Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [87]
My job started in March and commitments had already been made about the July and August covers (Sally Field and Andie MacDowell, respectively). For September I was on my own. I stared at a long list of women provided by the entertainment editor. There were the usual suspects: women of substance, women of substance abuse, those whose hearts had just been broken, and those who were triumphantly on the mend. Absolutely no one excited me.
Sometime over the next day or two, I had a brainstorm: what about Demi Moore? She was absolutely gorgeous, a mother-to-be, and she had just starred in the runaway hit Ghost. In fact, I was surprised to discover that none of the major women's magazines had yet featured her on the cover.
Well, I soon found out why. Demi Moore didn't pose for magazines like McCall's, thank you very much. I'd had my heart set on her, however, and I didn't want to give up the idea. I suggested to the photo editor that we call in as many recent paparazzi shots as possible because we didn't need the star's permission to use one of those. Though there were often slim pickings among these kinds of photos, occasionally you'd stumble upon a shot good enough for a cover. Two days later the photo editor called me down to look at a selection on the light box, and there, among the various shots of Demi as a brat-packer and Demi as a sexpot, was a drop-dead picture of her in a low-cut black evening dress with husband Bruce Willis, partially in the picture, whispering in her ear. Her eyes were moist, her skin dewy, and she had the slightest of smiles, almost like the Mona Lisa. It practically took my breath away and I decided in that instant, “This is the cover.”
Over the next few days, we retouched the photo slightly, evening out the skin tone, removing both Brace's three-day beard and a clunky necklace on Demi. As I showed the blown-up photo around the office to staff members, people began to raise concerns. Demi didn't have the typical big, “buy-me” smile our cover subjects usually wore—was that a turn-off? Besides, the background of the photo was black, more like an old Modern Screen cover than one for McCall's. Then a wrench got thrown into the works. A gossip columnist announced that a pregnant Demi would appear nearly naked on the cover of Vanity Fair in August, just one month ahead of our issue. I began to wonder if Demi might be too controversial and the picture too “different.” I took the photo into my office, closed the door, and just stared at it. All I could remember was the “oooooh” reaction I'd fell the first moment I'd set eyes on it. I decided to go ahead.
Well, the issue sold 300,000 more copies on the newsstand than the September issue had sold the year before. I think it was in large part due to the pure beauty and appeal of Demi, but we probably also rode the tailwind of curiosity and desire created by Vanity Fair's now-legendary shot of the pregnant star. There were probably people who mistakenly bought McCall's thinking they would find nude photos of Moore inside.
The Demi cover experience was a great lesson for me. Though I'd certainly relied on my gut in making creative decisions before, this was the first time it had such a quantifiable impact. But I learned something else as well: how easy it is to get talked out of going with your gut when the pressure is on—and that's especially true if you're a good girl.
WHY GOOD GIRLS ARE SCARED TO TRUST THEIR INSTINCTS
Good girls feel uncomfortable going with their gut or trusting their instincts because often it means going against what other people think. What a good girl wants is consensus. When she gets consensus, it not only means that she's managed to please everybody—a high priority—but that she's guaranteed herself safely in numbers. That's exactly what I was hoping for with the Demi Moore cover, and I felt disconcerted when I didn't get it.
Also, a gut reaction by its very definition is something that comes from someplace other than