my friends and me, who were drawn to the TV shows and fashion aimed at our generation, were encouraged to look at it with a critical eye, but not discouraged from our interest in it,” says fan Anastasia Cole Plakias. When
Sassy
published its cast of
90210
paper dolls in September 1991, it was so girls could enjoy them on two levels: there was the sheer nostalgic joy in cutting out popular teen soap characters and dressing them up, and the simultaneous self-mocking that you would ever do such a thing. The glee in doing it was ironically cool. This meta-appreciation was simply nonexistent in the excruciatingly earnest world of teen magazines.
recognized the power of pop culture to create girls' sense of self, but unlike the unsympathetic mass media and the disapproving Second Wave feminists, they didn't denigrate it. Instead, the magazine assumed that girls were talking back to the TV, active participants in their cultural interactions, able to call pop culture on its flaws without having to write it off altogether. Thus, Christina could enjoy “Under the Bridge” while railing against Red Hot Chili Peppers' sexist antics. “Girls like my friends and me, who were drawn to the TV shows and fashion aimed at our generation, were encouraged to look at it with a critical eye, but not discouraged from our interest in it,” says fan Anastasia Cole Plakias. When
Sassy
published its cast of
90210
paper dolls in September 1991, it was so girls could enjoy them on two levels: there was the sheer nostalgic joy in cutting out popular teen soap characters and dressing them up, and the simultaneous self-mocking that you would ever do such a thing. The glee in doing it was ironically cool. This meta-appreciation was simply nonexistent in the excruciatingly earnest world of teen magazines.
Journalists like those on the
Sassy
staff, who were influenced by academia, were “all about the importance of popular culture,” says Ann Powers. “There was a sense that it could change your life, a sense of urgency about it. There was potential for popular culture to elevate your identity, especially for girls.” So
Sassy
used the word
girl
knowingly, liberally, and lovingly. Mary and Andrea got giddy over the idea of clipping plastic barrettes in their hair or wearing baby-doll dresses and tiaras to the prom. And unlike
Seventeen
,
YM
, and
Teen
, which gave readers advice on how to erase all traces of indelicate, ultrafeminine personality traits,
Sassy
ran articles like “Your Guide to the Perfect Crying Fit,” which dared to pose the question “Why shouldn't girls cry as loud and often as they please?” and ran a back-page column called “Working Our Nerves,” which each month highlighted a new object of the staff's derision, from the patriarchy (with an image of a presidential
cabinet used to illustrate the concept), to misplaced quotation marks, to Jacinta's public displays of affection with her boyfriend, Andy (whom she ended up marrying).
Sassy
staff, who were influenced by academia, were “all about the importance of popular culture,” says Ann Powers. “There was a sense that it could change your life, a sense of urgency about it. There was potential for popular culture to elevate your identity, especially for girls.” So
Sassy
used the word
girl
knowingly, liberally, and lovingly. Mary and Andrea got giddy over the idea of clipping plastic barrettes in their hair or wearing baby-doll dresses and tiaras to the prom. And unlike
Seventeen
,
YM
, and
Teen
, which gave readers advice on how to erase all traces of indelicate, ultrafeminine personality traits,
Sassy
ran articles like “Your Guide to the Perfect Crying Fit,” which dared to pose the question “Why shouldn't girls cry as loud and often as they please?” and ran a back-page column called “Working Our Nerves,” which each month highlighted a new object of the staff's derision, from the patriarchy (with an image of a presidential
cabinet used to illustrate the concept), to misplaced quotation marks, to Jacinta's public displays of affection with her boyfriend, Andy (whom she ended up marrying).
It made sense in an era defined by identity politicsâin which groups of people used their status as members of marginalized groups to push for changeâto rally around girlhood. Over the years,
Sassy
ran disparate articles about boys, fashion, beauty, food, and culture that, taken separately, aren't easily distinguishable from what
Seventeen
,
YM
, and
Teen
were covering. But collectively, they were part of a larger mandate to celebrate girls and their culture, proving to a population as diverse as American teenage girls that they share experiences all their own.
