Tango

• by whitley , November 2, 2005

In the premiere issue of Tango magazine, Andrea Miller, the founder and CEO, explains the reason that she started a magazine about relationships: she looked at the newsstand and realized that "there was nothing that spoke to women--and their partners--about the most fundamental part of their live: their relationships."

Instead of doing what other women's magazines do, which is talk about clothes, hair and shoes, she says, Tango will try to go deeper and focus on finding, giving and keeping love alive.

First off, I have a problem with her premise. Every woman's magazine at its heart is about how to make relationships better, and the reason they talk so much about clothes, shoes, and hair, is because that's what sells advertisements. Deep down, Tango's editors know this, which is why the front of the book is devoted to a writeup about hair products. Among other deep thoughts about relationships is an advice column on how to get "him" to get the haircut you want.

Since most women's magazine have column by guys now, I can't really tell the difference between that formula and Tango's. Dean Chandler writes a piece about how men feel when their girlfriends move in and redecorate their cave. A money column focuses on the pros and con of separate bank accounts, there is a piece about sharing the remote, and Dr. Pepper Schwartz explains the psychology of the quickie. Snooze.

The editors do manage to get some marquee writers into the pages of this launch. They include a sweet piece by Gail Sheehy on her media marriage (her husband is editor and publisher Clay Felker, who founded New York magazine), and a well-reported piece by Leslie Bennetts on "The New Stay At Home Momism," which she argues is not smart because of the divorce rate. "Even when our parents stayed married, it was painfully apparent that many mothers were frustrated by a domestic life that didn't provide them with an independent identity or the manifold satisfactions offered by a career." I agree with this statement about the new generation of postfeminist stay-at-home moms, but what she neglects to discuss is that many of these women choose this life so that domestic work is given more value by the greater society.

There is also a survey of the most romantic cities (New York wins), and a profile of "Desperate Housewives" star James Denton's real-life marriage, which offers no wisdom. Overall, Tango is all over the place and nowhere, and if it's to survive, the editors desperately need a stronger point of view than a magazine about relationships.