Feminism: Real Women Have Curves, Wear Lane Bryant
When any restaurant seeks to sell food, their advertisements generally involve people eating their main product. Likewise, car companies will typically feature consumers test-driving certain makes and models to attract customers to purchase their own ideal vehicle. So it’s perfectly acceptable for lingerie companies to feature women with busty chests to sell bras, right?
Trick question. The answer is a resounding “Yes!” if the company is Victoria’s Secret, a decisive “No!” if the company is Lane Bryant.
At least, that’s what Lane Bryant, a leading clothing company for women who aren’t anorexic, is asserting. Recently, Lane Bryant created a lingerie advertisement that featured curvy women with large--assumedly, natural--breasts doing rather uneventful things in their bras and panties.
Apparently, in a startling display of censorship, both Fox and ABC refused to air the advertisement. Lane Bryant’s website-hosted blog, Inside Curve, maintains that the two networks presented unrealistic demands for re-edits and prohibited the ad from running during critical air times, including “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol.” According to Inside Curve, Fox only relented after Lane Bryant threatened to cancel the ad buy completely, and compromised by running the advertisement in the last 10 minutes of the show.
The reason is shocking: both networks insisted that the advertisement contained “too much cleavage.”
Allow that to sink in for a minute. A lingerie company for curvy and plus-sized women, which primarily features full-sized bras, is showing too much cleavage. Versus, say, Frederick’s of Hollywood or Victoria’s Secret, well-known for creating edgy cuts of lingerie that are roughly the equivalent of two postage stamps held together by a single string. In other words, advertisements featuring large-preferably augmented so as not to be too large-breasts are acceptable; naturally large, full-figured breasts are not. More to the point, naturally large, full-figured breasts are obscene, suggesting that the networks have an awfully thin (and hypocritical) threshold for decency.
“Yes, these are the same networks that have scantily-clad housewives so desperate they seduce every man on the block-and don’t forget Bart Simpson, who has shown us the moon more often than NASA-all in what they call ‘family hour,’” Inside Curve blasts.
Sadly, what’s most interesting about this particular debacle is not the obvious double-standard regarding women’s bodies--that’s been well-established--but that people seem to be genuinely shocked that breasts, particularly large breasts, can be such a controversial issue.
“I just saw a Lane Bryant commercial that was better than any Victoria’s Secret commercial I’ve ever seen,” Tyren Rushing, a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, writes on his Facebook wall. “I caught it on YouTube. I don’t see what the big deal is. They need to get with the program-no one wants to see skin and bones. It’s just not sexy.”
However, as Tara Shuai of the Feminist and pro-curvature blog Fatshionista observes, “There is no shortage of slut-bashing in this world.”
And, as Amanda Hess of The Sexist points out, “slut” tends to be the automatic descriptor given to women with naturally large breasts, especially if those naturally large breasts tend to be cloaked in revealing attire (even if it is just a bra because they’re, gee, in a lingerie commercial). In her blog published April 21, Hess charges that “with great cleavage comes great responsibility” imposed by antiquated social norms.
“People who shame women for wearing “too-revealing” clothes like to center their objections on women’s clothing “choices,” but make no mistake-this is not about what we choose. This is about the things we don’t choose-having chests or butts or legs or necks or hair or any other part of our human bodies that others decide to project their particular sexual interests-and their slut-shaming-upon. The man who is horrified at a woman’s “overly exposed” breasts will likely never have to worry about wearing one shirt-one shirt out of a lifetime of shirts-that happens to accidentally set off some random person’s slut meter, because of the way his body just is.”
It’s an issue that becomes amplified when discussing individuals of larger-than-unhealthy proportions. Shuai describes tight clothes on “fat bodies” as inherently political, able to communicate a greater statement than the more socially-acceptable skinny bodies (though it’s worth pointing out that the Lane Bryant model in question, Ashley Graham, just barely qualifies as plus-sized, even by the unrealistic standards of the modeling world).
Also, an issue that’s been little addressed on the blog rolls is whether sexuality ultimately played a role in the decision to censor the advertisement. After all, the advertisement focuses on Graham twirling in her Lane Bryant delicates, clearly enjoying the feel of the material on her body. Then a zinging text message reminds her of a lunch date with “Dan,” and rather than slip into any clothes, Graham shimmies into just a trench coat, suggesting that “Lunch with Dan” is a clever euphemism for sex, or the restaurant in question has an extremely casual dress code.
It also smacks of an incoming sexual episode, which is not something our culture openly encourages larger people to have. In fact, our culture carries a rather strong aversion to larger-sized people, particularly women, demonstrating any kind of a sexual appetite.