Sassy
ran disparate articles about boys, fashion, beauty, food, and culture that, taken separately, aren't easily distinguishable from what
Seventeen
,
YM
, and
Teen
were covering. But collectively, they were part of a larger mandate to celebrate girls and their culture, proving to a population as diverse as American teenage girls that they share experiences all their own.
The magazine was “really good at capturing a
real
girl culture, meaning that it wasn't all about dieting and three-hundred-dollar moisturizers and model stuff that only one percent of the population knew about or could identify with,” says fan Millie di Chirico.
real
girl culture, meaning that it wasn't all about dieting and three-hundred-dollar moisturizers and model stuff that only one percent of the population knew about or could identify with,” says fan Millie di Chirico.
Since the beginning, the magazine had told real girls' first-person tales in its “It Happened to Me” column (
Seventeen
had long run a similar column), but the magazine also made a point of showing real girlsânot modelsâin regular sections like “On the Road.” Part of the reason for the magazine's yearly Sassiest Girl in America contest was, according to Karen, to tell readers that “we don't want to do a model search. We want to do something deeper and richer than that, that acknowledges that we're not just looking for the skinny girl from L.A.” Girls won points for being cool, offbeat, socially active, and politically conscious.
Seventeen
had long run a similar column), but the magazine also made a point of showing real girlsânot modelsâin regular sections like “On the Road.” Part of the reason for the magazine's yearly Sassiest Girl in America contest was, according to Karen, to tell readers that “we don't want to do a model search. We want to do something deeper and richer than that, that acknowledges that we're not just looking for the skinny girl from L.A.” Girls won points for being cool, offbeat, socially active, and politically conscious.
When Caroline Miller came to
Seventeen
in 1994, she used her signature column, “School Zone,” to showcase tribes of real teens in high schools across the countryâbut they were well-lit, poreless, and glamorized.
Seventeen
in 1994, she used her signature column, “School Zone,” to showcase tribes of real teens in high schools across the countryâbut they were well-lit, poreless, and glamorized.
By the late eighties, when
Sassy
launched, women and teenage girls had already endured half a decade of fitness fanaticism, an anti-feminist backlash that insisted that only through endless workouts and restrictive eating habits could a girl simultaneously prove that she was like a man (rigorous, disciplined, deserving of a climb up the corporate ladder instead of being waylaid on the mommy track)
and
worthy of male attention. From Jane Fonda's workout tapes to Linda Hamilton's supertoned physique in 1991's
Terminator 2
, the cult of the body reached its apotheosis. Though a new emphasis on exercise may have been good for certain sports-inclined women, an athletic body felt like yet another ideal that many women couldn't live up to. Talk about an effective way of making sure women wouldn't become too smart, too academic, too big for their britches! After all, who had time to concentrate on schoolwork when it took nearly every ounce of a girl's mental and physical energy to stick with this dogmatic regimen? Diet stories were a
Seventeen
staple; often a reader would find more than one in an issue, with subtitles like “How Not to Eat Your Way Through College” or warnings that “extra pounds can keep a girl from joining in, speaking up, reaching out.”
Sassy
launched, women and teenage girls had already endured half a decade of fitness fanaticism, an anti-feminist backlash that insisted that only through endless workouts and restrictive eating habits could a girl simultaneously prove that she was like a man (rigorous, disciplined, deserving of a climb up the corporate ladder instead of being waylaid on the mommy track)
and
worthy of male attention. From Jane Fonda's workout tapes to Linda Hamilton's supertoned physique in 1991's
Terminator 2
, the cult of the body reached its apotheosis. Though a new emphasis on exercise may have been good for certain sports-inclined women, an athletic body felt like yet another ideal that many women couldn't live up to. Talk about an effective way of making sure women wouldn't become too smart, too academic, too big for their britches! After all, who had time to concentrate on schoolwork when it took nearly every ounce of a girl's mental and physical energy to stick with this dogmatic regimen? Diet stories were a
Seventeen
staple; often a reader would find more than one in an issue, with subtitles like “How Not to Eat Your Way Through College” or warnings that “extra pounds can keep a girl from joining in, speaking up, reaching out.”
