Cosmo Dumbed Down For Countries That Might Actually Find American Cosmo Useful

The CEO of Hearst International just gave a queasy-makingly smug interview to the Financial Times about the “Global Cosmopolitan Woman.” For your barf consideration:

“If you walk down the street here on Eighth Avenue or in Beijing or Singapore, women look the same. They’re wearing the same jeans, they’re listening to the same music,” says Mr Green, chief executive of Hearst Magazines International. “They don’t want to be American but they want to be more like their American sister than ever before.”

Which is to say, simultaneously more like members of a homogenizing global village, and less aware of the existence of life outside the confines of, you know, the Thirty Mile Zone? (Because we’re pretty sure he didn’t mean “fatter.”) And the best thing about it: he’s utterly uninterested in even maintaining the illusion that magazines exist for purposes other than selling jeans, makeup, consumer electronics etc. overseas!

Along the way, Mr Green has chosen to give an extraordinary amount of autonomy to editors in places such as China and Kazakhstan – allowing them to determine whether the word “orgasm” can appear on their covers and other sensitivities – rather than sending in US editors to oversee them.