Five For Friday: All FAIL The King

via The Beautiful Struggler - Me, Myself and Eye

What a glorious Friday it is! April showers cannot keep me down! I'm headed to DC for a memorial service for a special lady and time with friends and my spirits couldn't be higher. Not just because I'm leaving, not just because it's Friday. But because King Magazine is no more. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, it is over!

For those who lived under a most merciful rock for the past seven years, King WAS a soft-corn porn explosion of titties, asses, rims and other glitter baubles marketed to the urban pseudo-man. While the women photographed in the pages of the tawdry rag were all full-grown adults who are to be held accountable for their own exploitation, there is still a debt of shame to be paid by the publishers, writers, advertisers and consumers of the stank rag.

Five Reasons The World Is Better Off Without King

1) The Writing Was Trash
To make clear, I am NOT a fan of Playboy Magazine. I don't have a conflict with pornography as a whole, so long as it isn't misogynistic (which is a deadly difficult feat-to create work that highlights the sex appeal of women without completely objectifying them). That said, and it does hurt me to give Hef's publication a compliment, Playboy at least manages to have good writers for some of it's articles. King always read like it was written by a gifted tenth grade English class at an all-boys high school...of virgins.

Actual King caption: "This 26-year-old is the perfect combination of booty and brains." Kill yourself.

2) The Content Was Piss Poor
I don't like the idea of "lifestyle magazines" for men including pictures of women masturbating or tooting their asses up for the camera. To this day, I don't understand why Playboy was the publication Malcolm X had to sit down with in order to reach an audience of White males. I've had to pretty much give up reading Details, due to pictorials such as this one as well as some anti-female writing. GQ is also guilty of sometimes objectifying women, but does a far better job of celebrating the sexiness of women and showing honest appreciation for them as entire human beings.

The reason I can (usually) stand behind GQ (and there have been some "Fuck y'all" moments, trust!) is because they present so much more than scantily clad women, fashion and high end automobile accessories. There are lifestyle pieces, literary reviews, lessons about appreciating wine, brilliant articles. It's a well-rounded magazine for the tastes of a well-rounded man, albeit one that skews towards the more affluent male.

King targeted young African-American males and only chose to appeal to their lust for thick bodies, sneakers and Hip-Hop beef. It gave readers the opportunity to wet daydream about living the lives of their bejeweled Rap king idols. Sadly, Black men responded better to King and it's (hopefully soon to fail) rival, Smooth than they did the 1990's Ebony Man and Code magazines, which were like GQ and Essence for Black men.

3)It Was All They Had, And None Of What They Need
It may be unfair to compare King to GQ, as it's obvious inspiration came from Maxim, the "mainstream" (White) magazine that raises my ire. And before any of your brothers feel the need to call me out for coming harder at King than I have any White publication, please bear in mind that the media that poisons the minds and self-esteem of Black folks is a greater concern of mine. Maxim disgusts me. I don't want little girls of any race seeing such bullshyte on the mag rack at CVS, nor do I want young man of any race being exposed to such overt explotation of women. Die, Maxim, die.

But whereas young White men see Maxim, Details, GQ and a host of other rags ranging from full-out trash to rather enlightening reflecting their tastes and needs...all young Black men have marked to them WAS King, Smooth and Black Men's Magazine (which is a sad, sad joke). Each of these magazines could fit very naturally in the over the top portrayals of Black culture trash in "Drop Squad" and "Bamboozled". You could count The Source, XXL and Ozone too, which are essentially the same as King, but with the Sapphire image moved from center to margin.

4) "Trina's Tragic Lacefront"*

If you need further evidence that King hates Black women, the fact that they allowed this woman to be photographed with her wig looking like that every single month should serve as case and point.

5)It's Obama Time, Do Better

Black beauty does not exist in a monolith. It is as much Dorothy Dandridge as it is Judith Jamison as it is Beyonce as it is Jennifer Hudson as it is Alek Wek as it is Sister Toldja (yes, I'm fine, cope with it). However, as we have seen the Black woman take on a new role- the First Lady of this nation-it is long since past time for young Black men (and women) to do some serious thinking when it comes to the way in which we celebrate and present the Black female form. There is always a time and place for sex and sexuality. But maybe the front cover of a national magazine is not the place for the modern Black woman to turn around backwards and show you her goodies.

Considering the way society has castigated the Black female body as a tool and the Black female as a whore, there was never a time and place appropriate for King Magazine. And, alas, the nightmare is over. King wasn't wrong for highlighting the sexiness of Black women for the enjoyment of Black men. The magazine's greatest crime was presenting Black women as if they were accessories and status symbols, not people. And while it was the declining economy and the downfall of print journalism that did King in and not it's bullshit content, today is a day to celebrate that demise nonetheless.

MWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!
Sister Toldja

PS- For anyone feeling soapboxy today, let me shut you down now: YES, it's bigger than King (well, everything is bigger than King, as it no longer exists mwahahaha), YES, it's bigger than Hip-Hop or materialism....BUT WE TALKING ABOUT KING TODAY, OKAY?

PPS-Yes, I know my one and only woman I'd quit men for, Toccarra Jones, was often shot for King. Hopefully, she can lift herself up now and do better. OBAMA TIME, Toccarra!

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