But
Sassy
didn't fall prey to idealizing appearance obsession. From the beginning, Jane refused to run the ubiquitous dieting stories that littered other teen magazines and fed into the ongoing epidemic of eating disorders and unhealthy body preoccupations. Instead,
Sassy
ran articles like “13 Reasons Not to Diet” (one of the reasons, of course, was that it would impair your cognitive abilities). And though it ran the de rigueur workout article,
Sassy
gave it a decidedly feminist spin by stating, “It's not about exercising to get smaller, it's about exercising to get stronger.” Remember: this was a decade before
Buffy
.
Sassy
didn't fall prey to idealizing appearance obsession. From the beginning, Jane refused to run the ubiquitous dieting stories that littered other teen magazines and fed into the ongoing epidemic of eating disorders and unhealthy body preoccupations. Instead,
Sassy
ran articles like “13 Reasons Not to Diet” (one of the reasons, of course, was that it would impair your cognitive abilities). And though it ran the de rigueur workout article,
Sassy
gave it a decidedly feminist spin by stating, “It's not about exercising to get smaller, it's about exercising to get stronger.” Remember: this was a decade before
Buffy
.
Of course, the ads that accompanied the magazine editorial often undermined the editors' mission to downplay the importance of popularity and conventional beauty.
Sassy
could only compete by taking whatever ads came its way, and that included such female-unfriendly plugs as the Clairol shampoo ad that showed a smug supermodel-type alongside copy reading, “The body? Maybe. But the hair can be yours.” And while
Sassy
had to provide complementary copy for its biggest advertisers, it also rebelled whenever possible. For example, like the other magazines in its category,
Sassy
often ran ads for products that promised to give insecure teenage girls bigger breasts and thinner thighs; but it also ran an article titled “Karen Tries to Get Thinner Thighs ⦠Through the Mail” that debunked the utility of any of said productsânot to mention the anti-feminist, female-body-hating impetus behind them.
Sassy
could only compete by taking whatever ads came its way, and that included such female-unfriendly plugs as the Clairol shampoo ad that showed a smug supermodel-type alongside copy reading, “The body? Maybe. But the hair can be yours.” And while
Sassy
had to provide complementary copy for its biggest advertisers, it also rebelled whenever possible. For example, like the other magazines in its category,
Sassy
often ran ads for products that promised to give insecure teenage girls bigger breasts and thinner thighs; but it also ran an article titled “Karen Tries to Get Thinner Thighs ⦠Through the Mail” that debunked the utility of any of said productsânot to mention the anti-feminist, female-body-hating impetus behind them.
Sassy
was masterful at finding the kernel of feminism in places where others didn't bother to look, even though it was right in front of them, and that includes the twin nadirs of
Ms
. magazine: fashion and beauty.
Ms.
, once it went ad-free, had the luxury of refusing to push product, but a consumer magazine like
Sassy
was the perfect place to merge fashion and feminism. The women's movement was one of the most anti-capitalist movements in American history, and though the
Sassy
staffers were staunchly feminist, a teen magazine could stay alive only by running fashion and beauty ads and, hence, fashion and beauty stories. But
Sassy
made the situation work in tandem with their engaging new brand of feminism. (And sometimes the stories were slyly political: one thumbed its nose at its beauty advertisers, with their high-priced products, by telling girls how to make their own. How 'bout dying your hair with Jell-O instead of spending eight dollars on a box of Clairol?)
was masterful at finding the kernel of feminism in places where others didn't bother to look, even though it was right in front of them, and that includes the twin nadirs of
Ms
. magazine: fashion and beauty.
Ms.
