Hip Mama magazine, Issue #54: The Relaunch;
Martha Stewart Weddings magazine, Issue 68 Spring 2014;
Vogue magazine, Issue 08449 March 2014
Originally published 3/23/14 on the Aaminah Shakur blog
Like many artists and writers, I consume a lot of media. Although I don’t own a television, I keep up with a lot of mainstream television online, and I keep up with the conversations and critiques of a lot of shows that I do not even watch. Although I rarely make it to a movie theatre anymore, I use Netflix and Megashare very frequently. When it comes to written media, I’ll confess, I still love the tree-killing paper issues of magazines, zines, and books over online reading. Like many other artists and writers from marginalized communities, I have critiques and opinions about the media I see, and I try to make a habit of consuming and supporting the media that respects, honors, and reflects my own communities and other marginalized communities.
I will confess, one of my favorite items of mainstream media are wedding magazines and high fashion. I discontinued my Vogue subscription a few years ago because it seemed less and less relevant to my life as a queer, disabled, poor, person of color. I still pick up the “big” spring and autumn issues most years, and I bought the Nicki Minaj issue a few months ago. Wedding magazines are something I’ve been picking up pretty regularly over the last 6-9 months. This week I had quite a shock in the store and grabbed up Martha Stewart Weddings and Vogue because I was so impressed to see Black people on the covers. Granted, in both cases they are celebrities (John Legend in Weddings, Rihanna in Vogue), and I joked with a friend that their celebrity status is probably the only reason they made it on the cover, plus how convenient that the wedding magazine features a Black celebrity man rather than a Black woman. As I perused the Weddings issue, I noticed there were actually more Black people in ads than usual, a few Asian women in style spreads, and even a small section called “The Palette” included a Black model! A few hours later, I started flipping through the Vogue and thought I must have entered a parallel universe! There are MULTIPLE examples of Black and Asian models throughout. There is even a Diesel Jeans ad with a beautiful Latin@ in a wheelchair!
So, you are probably asking yourself “what on earth does any of this have to do with Hip Mama???” The answer is that I believe Hip Mama is one of the magazines that set a standard that it has taken forever for mainstream media to catch up to, but it’s beginning to happen. The change has begun, and we can thank magazines and zines like Hip Mama, Shotgun Seamstress, make/shift, and Bandit. So, now that Hip Mama has relaunched for their 20th anniversary, I’d like to take a look at the first relaunch issue.
I’ll begin by confessing to be a big fan of Ariel Gore (the creator and editor), and I have to be honest that I’m definitely biased for Mai’a Williams, as one of my closest friends, who has a piece in the new issue.
Mai’a’s piece in the magazine is “Growing New Life After the Revolution,” a beautiful reflection on motherhood and change and revolution. Mai’a was in Cairo during the revolution, on the streets as a street medic with her toddler in tow. Shortly afterwards, they moved to Berlin (they have since returned to the U.S. for the first time in several years).
“When people tell me the revolution doesn’t matter – that it failed – I tell them that we are the revolution, and it fails when we do, and we fail when we give up.”
One of my favorite essays in the magazine is Shell Feijo’s “I’ll Take the Tramp Stamp With Sprinkles”, a reflection on body shaming, fat hate, and her intentional decision to have a fantastic cupcake as a “tramp stamp” tattoo to resist.
“That’s when I got my idea. I would get a tramp stamp. Not a fairy or a butterfly, not a rose garden across the top of my ass. No, I would get a big, fat, pink encased, cherry-on-top cupcake; a fat girl’s tramp stamp… I lay awake at night questioning every aspect of the tattoo and its meaning. After reading In the Night Kitchen to my kid one night, I dreamed of a troop of fat women marching across the night sky, cupcakes shining above their butts.”
The essay concludes with a cute magazine quiz to help you choose the “right” kind of tattoo for yourself.
Other essays cover issues of raising a family intentionally in tiny spaces, inter/multi-racial parenting, how-to on making vinaigrettes, healthy school lunches, stillbirth, the value of skill sharing, and of course reviews of books and important policy/law controversies.
Another essay I want to highlight is “Where are the Latina Mamas?” by Norell Martinez, discussing the lack of imagery of Latinas in birth-work and natural parenting marketing. This is an issue that is widely discussed amongst my friends and I, so much so that I once ran a blog collecting photos of parents of color baby-wearing precisely because it was so difficult to find contemporary photos.
“Is there something about Latina motherhood that is less valuable or meaningful in the marketing world? Why isn’t imagery in advertising an accurate reflection of social reality?”
Finally, Sarah Maria Medina presents an interview with Nehanda Abiodun, a political exile in Cuba from Harlem. I had never heard of Abiodun, so this was a fantastic opportunity for me to broaden my own knowledge base. Abiodun shares a lot of wisdom in the interview.
“If you don’t love people, you cannot struggle for long. You will not sustain the energy to continue to struggle, because the obstacles and the odds against us are great.”
The only disappointment I had with what is otherwise a fantastic relaunch of such a super important magazine is in the “Ask Punk Rock Miss Manners”. There are five questions and answers in this issue that overall showcase humor and some good advice. Unfortunately, I could not stomach the way one question was addressed from a genderqueer writer who is struggling with a friend who routinely and callously misgenders him. To be fair, you can’t control the language of the questioner, who initially referred to their friend as a “fag”. But the fact that Miss Manners repeated the use of derogatory language (not just once, but twice!) is disturbing. I further found the advice given on the subject to be less quality than desired, as it suggested that the questioner should simply be more patient with a friend. It seemed like a pretty flippant answer to a real problem. I can only hope that some better understanding of gender and microaggressions related to it might improve in future issues.
Hip Mama revolutionized how a lot of people of my generation viewed parenting, and the relaunch is terrifically diverse, fresh, modern, and relevant. I can’t wait to see what is coming next!
To subscribe to Hip Mama, go HERE.
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