This just in from Vanity Fair today, addressed to me --"ispeakup:"

"We have just printed the label for your next-to-last issue. To prevent a break in service, please send your reply today."

This is my reply, Vanity Fair: "I welcome my next to last issue, but will also look forward to letting my subscription slide into oblivion." At least, that's what I'm inclined to write. I'll know my intentions by the time I finish my review.

Honestly, I used to like Vanity Fair magazine, but, to be truthful, it really isn't all that good. It is a paen to the glitterati, who, truth be told, just don't seem to have that much glitter, as much as you might try to throw stardust on them.

For the past several years, in my humble opinion, Vanity Fair has become an empty tribute to paedophiliac fashion, mediocre celebrity and banality, masked in a photographic attempt to create America's own cinematic royalty, who, unbeknownst to them, were overthrown decades ago by a preponderance of very bad American movies.

Long ago, in a galaxy, far, far away... I was a very average student in college. Whereas my siblings received above-average grades at major educational institutions, I squeaked by with a C+ average, at second string schools. As an aside, I've paid dearly, financially, for my scholastic meanderings, and I live an angry life of poverty and low self-esteem as a result. My advice to you youngsters out there -- if you're still in in school, study hard -- it makes all the difference in the world.

The reason for my academic failures was no doubt because I spent alot of time in the library looking at old "Vanity Fair" issues. I was a regular in the archives section of every library I ever visited, where I would spend hours leafing through "Vanity Fair" and "LIFE" magazine pages, reading trite and simplistic fawning articles about my favorite actor or actress of the week. I would especially look up articles if I had just seen a movie for the first time (which is a luxury for me, nowadays, as I've seen many of the best ones out there -- though I've yet to fully explore Westerns).

Mind you, in this far-off intergalactic time period, my leisurely pursuits were before the advent of encyclopaedic reference material such as we have nowadays, like CD-Rom's and the INTERNET GOD. So, back then, ensconced in the library stacks reeking of dusty smells of decayed decades gone by, I did my own scholarly research.

I am too young (but I don't delude myself that I am actually young-young, you know...) to have nostalgia for the good old days of classic films, and, truthfully, the Vanity Fair of today certainly has more introspective writing than its namesake from yesteryear. But it is my lowly opinion that Vanity Fair is awash in hyperbole about a large percentage of Hollywood elite who spend more time posing for the magazine and reading the copy before the print dries than honing their acting abilities to actually merit the adulation Vanity Fair lavishes on them so obsequiously. You can dress a monkey up in a tuxedo, but no matter how he might look on your arm -- he's still a primate (unless he's a descendant from one of the Planet of the Ape films, as, in true Vanity Fair fashion, the descendant would, indeed, grace the cover -- just because he was a descendant of a Royal Ape). And that, sadly, is how I view Vanity Fair.

When the titled Vanity Fair revival appeared in 1987, I believe it was, I was actually tremulous with excitement. My so-called "personal invitation" to subscribe at, guess what -- $12 a year (same as today for first-timers) used adjectives such as "irreverent" and "sassy," -- you know, those adjectives that bespeak of a level of savoir faire that yours truly thought she could countenance. So "ispeak," ergo, I thought, that I would take a gander. Hey, what's twelve dollars?

Well, I've been on and off the magazine for several years now, and I am looking for another magazine. Why? Well, let's just say that former Editor Tina Brown's would-be Royal ancestors' ghosts are still at the magazine, and, though she's moved on -- her penchant for all things "Royale" still pervades the magazine.

I don't know about you guys, but, I thought America won the revolution. We know how empty a victory can actually be (I'll let you decide which war), however, especially, in the case of Vanity Fair, because it dwells so much on British fanfare to such a degree that we might as well be part of the United Kingdom. The irony is that I actually favor British magazines because, their articles, at least, really are introspective and lengthier, and they make no bones about being just who they say they are: British.

There is so much emphasis on British royalty that it grates on my nerves. I don't mind an occasional article about the Rich and Famous, but last time I heard of these people... hey, come to think of it, I never did hear of these people! I just don't think we should have to pay for Editors and writers of a magazine who self-gratify each other in writing about their friend's friend who has a juicy story about someone his friend in Monaco knows.
Now, that would be different if they belonged to Eopinions....

I would not be complaining so much were it not that the quality in the magazine has actually eroded over the years. I find myself going for the shorter fare: "The Proust Questionnaire." I used to like the Horoscope section, which has changed drastically since Michael Lutin took over -- he's good, but he obfuscates your horoscope message in such cryptic horoscope-babble, that you have to ponder the whole month to figure out what the heck he was trying to warn you about a month ago! And then it's too late! The Moon is in Uranus!

I'm also sick and tired of the cookie cutter nature of the featured articles which invariably feature the following ingredients: 1) money 2) sexual kinks; 3) money; 4) sexual kinks; 5) a lust for power; 6) spanking or doing naughty things; 5) ex-communication from a family scion; 7) younger wife (or husband); and legal troubles -- and Dominque Dunne ties up all the pieces together because he happens to know everybody wealthy (filthy wealthy, not just rich) on the whole planet! Hey, I like intrigue too, but is that all wealthy people do - hang out in Ibiza, having toga parties, with Vanity Fair editors in tow, to capture the pictures, and write about their first-hand experiences?

I don't want to spoil anyone's fun. It could also be that age has crept up on me, indeed, and I am now a part of the reading community that simply wants a lengthy well written article. I guess, what I really want is a good book. But my attention span is only long enough to read or write an Eopinion article! I'm doomed to a life of magazine and ezine reading! Well, then again, there was "Battle Cry of Freedom," a great book about the civil war, and the last book I ever truly got excited over.... congratulate me if you ever read an eopinion from "ispeakup" about a book I've read....

Lastly, the other issue that I have about "Vanity Fair" is its cultural bias for all things blonde and blue-eyed, or dark-haired, brooding, and foreign-language speaking. Hey, America's newsworthy cover every racial and social spectrum, but I see no articles except an occasional one sentence question and answer under the photo of a person of color, who's asked about what they are reading. One "Vanity Fair" article about white wine had the caption, "Whites Only," which I thought was in extremely poor taste, even if it was about wine-tasting.... The featured writers' pictures on page fifty (where actual printed pages commence, after 49 pictures of children in nice clothes) are as large as the articles about whom they are writing, suggesting that, like the typical Eopinion writer, they love "giving reads" to each other.

Come on, America. Can't we write, too? How about it, "Eopinion-Fair." Let's start our own magazine? EOP -- The Best and the Worst of the Best and the Worst.

Hey, guys, thanks. You've been a great help. Guess I've made my mind up, huh? No more Vaniy Fair!



Recommended: No

This is a: Tabloid
Primary Reason for Buying: Photographs