, once it went ad-free, had the luxury of refusing to push product, but a consumer magazine like
Sassy
was the perfect place to merge fashion and feminism. The women's movement was one of the most anti-capitalist movements in American history, and though the
Sassy
staffers were staunchly feminist, a teen magazine could stay alive only by running fashion and beauty ads and, hence, fashion and beauty stories. But
Sassy
made the situation work in tandem with their engaging new brand of feminism. (And sometimes the stories were slyly political: one thumbed its nose at its beauty advertisers, with their high-priced products, by telling girls how to make their own. How 'bout dying your hair with Jell-O instead of spending eight dollars on a box of Clairol?)
Sassy
was deconstructing images of beauty even before the 1991 publication of Naomi Wolf's groundbreaking book
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women,
which argued that women could never be equal to men so long as they were tyrannized by unnatural, unachievable images. “How We Make This Girl Gorgeous
(and other tricks magazines use to get teeth whiter, hips slimmer and breasts bigger)” was a lesson in media literacy, showing girls the way companies tricked them into wanting to look like women who didn't exist in nature. Similarly, “Why Your Breasts Aren't as Weird as You Think” called beauty standards themselves into question.
was deconstructing images of beauty even before the 1991 publication of Naomi Wolf's groundbreaking book
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women,
which argued that women could never be equal to men so long as they were tyrannized by unnatural, unachievable images. “How We Make This Girl Gorgeous
(and other tricks magazines use to get teeth whiter, hips slimmer and breasts bigger)” was a lesson in media literacy, showing girls the way companies tricked them into wanting to look like women who didn't exist in nature. Similarly, “Why Your Breasts Aren't as Weird as You Think” called beauty standards themselves into question.
“We were very awareâwith fashion and beauty texts in particularâof never, ever making the person who is reading them hate themselves,” says Karen, who, in the beginning, wrote most of them. So a bathing suit story features a bikini for girls with a “cute little round tummy” and a one-piece for a “bodacious butt.” The story didn't presume girls felt like they had figure flawsâthey just recast the flaws and told girls how to deal with them. Karen says, “We also didn't want to do âOh, you're perfect, you're fine.' Nobody believes that bullshit. But there had to be a middle ground between âGo shoot yourself' and platitudes.”
When Amber Drea discovered
Sassy
she was “happy to make it my number one magazine and get rid of all my
YM
s, which just made me feel grossâlike I didn't stand a chance at being pretty, ever.”
Sassy
she was “happy to make it my number one magazine and get rid of all my
YM
s, which just made me feel grossâlike I didn't stand a chance at being pretty, ever.”
Instead of humiliating girls into eating their broccoli,
Sassy
celebrated the way real teenagers eat. Hence, one of the most remembered stories of all time: “Our First Annual Junk Food Taste Off.” “We convened a panel of convenience-store connoisseurs: Margie Ingall, Mike, Mary Ann, Kim France, and Andrea T. For four diarrhea-inducing days we tasted sixty-four junky treats,” the article opens. After an explanation of the categories and how each junk food will be rated, the staff tries the pork rinds:
Sassy
celebrated the way real teenagers eat. Hence, one of the most remembered stories of all time: “Our First Annual Junk Food Taste Off.” “We convened a panel of convenience-store connoisseurs: Margie Ingall, Mike, Mary Ann, Kim France, and Andrea T. For four diarrhea-inducing days we tasted sixty-four junky treats,” the article opens. After an explanation of the categories and how each junk food will be rated, the staff tries the pork rinds:
Â
MARGIE: As a Jew, I am flatly refusing to taste the pork rinds.
KIM: As a Jew, I am pleased to sample the pork rinds.
MARY ANN: As a human being, I am not going to sample them.
MARGIE: You must. You have no religious grounds.
KIM: They are quite delightful. Big and light like popcorn, then they crunch down to something small and nice.
ANDREA: The texture of sunburned skin.
MARY ANN: These are repulsive beyond explanation. Words fail me.
MIKE: I like the idea of, like, meat being integrated into a salty, fried, crispy thing ⦠It's good.
Â
On plantain chips:
Â
MARGIE: Look, there's a little lesson about “What is a plantain” on the back.
ANDREA: The PBS of junk food.
Â
On plain M & M's:
Â
ANDREA: What does green mean again?
KIM: It doesn't mean
that
unless it's peanut.
that
unless it's peanut.
