Body Image Issues...Apparently Even Grandma Had Em...

[hsifeng]

You think only the women of today are driven to self-loathing because they are chasing some idealized version of ‘sexy’ that can only be created in Photoshop?

Think again.

Marketing the idea of a non-existent waist, upper legs that have never heard the word ‘cellulite’ and breasts that are both large and somehow filled with helium has been around

Comments

[sstormwatch]

Thanks for posting these. Shows that these subtle and not so subtle marketing pushes for a "perfect body" has been around a lot longer than we realize.

Do you mind if I post something in my LJ directing folks to this post?

[hsifeng]

Repost away!

;)

[docryder]

Two things

[hsifeng]

My claim was not that these were Victorian, rather it was that this trend started even before the pin ups

[docryder]

Okay, I misinterpreted the original comment with regards to Victorian. Mea culpa.I think we're more or less on the same page otherwise, just maybe coming at it from different angles (and it would be, frankly, amazing if we weren't, considering age, gender, and a host of other differences between you and I

[hsifeng]

“I think we're more or less on the same page otherwise, just maybe coming at it from different angles (and it would be, frankly, amazing if we weren't, considering age, gender, and a host of other differences between you and I. :-) ).”

Trudat. *chuckle*

” If the artist is to make his living, as you commented on, the artist needs to provide the media folk what they want based on their research…Media folk use what already exist in us as a species. They appeal to these basic, lizard-brain needs. It falls to us, the target audience, to learn what they're doing and try to hold it in mind when we look at ourselves. Those media folks are doing their jobs, and unless you change the entire society from the lizard-brain up, this will exist forevermore.”Hence this post. Because media marketing has not been around in its current form forever (thank YOU Industrial Revolution and your need to have everyone spend, spend, spend in order to ensure your existence) and it does not need to be around in its current form forevermore

[brickhousewench]

The book currently on my bedside table is Flapper. In the chapter I was reading just last night the author laid out an argument for the change in attitudes about body shape starting between the first and second world wars. The author’s theory, marketing men trained in propaganda during WWI went back to the civilian work force and used the skills they’d learned to market an idealized lifestyle to the general population based on consumer goods. How do you sell Listerine? Make people fear having halitosis. Need to get people to buy deodorant? Make them fear being socially unacceptable. And so on and so on.

Supposedly young college women were writing home about how they hoped to gain weight at the turn of the century. But the era of the flapper was when they started to starve themselves and go on starvation diets.

[hsifeng]

And this is where the behavior REALLY gets me going: most of the guys I know don’t want the women that we are being show as ‘perfect’ in the ads. To quote my husband, “Have you seen Angelina Jolie’s arms? Brad needs to give that girl a milkshake.”

And yes, there are women out there who *do* actually fit the ideal naturally (one of my BFF's for example) is one of them. But this isn’t about being ‘too big’ or ‘too skinny’; it’s about a culture that teaches us to be unhappy with our own skin and to want something that is generally both unrealistic and sometimes quite harmful.

Marketing, it screws up everyone’s perspectives….

*shakes head in annoyance*

[stacymckenna]

Wow! Thank you for these! The closest I'd seen was the shifts they made to models for Disney flicks (think Tink or Aurora)...

[hsifeng]

You are very welcome!

:D

[florentinescot]

Awesome!

(Kimiko made me come! :-D

[hsifeng]

Thank you!

(and I am glad she did... *grin*)

[florentinescot]

me too. I peep in on you from time to time. You have cool stuff.

I'd seen the artwork (of course -- who hasn't?) but I'd never seen the original photos.

[hsifeng]

I peep in on you from time to time. You have cool stuff.

*blushes* Thank you!