Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.No 216: RED
NOWADAYS, magazine commercials usually start with "If you're the kind of person who ..." On the evidence of the commercial for Red, a new women's magazine from Emap, the Red reader's going to be a bit of a funny one, and the magazine will deliver a near-death experience.
It's a terribly elliptical, allusive, tone-poemy sort of a little film: black and white - or rather grey and white - with lots of clever cutting and overlays, suggestive images to the back of the frame, and so forth. It's stream-of-consciousness female interior life as projected on the back of the eyelid, and suggests a rather wispy, worried sensibility. Distancing itself from all the "sassy", sexy, confidence-building, having- it-all themes of the last 20 years, it has excluded men, sex, careers, money and all that stuff from the picture. Instead, you get a lot of angled, bleached-out shots taken around the house: a woman rising out of a bath; smoothing paper across a drawing-board; and engaging in a variety of private satisfactions.
The near-death aspect is very marked. Doorways and staircases are bathed in bright light; this is one's life as floated above, or as remembered in flashes. And the "ifs" attempt a kind of allusive word-painting: "If you don't want it all but just want to have what you want" (a nice one); "If you've grown up without growing old"; "If you think diets don't work" - ie, if you don't want the usual mix of exhortation and escapism, then you're a Red woman.
So what will Red actually do for you? The ad describes a mood well enough - but it also describes the kind of woman who'd say she needs a new magazine like a fish needs a bicycle.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments