More Reasons to Hate Lad’s Mags: Zoo advises spurned lover to slash ex girlfriend’s face
I’ve written before about lad’s magazines which thrive on the objectification of women and act as porn training wheels for boys.
Now Zoo has run an advice column by British hardman actor Danny Dyer urging a heartbroken reader to “cut his ex’s face, so no one will want her”. The advice was written by regular British columnist and actor Danny Dyer.
As well as the suggestion that he slash his ex girlfriend’s face, the reader was told: “You’ve got nothing to worry about, son. I’d suggest going out on a rampage with the boys, getting on the booze and smashing anything that moves.”
Zoo said it was a “production error”. Like really what they meant to say was “Time 
mends a broken heart son, give yourself space to heal and relax in a bubble bath”.
Fortunately the reader rejected the advice and said he couldn’t ever hurt the woman he was with for a year.
More here from The Sun.
Danny Dyer doesn’t only suggest slashing women’s faces. He proposes setting their public hair alight, if it isn’t to a man’s liking.
Kira Cochrane has written an excellent piece which asks, if Danny Dyers slasher comments were an error, what about the rest of Zoo?
I’m glad that people have picked up on this comment, but I hope the anger won’t flare up and die away as it usually does. This shouldn’t be an excuse simply to lambast an individual…but to take notice of a magazine, and a wider culture, that depicts women as meat. If anything positive was to come out of this stupid throwaway comment, it would be that.
6 Responses
haha Zoo that is so funny it makes me want to break your heart, and deface your pages.
I’m exaggerating of course. maybe I could just go on a rampage with the ladz mags, and mash anything I disapprove.
Yet another low-class publication in these magazines.
It is wonderful that people have caught onto this particular feature in Zoo.
It is a shame that other magazines in the genre of soft pornography, (I have not studied zoo) have articles and features equally, if not even more so demeaning.
Thankyou for blogging about it. These magazines should be burned. And I will be there the day that it happens!
Men I know are real men- men who care about women & protect, not harm them.
The men who find these magazines & comments acceptable or amusing need to get out of their magazine aided fantasy world & discover what it means to be a real man.
One word. Disgraceful.
But Melinda is right – this trend is not just in magazines, but in the wider culture. What is it with the double standards of so many men that they would even joke about something like this, and yet become angry if it was maybe a close sister who was the target of such a comment? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I agree – the fact that something of this could slip through as a mistake or indeed be written as a ‘joke’ in the first place really does show that the amount of care paid to protecting women from objectification and misogyny is… well, close to zilch in a lot of cases. In a culture where this type of violent misogyny was strongly reviled by everyone, I doubt this would even be a story. It’d be a sacking offense, completely career-ending, and beyond defense instead of something people pass of as ‘unfortunate.’ Readers of any ‘Zoo’ magazine need to take a hard look at themselves.
This is outrageous. That something like that would have passed through all the checks and still been printed. It’s one thing for one sicko to think something is funny, but when a whole bunch think so then you know society has a problem.
Danny Dyer’s “advice” not only condones and encourages serious violence against women, it also puts a woman’s value as being solely based on her aesthetic beauty. If she’s ugly, no man would want her, and then her life is worth nothing. This is so far from the truth, but it’s a lie so many people fall for.
I’m glad to see that Danny Dyer’s column has been removed from the magazine, although I’m sure the rest of the magazine still has plenty of other disgusting content.