Media/Arts

Sept. 7, 2006

Magazine for teenage girls focuses on Catholic lifestyle

By Rebecca Bostic
The Catholic Sun

Issues of Teen People, Cosmo Girl, and Seventeen magazines telling young girls how to “land a boyfriend” and “dress so he notices you” litter bedroom floors of teenage girls across the country. Brandi Lee and Stephanie Murphy want to change that.

The Indiana women began True Girl, a bi-monthly magazine written for female Catholic teenagers, to offer a positive alternative in magazine racks.

“Girls love magazines,” said Murphy, True Girl publisher. “They’re fun to look at alone or with friends. Secular teen magazines put so much pressure on girls to look a certain way, wear certain clothes and be sexualized at a young age.”

True Girl offers a very different perception of reality. Instead of encouraging negative behaviors, Murphy and Lee focus on stories like “Ouch: Gossip Hurts,” “Making the Most of Your College Visit” and “Dating: Are You Ready?”

Teenage magazine staples such as health and beauty advice, a quiz, advice column and fashion trends are included in every issue. The magazine also features the story of a female saint, interviews with women living out various vocations, a rosary reflection and a “True Girl Story” written by a teen who is doing something extraordinary for her faith, according to Lee.

From the front cover featuring a new “real girl” — not a model — every month, to the back cover sharing “True Stuff” — a paragraph on Catholic terms such as Novenas, the Miter and Crosier and the Pyx — True Girl presents a wholesome, Catholic-based commentary that plays to the interests of average teenage girls.

“My hope for the magazine is to be an alternative, counter-cultural resource for young Catholic women, to provide support for their love for and loyalty to God and His Church,” said Lee, True Girl editor-in-chief. “True Girl speaks to the concept of real beauty, the beauty we are inherently granted by being created in the image of God.”

Corrine Walker believes that.

The 15-year-old Tennessee native became a teen editor last November and has been involved with the magazine ever since.

“The majority of magazines on the market focus on a very superficial style of life,” Walker said. “They set impossible standards in beauty, make celebrities role models and, worst of all, discourage originality by setting trends” in fashion.

Through her experience with True Girl, Walker has come to believe that fashion isn’t determined by other people, but is a way to express herself.

“A lot of magazines advertise that popular friends, cute clothes and a hot boyfriend is all you need out of life, but they are missing one important person — God,” Walker said. “True Girl promotes achieving dreams, keeping values and devotion to God.”

Walker is just one of 3,500 True Girl readers that subscribe from every U.S. state, Canada and Australia. As a teen editor, Walker was part of a group of more than 60 young women that report to Lee on magazine content reviews and ideas.

Stephanie Staresinic, a 17-year-old teen editor from Ohio, enjoys True Girl because it is a hip magazine without “trashy” commentary and information.

“This magazine has a unique way of showing Christian morals, but at the same time including things that all girls like to know about in their magazines, such as what sun tan lotion to use and unique ways to change your prom dress to be more modest,” Staresinic said.

In the near future Lee and Murphy hope to add 20 additional pages to the magazine without significantly increasing the amount of advertising.

“One of the problems we see with many secular magazines is that you have to flip through 16 pages of ads before you ever reach any content,” Lee said. “We are not trying to sell our readers anything other than the fact that they are worthy of God’s love.”

That’s exactly what Walker is trying to show other girls her age.

“Girls should subscribe to True Girl because it makes the Christian lifestyle glamorous,” she said. “They replace celebrity role models with saints, set stylish trends that are affordable, teach you how to balance school, friends and God… True Girl isn’t just a lifestyle, it is a revolution!”