Eustice 'n' Bear August 3, 2004

[eustice]

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[Trogdor]

Normally I find hobby comics kinda corny (my wife PARTICULARLY does! :) ) But E and B have really grown on me and this one is pretty funny! Ya, those mags seem desperate at times with their covers, sheesh....

[Ray Lowinski]

I must be getting old or something when I complain that the pic of the girl/plane doesn't show the detail of the plane well enough. At least the BYF mag still shows the gals dressed like they might really be at the field flying.

Ray

[BillBowne]

But, if they're flying in their back yard (Which is what BYF is all about, isn't it?), then bikini's are perfectly natural flying garb, right? ;)

Bill

[Aten W Arthog]

Gotta say that cartoon hits home... I have written complaining leters to MAN and BYF about the ridiculous extremes the 'cheesecake' posed lady cover models have become. I often pick up these magazines at the grocery store mag rack, and the last couple months, the wife and even the check-out person eyes those covers and looks at me like I'm some kind of perv..."oh YEAH, it's an *airplane* magazine, all right...um hmmmm..."

I am NOT saying women don't or can't fly these planes in the pictures. I am saying no REAL woman modeler would dress so impractically when going out to fly: Tank tops and "Daisy Duke" shorts, to go fly when, if the plane lands out, you might have to go looking for it in weeds, cornfields, heavy underbrush full of deer ticks and whatnot... or just to kneel in the grass while adjusting the plane...or avoiding sunburn, for crying out loud! Hey, if I want that kind of posing, there's already magazines for that sort of thing, please keep it out of the hobby magazines, especially the covers... I want my daughter to get interested in engineering and science and aviation, how can I in good conscience show her these magazines with such stereotypical portrayals and expect her to still want to be the next Patty Wagstaff or Astronaut Collins or whatever? She's no dummy: she can see the unspoken messages in imagery. The covers say: "women are merely attractive decorations for airplanes, dress like a hooker and maybe you can snag a pilot."

Some of the ads in the magazines are pretty pitiful too... there's one for the piccolario helicopter with the bikini-clad woman striking an orgasmic pose that looks like it was taken out of a soft core "adult" movie. Do the advertisers and editors really think a subliminal message in these poses like " buy our plane and girls will climb all over you to get some"....WORKS!?!?!/ Do they know this is not 1972?

Have ANY of you guys EVER bought a plane or radio just because the ad featured a hot chick holding it? ANYBODY??? Did you then frame and take the picture to the flying field to show it off or something, like: "Yeah, women like this jump my bones every day, now that I got that extra flap-elevator mix knob..."

Another one, selling t-shirts and hats, makes it look like the pilot's flying prowess is SO ubelieveably absorbing and impressive to her, the woman is about to undress and wrap herself around the guy while he's still trying to fly his plane. It's just stupid and demeaning to women in general and to us men in the hobby as well.

They are making the hobby look like it's populated only by horny teenage boys and dirty old men. It's short-sighted and crass, and not in anyone's best long-term interest.

If you're not gonna put Joe Wurts or Bob Violett on the cover wearing only a speedo and sandals, you shouldn't be putting women on wearing "impractical" attire either.

After reading that last sentence, I'm gonna have to cut this short and go burn the mental images out of my brain, sorry about that, everybody, but it's just as ridiculous as what they're doing with the women on the covers ;-)

p.s. somebody please forward this to the editors at Backyard Flyer and Model Airplane News. RC modeler, I've just given up on.

[p64m70]

Maybe Eustice and Bear and the magazines both are right......
A. Eustice and Bear's point, if you can fly with 'cheesecake' all around then you are a real RC'er. At least it would create more photo ops, both of the ladies and all the crashes, mid-airs, etc :-)
B. If we want to preserve our RC parks and other places to fly then we need those attractive ladies, after all who cares if a bunch of old men and teenage boys have
an RC park or the right to fly at the local public park, open soccer field etc. but go in
front of your local public officials with some "Tank tops and "Daisy Duke" shorts" and
you might stand a lot better chance :-)

[Trogdor]

Aten - very well said... although that image... is.. still... burned,,, in,, arghhhhh my eyes!

:)