Weighing in
I was confused, I will admit, when I saw the ad campaign in Brazil that's taking the internet by outrage.
The campaign, for those of you don't know about it, has the tag line "Forget about it. Men’s preferences will never change." And it shows the following iconic images, reimagined. I've looked for as close to what I could find of the originals.
The implication of the ad is that no matter what overweight women do to appear sexy, it's just not going to happen. Men are, according to the ad, set in their ways, and we're just going to have to live with it (and eat their low fat yogurt).
The problem is that their images don't seem to work in the way that they were intended. Which is why I was confused.
Going back to look for the original American Beauty image, I was shocked at how emaciated Mena Suvari looks. You can see her rib cage. She has no boobs. (If you click on the image above, you'll be directed to a larger version.) The airbrushed woman in the ad, on the other hand, seems to be curvy in all the right spots, and she looks sexy as hell. I do sort of object to the retouching. There's not a bulge or lump or fold or blemish on her. I see a lot of naked and near naked women. Nature is not that kind to even the most fit among us.*
The look on the face of the woman in the reimagined Basic Instinct is as confident as anything Sharon Stone pulled out in the movie. She doesn't seem to have any problems at all being in her own skin, and that as much as her physicality, is what made the Sharon Stone character so damned sexy in the movie.
The Marilyn model I think suffers the most in the comparison. Part of it is that Marilyn is the most iconic of the three. The image is the most famous, and it is the one that fails for pretty much anyone that tries to do it. (Can I just say how much I love that dress?) I keep thinking that the hair is all wrong on the model. It's too long and too curly, and it distracts me. The other problem is that front on view is the lest flattering of any of the shots taken from that series. Most of the images you'll find of the real Marilyn are from a much better angle. The sides of a woman's legs are generally going to look better than the front. But again, the confidence that the model exudes helps make her look damned good in the shot.
I suppose that the point of the ads is that no matter how very good a woman thinks she looks, no matter how much airbrushing and confidence she exudes, if she's fat, men aren't going to want her. And in some ways, I sort of am the type of woman that would buy into that theory, given my less than stellar history with men, and the fact that one guy flat out told me that my weight was the factor that made him decide I wasn't someone he wanted. I've always suspected that I wasn't going to be wanted unless I was skinnier, and there really hasn't been much to counter that theory in my experience.
But I don't think that these photographs are the best evidence for the argument. I think that these photoghraphs actually do the opposite, and maybe give me hope that my less than tiny physique could actually be considered beautiful.
With airbrushing.
But then I'm not a guy.
*I recently took somewhat shameful pleasure in seeing some woman's ass in the locker room a few days ago after swimming. This woman was slender and tall and lean and all the things I'm not. But even she had to deal with cellulite.
The campaign, for those of you don't know about it, has the tag line "Forget about it. Men’s preferences will never change." And it shows the following iconic images, reimagined. I've looked for as close to what I could find of the originals.
The implication of the ad is that no matter what overweight women do to appear sexy, it's just not going to happen. Men are, according to the ad, set in their ways, and we're just going to have to live with it (and eat their low fat yogurt).
The problem is that their images don't seem to work in the way that they were intended. Which is why I was confused.
Going back to look for the original American Beauty image, I was shocked at how emaciated Mena Suvari looks. You can see her rib cage. She has no boobs. (If you click on the image above, you'll be directed to a larger version.) The airbrushed woman in the ad, on the other hand, seems to be curvy in all the right spots, and she looks sexy as hell. I do sort of object to the retouching. There's not a bulge or lump or fold or blemish on her. I see a lot of naked and near naked women. Nature is not that kind to even the most fit among us.*
The look on the face of the woman in the reimagined Basic Instinct is as confident as anything Sharon Stone pulled out in the movie. She doesn't seem to have any problems at all being in her own skin, and that as much as her physicality, is what made the Sharon Stone character so damned sexy in the movie.
The Marilyn model I think suffers the most in the comparison. Part of it is that Marilyn is the most iconic of the three. The image is the most famous, and it is the one that fails for pretty much anyone that tries to do it. (Can I just say how much I love that dress?) I keep thinking that the hair is all wrong on the model. It's too long and too curly, and it distracts me. The other problem is that front on view is the lest flattering of any of the shots taken from that series. Most of the images you'll find of the real Marilyn are from a much better angle. The sides of a woman's legs are generally going to look better than the front. But again, the confidence that the model exudes helps make her look damned good in the shot.
I suppose that the point of the ads is that no matter how very good a woman thinks she looks, no matter how much airbrushing and confidence she exudes, if she's fat, men aren't going to want her. And in some ways, I sort of am the type of woman that would buy into that theory, given my less than stellar history with men, and the fact that one guy flat out told me that my weight was the factor that made him decide I wasn't someone he wanted. I've always suspected that I wasn't going to be wanted unless I was skinnier, and there really hasn't been much to counter that theory in my experience.
But I don't think that these photographs are the best evidence for the argument. I think that these photoghraphs actually do the opposite, and maybe give me hope that my less than tiny physique could actually be considered beautiful.
With airbrushing.
But then I'm not a guy.
*I recently took somewhat shameful pleasure in seeing some woman's ass in the locker room a few days ago after swimming. This woman was slender and tall and lean and all the things I'm not. But even she had to deal with cellulite.