a heady revenge

Can someone please tell me what Australian Vogue were thinking when they chose THIS photo for the cover of this months issue?! Maybe it was to extend their sales to freakish types who respond well to a head that’s on backwards. (it sort of worked actually because I don’t normally buy magazines, but I had to get this one for that reason).

I don’t understand. The whole magazine is filled with this so-skinny-it’s-insect-like (but unusual and very pretty in a Mark Ryden way) creature. And the rest of the photo’s show her head looking normal; facing the front of her body as we’ve all come to expect. So WHY, I repeat, did they choose this photo for the cover, where her head is clearly on backwards?!

We were walking past a newsagent window one day when Mr You and I first saw this. We caught a glimpse in our peripheral vision; we twirled back for a better look and recoiled in horror at the grotesqueness of the aforementioned head.

My circuits were sent into a flurry; “Does not compute. Does not compute.” Nothing in my memory could recall such a formation, and the only thing that came close was the scene in The Labyrinth when the Fireys (who pulled off each others heads) attacked Sarah, yelling out “PULL OFF HER HEAD!”. But even then I recall the scene ending with her escaping to distant background calls of “HEY, HER HEAD DON’T COME OFF!”

They’re right you know. Human heads aren’t supposed to come off. The only thing I can think of to explain this terrible choice in cover photography is that the relationship went sour. I mean she is ALL the way through this issue, in every feature, every catwalk, every fashion shoot, and even every interview somehow comes back to her.

Perhaps after all of that the staff just got sick of her, or maybe she down right pissed them off in some way. Contractually they still had to run with her, hell they’d put all their eggs in one basket, they had nothing else to replace her with, not on that many pages. So in revenge they picked the worst photo they could find of her, (the photo taken at a weird moment when she pulled her head back to avoid a passing blowfly) and boldly stuck it on the cover for the whole country to gasp at.

Moral of the story?:

- Well maybe it’s do all you can to keep a professional relationship in good working order, at least until the mags have hit the stands.

- Write a clause in your contract that all photo’s of you must be viewed and approved by your fussiest family member before they can go to print.

- Or, if you are insect-like creature, quickly swallow the passing blowfly, never pull your head back to avoid it!