MARGIE: I heard it meant that.
Â
“That junk-food survey ought to go down in journalistic history,” says Elisa Ung. “I remember sitting outside and reading that and laughing so hard my stomach hurt. Constance Hwong agrees. “I remember laughing out loud when reading it. It sounds like something me and my friends would do.”
But despite their progressive stance, the
Sassy
staff was certainly not unanimous in its pursuit of alternative beauty ideals. The images in the magazine were hardly fat-positive, especially as heroin-chic waifs like Kate Moss came into vogue in the early nineties. “There was always a fight with the editors from the beauty and fashion department because they still went for the anorexic models and we always wanted to use more real people,” says Mary Kaye of the features department.
Sassy
's models may have been less homogenous compared to its competitionâblack girls with Afros; white girls with sad faces and long, stringy hair or super-short bleached hair; girls with body piercingsâbut they were never, ever heavy.
Sassy
staff was certainly not unanimous in its pursuit of alternative beauty ideals. The images in the magazine were hardly fat-positive, especially as heroin-chic waifs like Kate Moss came into vogue in the early nineties. “There was always a fight with the editors from the beauty and fashion department because they still went for the anorexic models and we always wanted to use more real people,” says Mary Kaye of the features department.
Sassy
's models may have been less homogenous compared to its competitionâblack girls with Afros; white girls with sad faces and long, stringy hair or super-short bleached hair; girls with body piercingsâbut they were never, ever heavy.
Sassy
redefined the very purpose of fashion and beauty products and rituals in girls' lives. According to the magazine, you could use your appearance to assert your (unconventional) identityâ“Read this before you RSVP or risk being one of the crowd” trumpeted a “Very Party” fashion story that simultaneously mocked and championed conformity. Or you could use it to embody your (left-wing, feminist) politicsâas evidenced in a fashion shoot that featured leather-free shoes even a vegan could love. In
Sassy
, the female body could be an instrument of liberation.
redefined the very purpose of fashion and beauty products and rituals in girls' lives. According to the magazine, you could use your appearance to assert your (unconventional) identityâ“Read this before you RSVP or risk being one of the crowd” trumpeted a “Very Party” fashion story that simultaneously mocked and championed conformity. Or you could use it to embody your (left-wing, feminist) politicsâas evidenced in a fashion shoot that featured leather-free shoes even a vegan could love. In
Sassy
, the female body could be an instrument of liberation.
Sassy
's fashion coverage would infuse the tenor of girl culture for years to come. After all, young feminists never really identified with their mothers' bra-burningâbut they needed something to wear to all those protests and poetry slams. These Third Wavers owe a serious debt of gratitude to Andrea, who in 1993 professed her love of baby tees in the magazine's pages. Higher-ups at Urban Outfitters took notice of the trend and began producing shrunken, belly-baring tees for adultsâthe same T-shirts the girls at April 2004's March for Women's Lives were wearing, bearing slogans like THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE. From a glitter-girl story to grunge prom (pair Doc Martens with baby-doll dresses, why don't you?) to “Our Gender-Specific Fashion Poll” (“Okay, so you're a feminist. You don't care what boys think about your clothes. But don't you want to read this anyway?”),
Sassy
made fashion, like feminism, funânot totalitarian.
's fashion coverage would infuse the tenor of girl culture for years to come. After all, young feminists never really identified with their mothers' bra-burningâbut they needed something to wear to all those protests and poetry slams. These Third Wavers owe a serious debt of gratitude to Andrea, who in 1993 professed her love of baby tees in the magazine's pages. Higher-ups at Urban Outfitters took notice of the trend and began producing shrunken, belly-baring tees for adultsâthe same T-shirts the girls at April 2004's March for Women's Lives were wearing, bearing slogans like THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE. From a glitter-girl story to grunge prom (pair Doc Martens with baby-doll dresses, why don't you?) to “Our Gender-Specific Fashion Poll” (“Okay, so you're a feminist. You don't care what boys think about your clothes. But don't you want to read this anyway?”),
Sassy
made fashion, like feminism, funânot totalitarian.