“Sexual women - women who have desires and express and act on them - are almost always presented as deviant in some other way. They’re working class, they’re Black or Latina, they’re mentally ill, or… they’re fat,” sociologist Lisa Wade, a co-author at Sociological Images, writes on April 23. “Fat women are often characterized as sexual threats. How many comedies have relied on the scary fat woman (of color) trying to get some? It’s so funny, right? Because she’s gross and aggressive! She wants you and she doesn’t care what you want and so the fact that she’s fat doesn’t stop her. Scary!”
What’s scary is that our culture can still believe true comedy is having a large woman express any sexual desire (here’s looking at you and your fading career, Eddie Murphy) and sacrifice every shred of logic to support a completely unhealthy ideal of what constitutes not only thin, but sexy. In a world where discriminatory policies allow persons of size to be charged for two seats or be booted from an airplane, it’s difficult to ignore the blatant phobia against persons of size. Even organizations like the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals aren’t above exploiting fat-shaming to accomplish a goal.
And advertising has long been one of the greatest offenders. In 2006, Dove launched the “Real Beauty” campaign, which featured several women of varying body sizes clad in only their underwear. While sales of Dove products increased during that time, the company had difficulty locating advertising outlets who would carry the display, suggesting that even if consumers were willing to buy products hawked by plus-sized or full-figured models, advertisers simply weren’t willing to take the risk to be seen as “friendly” to the body-loving movement.
Not that it’s gotten any better. Filippa Hamilton, the model who’s image was so grotesquely altered that her head appeared bigger than her pelvis in a Ralph Lauren advertisement, again came to national attention when she was fired in October for “being too fat.” This, after weeks of lip service from Ralph Lauren honchos, claiming, “After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body.”
Even Britney Spears, who tried to showcase the pressure of unrealistic beauty standards by insisting her real photo from a recent Candie’s shoot accompany the airbrushed photo, has fallen prey to the scam of skin deep beauty by allowing an altered photo to be created and distributed, suggesting her body is in need of touching up.
Obviously, the cultural pessimism towards larger, healthy bodies isn’t something that will go away over night. But the first step is accepting that real people have curves and not censoring any displays of satisfaction with one’s size, regardless of where it falls on the measuring tape. Until ABC and Fox are willing to do that, it would be best to tune out to channels that aren’t afraid to show empowered women of all shapes and sizes.
Trick question. The answer is a resounding “Yes!” if the company is Victoria’s Secret, a decisive “No!” if the company is Lane Bryant.
At least, that’s what Lane Bryant, a leading clothing company for women who aren’t anorexic, is asserting. Recently, Lane Bryant created a lingerie advertisement that featured curvy women with large--assumedly, natural--breasts doing rather uneventful things in their bras and panties.
Apparently, in a startling display of censorship, both Fox and ABC refused to air the advertisement. Lane Bryant’s website-hosted blog, Inside Curve, maintains that the two networks presented unrealistic demands for re-edits and prohibited the ad from running during critical air times, including “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol.” According to Inside Curve, Fox only relented after Lane Bryant threatened to cancel the ad buy completely, and compromised by running the advertisement in the last 10 minutes of the show.
The reason is shocking: both networks insisted that the advertisement contained “too much cleavage.”
Allow that to sink in for a minute. A lingerie company for curvy and plus-sized women, which primarily features full-sized bras, is showing too much cleavage. Versus, say, Frederick’s of Hollywood or Victoria’s Secret, well-known for creating edgy cuts of lingerie that are roughly the equivalent of two postage stamps held together by a single string. In other words, advertisements featuring large-preferably augmented so as not to be too large-breasts are acceptable; naturally large, full-figured breasts are not. More to the point, naturally large, full-figured breasts are obscene, suggesting that the networks have an awfully thin (and hypocritical) threshold for decency.
“Yes, these are the same networks that have scantily-clad housewives so desperate they seduce every man on the block-and don’t forget Bart Simpson, who has shown us the moon more often than NASA-all in what they call ‘family hour,’” Inside Curve blasts.
Sadly, what’s most interesting about this particular debacle is not the obvious double-standard regarding women’s bodies--that’s been well-established--but that people seem to be genuinely shocked that breasts, particularly large breasts, can be such a controversial issue.
“I just saw a Lane Bryant commercial that was better than any Victoria’s Secret commercial I’ve ever seen,” Tyren Rushing, a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, writes on his Facebook wall. “I caught it on YouTube. I don’t see what the big deal is. They need to get with the program-no one wants to see skin and bones. It’s just not sexy.”
