Subtitle of this article: Or, Why Everyone Should Buy a Subscription So I Don’t Have to Bore Them With Talking About How Amazing The Magazine Is
some of my favorite covers. Esquire via my Polyvore page.
Dear Esteemed Esquire staffers,
Although I am still pledging allegiance to my Elle mags and of course, Vogue Italia, let’s be real here; something’s gotta give. I have long since tired of unimaginative photo shoots (“hey! Let’s put these $70,000 dresses on 20 year-olds dressed as cougars!”) and the way they make everything feel sterile. It’s like the 5 o’clock news, ladies. Boring, but with pretty hair.
Anyway, I didn’t start this letter to rag (is that a magazine slang pun?) on what’s wrong with other magazines. I want to extol the virtues of what is so gosh-darn good about Esquire.
The writers have their heads screwed on straight, for one. The amount of self-awareness is right on the edge of pretentiousness, but kind of slackened back to the cusp of cool. They are hilarious, succinct, non-beat-around-the-bush league, and make you feel like you are included in their special club, just because you decided to buy their magazine. Which makes the Steve McQueen in us all feel accomplished and hungry for more inclusiveness.
Whether it’s learning how/what/why to drink, politics from a different slant, What I’ve Learned (my personal favorite), and even the fashion spreads, Esquire manages everything to have a place within a man’s own world, yet keeps it very uncluttered in its quest for what makes up that world.
Which qualifies the article that made me flip my lid and firmly decide some love needed to be expounded: “The Collected Short Stories of Summer Style.” (Update; I have the link.- Ed.) Yes, they are micro-mini short stories, some only a few sentences. But this marvelous, thoughtful way of presenting the few essentials you need for summer made me want to buy them all.
In my research for this article, I tried to find out if any feminists had written about whether or not they liked Esquire, and found very little, i.e. only two references of any woman having a stake in this magazine either way. The first was about women’s advocate Nikki Craft. In 1991. The second is from an amazing website I have just been hooked onto by my beau. It is interesting that if any women who I admire, or who I read on a daily basis, read Esquire or enjoy any part of it. Because I consider myself a thoroughly modern (Millie) woman and enjoy it with relish. I can usually smell a misogynist a mile away, and Esquire reeks of nothing but Old Spice, cigars and Anejo Reposada. They are a Men’s Interest magazine; they aren’t worried about hurting women’s feelings by talking about “manly” things, because women who read this magazine know how to walk through life with a thicker skin and a confident mouth to speak up when she is legitimately being trampled upon.
photo message can be said of female writers in general, and, Esquire writers.
From what I glean from some articles about men’s magazines, most feminists’ problems with them is that the mags take a position about men’s “ownership” over women: as a mindless doll, there to cook, clean, keep up lighthearted conversation and sex, on their time. Esquire, like many, many others, does not fit into that category. They understand men’s ownership of women: they have none. This magazine posits that yes, women can be gorgeous, smart and all the wonderful things we all hope for, but they are also dangerous, cunning, able to think for themselves and need further study to even be on the same level as them. But they don’t focus their entire magazine about how to trap, seduce, impress and win over women. They do talk about women; have an article about their top females, sit back and think fondly, nostalgic for women past, then press on and talk about other things that have nothing to do with gender. And that is why I love them.
Esquire understands the many virtues of life: relaxing in good clothes, etiquette and class, but also, how to enjoy a fairer-sex companion.
So Esquire, come fire and fury, I salute you. I will continue my subscription until the well runs dry. Which, by looking at your esteemed past, won’t be happening.
p.s. It isn’t an Esquire link, but this post makes me want to slap some mascara on. If I will try, they will try, right?
UPDATE: This is why me and neesyweesy are best friends.
p.p.s. – I didn’t forget it was Friday!In all my preparation for this article, i couldn’t think of something right now to Take Five for. But *fingers crossed* Monday you will have a shiny new Take Five Monday Edish at your fingertips, chickadees!!
photo on their myspace by robin laanenen
she spat.
she lunged.
and yeah, she wore the 
my “little” brother, who is taller than me.
