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| 9 September 2001 |
| 9 September 2001 Replies from Cosmo Editor Mia Freedman Reply No. 1 Hi Fiona, Thanks so much for sharing your views with me and welcome to my not-a-form-reply email. How exciting to be generating such passionate debate. Sara-Marie herself can't understand what all the fuss is about - she loves the cover and is stoked to be appearing in a magazine like Cosmo. What a shame that a minority of people have chosen to see the glass (or the cover) as "half-empty" as opposed to the more positive "half-full" fact that Sara-Marie is on the cover of a magazine. I've always admired the passion of my readers about the whole body image debate and I share that passion. I think you should perhaps look a bit closer at the big picture Fiona. What other women's lifestyle magazine do you see with Sara-Marie appearing ANYWHERE? What other women's lifestyle magazine do you see that features women of ALL sizes up to size 16 EVERY MONTH? I think it's a little ungenerous of you to not acknowledge this. Anyway, thank you again for venting - I'm delighted to know that people like you think Sara-Marie is as great as I do. Best, Mia Freedman Reply No. 2 Hi Karen, Thanks for your email about the new issue and your comments about Sara-Marie. Personally, I have always believed that true body acceptance comes from the media starting to portray women of all shapes and sizes. It shouldn't be about denigrating thinner women or saying bigger is better but about celebrating diversity. Cosmopolitan has done this consistently since I became editor. Featuring Sara-Marie on the cover was never a gimmick, it was the natural extension of an 18 month policy of featuring women sized 8-16 in every issue of Cosmopolitan. We are the only young women's magazine to do so and the first magazine to have ever used a model over a size 10 on the cover. So why a double cover with Brittney Spears on the other side? Did we sell out? Cop out? No way. The Brittney cover was locked in many months ago to co-incide with her visit to Australia this month and the release of her new album. Ever since we started using celebs on the cover a few years ago, we have to plan way in advance like this to capitalise on movie and album releases and the attendant publicity. But after I saw first-hand the affect that Sara-Marie had had on young Australian women and the inspirational role model she was for body confidence, I decided to do something unprecedented for Cosmo. I made the decision to create another cover specially for her. Karen, you may also notice that Brittney gets 4 pages of coverage inside while Sara-Marie appears on 8 pages and is responsible for guest-editing a further 20 pages. While Cosmo has done flip covers several times in the past to highlight special issues, we have never asked a covergirl to be a guest-editor as I did with Sara-Marie in this issue. The two covers have been treated exactly the same way from an art direction point of view and we have encouraged retailers to display them both. There is no "real" cover - we've merely offered two covers. . I know which one is my preferred one and I've let people take their pick. It is truly a huge shock and a disappointment to me that some people have chosen to focus on an imagined negative when, in fact, Cosmopolitan has put Sara-Marie on the cover to further advance the cause of body acceptance among young Australian women, something I'm absolutely passionate about. Cheers, Mia Mia Freedman Editor Cosmopolitan Editor-In-Chief SHE Ph: (02) 928208133 [email protected] Articles from Australian BB Updates |