@misskph Most Beautiful cover archive at https://t.co/7d7FidX6YU doesn't include 2010 issue. Can you post/tweet that cover?— Kimberly Hanes (@WritingTheWorld) April 20, 2017
I didn't really expect the reporter to respond, but she did:
@WritingTheWorld Unfortunately we can't because of photo rights issues (the cover focus was Sandra Bullock's new baby, not the Most Beautiful Woman), sorry!— Kate Hogan Berger (@misskph) April 20, 2017
That gave me enough information to go to Google Images and type in "People magazine 2010 Sandra Bullock adopts" and Voila! The missing 2010 cover, with Sandra Bullock as the main story, and Julia Roberts in what I call a "topline tease," naming her the Most Beautiful. Social Media to the rescue, mystery solved. Here's the cover:
Original post:
Issue dated May 1, 2017: Julia Roberts
It's Julia Roberts again, for either the fourth or fifth time. In my Guessing Game post I said she had been the cover choice three previous times, based on the 1991, 2000 and 2005 covers (shown below.) Then, in the teaser article now posted at people.com, they're calling the new cover her fifth:
It’s
been 26 years since Julia Roberts was first on the cover of PEOPLE’s
World’s Most Beautiful issue, and she’s still our favorite pretty woman.
The
stunning star is, for a record fifth time, the Most Beautiful Woman in the
World – though she can hardly believe it. “I am very flattered,” she tells
PEOPLE’s editor-in-chief Jess Cagle in this week’s cover story.
Apparently they're including the 2014 cover, where Lupita Nyong'o is the big picture, with Julia (and Jennifer Lawrence and Juliana Margolies) in smaller pictures on the side.
Whatever. My response to all this: Yuck. Rating and ranking women based on their looks is ridiculous and offensive, and claiming that a 49-year-old woman is staying "Forever Young" is just plain stupid. I'd love to see People get away from the whole "Most Beautiful" thing, and for that matter, "Sexiest Man" and "Half Their Size" can go too.
In July, 2013, in a post titled "Dumbed Down and Sexed Up," I compared People's cover stories from 1975 and 2011. Here's what I found, and it's still depressingly true:
People magazine was never the New Yorker, as I used to say, but they used to at least try for some substance some of the time. To put it another way, the stories were mostly about the celebrities' work, not who they're married to or getting divorced from, not how they look in a bikini, and not when their baby is due. These days it's mostly weddings, babies, divorces, crime stories and people who are famous for being on (Reality) television. (Read the entire post here, and note that the online archive isn't online any more.)
1991
2000
2005
2014
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