However, as Tara Shuai of the Feminist and pro-curvature blog Fatshionista observes, “There is no shortage of slut-bashing in this world.”
And, as Amanda Hess of The Sexist points out, “slut” tends to be the automatic descriptor given to women with naturally large breasts, especially if those naturally large breasts tend to be cloaked in revealing attire (even if it is just a bra because they’re, gee, in a lingerie commercial). In her blog published April 21, Hess charges that “with great cleavage comes great responsibility” imposed by antiquated social norms.
“People who shame women for wearing “too-revealing” clothes like to center their objections on women’s clothing “choices,” but make no mistake-this is not about what we choose. This is about the things we don’t choose-having chests or butts or legs or necks or hair or any other part of our human bodies that others decide to project their particular sexual interests-and their slut-shaming-upon. The man who is horrified at a woman’s “overly exposed” breasts will likely never have to worry about wearing one shirt-one shirt out of a lifetime of shirts-that happens to accidentally set off some random person’s slut meter, because of the way his body just is.”
It’s an issue that becomes amplified when discussing individuals of larger-than-unhealthy proportions. Shuai describes tight clothes on “fat bodies” as inherently political, able to communicate a greater statement than the more socially-acceptable skinny bodies (though it’s worth pointing out that the Lane Bryant model in question, Ashley Graham, just barely qualifies as plus-sized, even by the unrealistic standards of the modeling world).
Also, an issue that’s been little addressed on the blog rolls is whether sexuality ultimately played a role in the decision to censor the advertisement. After all, the advertisement focuses on Graham twirling in her Lane Bryant delicates, clearly enjoying the feel of the material on her body. Then a zinging text message reminds her of a lunch date with “Dan,” and rather than slip into any clothes, Graham shimmies into just a trench coat, suggesting that “Lunch with Dan” is a clever euphemism for sex, or the restaurant in question has an extremely casual dress code.
It also smacks of an incoming sexual episode, which is not something our culture openly encourages larger people to have. In fact, our culture carries a rather strong aversion to larger-sized people, particularly women, demonstrating any kind of a sexual appetite.
“Sexual women - women who have desires and express and act on them - are almost always presented as deviant in some other way. They’re working class, they’re Black or Latina, they’re mentally ill, or… they’re fat,” sociologist Lisa Wade, a co-author at Sociological Images, writes on April 23. “Fat women are often characterized as sexual threats. How many comedies have relied on the scary fat woman (of color) trying to get some? It’s so funny, right? Because she’s gross and aggressive! She wants you and she doesn’t care what you want and so the fact that she’s fat doesn’t stop her. Scary!”
What’s scary is that our culture can still believe true comedy is having a large woman express any sexual desire (here’s looking at you and your fading career, Eddie Murphy) and sacrifice every shred of logic to support a completely unhealthy ideal of what constitutes not only thin, but sexy. In a world where discriminatory policies allow persons of size to be charged for two seats or be booted from an airplane, it’s difficult to ignore the blatant phobia against persons of size. Even organizations like the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals aren’t above exploiting fat-shaming to accomplish a goal.
And advertising has long been one of the greatest offenders. In 2006, Dove launched the “Real Beauty” campaign, which featured several women of varying body sizes clad in only their underwear. While sales of Dove products increased during that time, the company had difficulty locating advertising outlets who would carry the display, suggesting that even if consumers were willing to buy products hawked by plus-sized or full-figured models, advertisers simply weren’t willing to take the risk to be seen as “friendly” to the body-loving movement.
Not that it’s gotten any better. Filippa Hamilton, the model who’s image was so grotesquely altered that her head appeared bigger than her pelvis in a Ralph Lauren advertisement, again came to national attention when she was fired in October for “being too fat.” This, after weeks of lip service from Ralph Lauren honchos, claiming, “After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body.”
Even Britney Spears, who tried to showcase the pressure of unrealistic beauty standards by insisting her real photo from a recent Candie’s shoot accompany the airbrushed photo, has fallen prey to the scam of skin deep beauty by allowing an altered photo to be created and distributed, suggesting her body is in need of touching up.
Obviously, the cultural pessimism towards larger, healthy bodies isn’t something that will go away over night. But the first step is accepting that real people have curves and not censoring any displays of satisfaction with one’s size, regardless of where it falls on the measuring tape. Until ABC and Fox are willing to do that, it would be best to tune out to channels that aren’t afraid to show empowered women of all shapes and sizes.