It's true that girly fashion was partly a sign of the times. While teen magazine readers have been encouraged to aspire to wearing Prada since the launch of
Teen Vogue
in 2002, in the late eighties and early nineties, “there was a little bit of infantilization running through the culture,” according to Daisy Von Furth, who interned with the
Sassy
fashion department in 1989 and later founded the X-Girl clothing label with Kim Gordon. “At the time, it seemed fresh to obsess about coming-of-age stuff.” Ravers were wearing diapers. Adult womenâlike Courtney Loveâwere
wearing kinderwhore dresses, knee socks, underwear as outerwear, and patent-leather Mary Janes. Designers like Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs were appropriating the little-girl look for the runways, so maybe it's no surprise that they were fans of
Sassy
, and
Sassy
was a fan of theirs. (Mary later wrote Jacobs, who had a subscription to the magazine, a letter congratulating him on his infamous and much-derided grunge collection; he wrote back, thanking her for her support.)
Teen Vogue
in 2002, in the late eighties and early nineties, “there was a little bit of infantilization running through the culture,” according to Daisy Von Furth, who interned with the
Sassy
fashion department in 1989 and later founded the X-Girl clothing label with Kim Gordon. “At the time, it seemed fresh to obsess about coming-of-age stuff.” Ravers were wearing diapers. Adult womenâlike Courtney Loveâwere
wearing kinderwhore dresses, knee socks, underwear as outerwear, and patent-leather Mary Janes. Designers like Anna Sui and Marc Jacobs were appropriating the little-girl look for the runways, so maybe it's no surprise that they were fans of
Sassy
, and
Sassy
was a fan of theirs. (Mary later wrote Jacobs, who had a subscription to the magazine, a letter congratulating him on his infamous and much-derided grunge collection; he wrote back, thanking her for her support.)
And while the magazine may have had to cool it on the gay-friendly sex articles,
Sassy
always had a campy aesthetic. One spread touted the joys of using boy beauty products, and featured a model that could only be described as a butch dyke. Another fashion shoot encouraged a kind of polymorphous, playful sexuality by showing female models dressed up like Bob Dylan. Jacinta based an entire gender-bending photo shoot on Mary's offhand comment to model Amy Smart that she looked just like Axl Rose. Michel Foucault and Judith Butler had made many of the same points about the construction of gender through style in arcane and unintelligible (to the uninitiated, anyway) academic prose;
Sassy
deconstructed gender much more succinctly, and looked good while doing it.
Sassy
always had a campy aesthetic. One spread touted the joys of using boy beauty products, and featured a model that could only be described as a butch dyke. Another fashion shoot encouraged a kind of polymorphous, playful sexuality by showing female models dressed up like Bob Dylan. Jacinta based an entire gender-bending photo shoot on Mary's offhand comment to model Amy Smart that she looked just like Axl Rose. Michel Foucault and Judith Butler had made many of the same points about the construction of gender through style in arcane and unintelligible (to the uninitiated, anyway) academic prose;
Sassy
deconstructed gender much more succinctly, and looked good while doing it.
It was this kind of approach that made
Sassy
a cult favorite among gay men, who called it “Sissy.” “I think the interest for gay men might have been the sort of outsider's view of the world that
Sassy
had,” says fan Richard Wang. “It certainly wasn't mainstream, and sort of had a âwe-aren't-them-and-aren't-they ridiculous' sort of mentality that a lot of gays have. In some way, you know that you're different, special, and probably better than all those fools who make fun of you. But at the same time, you want to be loved by them.”
Sassy
a cult favorite among gay men, who called it “Sissy.” “I think the interest for gay men might have been the sort of outsider's view of the world that
Sassy
had,” says fan Richard Wang. “It certainly wasn't mainstream, and sort of had a âwe-aren't-them-and-aren't-they ridiculous' sort of mentality that a lot of gays have. In some way, you know that you're different, special, and probably better than all those fools who make fun of you. But at the same time, you want to be loved by them.”
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