Victoria 's Secret 's Ad The Perfect Body Essay

In our society today a business is not a business without an advertisement. These advertisements advertise what American’s want and desire in their lives. According to Jack Solomon in his essay, “Master’s of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon claims: “Because ours is a highly diverse, pluralistic society, various advertisements may say different things depending on their intended audiences, but in every case they say something about America, about the status of our hopes, fears, desires, and beliefs”(Solomon). Advertisers continue to promote the American dream of what a women’s body should look like. They advertise their products in hopes for consumers to buy them, so they can look like the models pictures in the ads. Behind these ads, advertisers tend to picture flawless unrealistic woman with the help of Photoshop. In our society today to look like a model is an American dream and can be the reasons why we fantasizes and buy these products being advertised. “America’s consumer economy runs on desire, and advertising stokes the engines by transforming common objects;signs of all things that Americans covet most”(Solomon).

Like stated before, Aerie shows African American, Asian, Latina, and Caucasian girls in this specific ad. Most advertising directed towards adolescents, pictures white men and women. Jennifer E. Millard and Peter R. Grant examined how black and white women were portrayed in photographs and found that black women are found in more submissive or less sexually provoking poses than white women (659). While most of the women in Aerie’s ad (three out of six) were Caucasian women, the other three models were minorities which is a big step in advertising. Millard and Grant’s study also found preliminary results that black women are underrepresented in photographs and expressed difficulty even finding photographs of black women that would work for their study (670). The fact that Aerie includes not only black women but also a Latina and Asian model is incredibly significant because of the underrepresentation of minorities in fashion

For women, advertising exemplifies the ideal female body. According to Kilbourne, young girls are taught from a very early age that they need to spend lots of time and money to achieve this “physical perfection.” But realistically this cannot be achieved. The ideal woman’s body is Caucasian, very skinny, big breasts, no flaws, and pretty much no pores. This cannot be achieved because it is physically impossible to look like this; the illusion comes from the secret world of Photoshop. No woman is beautiful enough so they leave it to technology to create perfection. The supermodel Cindy Crawford said, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford!” She knew the realities of Photoshop and body image, and more women and girls need to become aware of this as well.

Many fitness advertisements proclaim the idea of the "perfect" body. This is done in ads targeting both women and men. This constant display of the "perfect" body causes women and men to feel like they have to look like the featured models to be accepted, which can often lead to negative body images. One source of advertising where the idea of the "perfect" body can often be seen is in print advertisements featured magazines. These fitness advertisements are usually for athletic shoes/clothes or weight-loss products and often feature a model who is thin and toned. As mentioned by Chandler and Sabiston (2009) there are two types of fitness advertising; model-focused and product- focused (Chandler and Sabiston, 2009). With

Moreover, as Richins (1991) reports, women always make social comparisons between the advertising models and themselves. As a result, advertising images create negative affect and increases women’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Since those images are edited through the consistent usage of digital technology, these idealized images do not portray women in a healthy manner. Indeed, these enhanced images would give these young girls the impression that they need to be ‘perfect’, just like these ‘fake’ images. According to Reist in ABC’s Gruen Session (2010), ‘young women get the message that they need to be thin, hot and sexy just to be acceptable’ in this society. Therefore, by generating the wrong perception of real beauty, the responsibility is pushed to the marketers, as they portray women with this stereotypical body type as acceptable. In addition, as the brand, Dove’s tagline in its advertisement - What happened to the ‘real beauty’? (Reist, 2010), marketers need not market their products in manners portraying women as airheads. Consequently, marketers gave most consumers viewing the advertisement, the wrong impression that

This image entitled “The perfect Body Campaign: Advertisement 1” portrays pale bodies juxtaposed against an achromatic backdrop, each either slyly looking away or smiling coquettishly at the camera. Thick, sizable lettering fills the center of the image audaciously proclaiming that these women have “The Perfect Body”. Each woman wears a matching bra and pantie. Their bodies are svelte with at least one of their feet angled into a pointed position as if they are dancing their way into the viewers’ bedrooms. A darker figure occupies the center of the image. Her skin is is just a few shades darker than those standing next to her, and her darkness is not palpable until the image is given a second glance, in part because the white bodies surrounding her act as a band-aid for her blackness. The very lighting of the image haunts the darker woman by painting her pores a shade lighter than they actually appear. If the viewer looks closely at the model’s left arm in comparison to their stomach, the stark contrast between the nearly white elbow and tan stomach becomes apparent. The contrast is hidden by the woman on her left shoulder and the positioning of the arm next to lighter panties. Again light and whiteness conceal the true nature of the middle model 's skin.

Youthful kids today are so stressed over what they look like and how they dress. Today 42% of young ladies in grades 1-3 need to be more slender, 51% of 9-10 year old young ladies feel better about themselves when they are eating less, 53% of 13 year old young ladies are despondent with their bodies and when they are 17, 78% of them will be. For what reason do you imagine that these young ladies feel along these lines? Promotions of ladies being 'flawless' impact pre-adulthood. When they are 17, these young ladies have seen 250,000 TV ads revealing to them they ought to be an enhancing object, sex question, or a size they can never accomplish. In this promotion it demonstrates how photoshopped this female model is. In the best picture she has

To feel body confident, you need to be happy with who you are as a women with or without curves. Many women in this century are facing a lack of confidence by the way they look. Women may lower their self esteem by seeing another women with a beautiful feature and compare their look with someone else. A women’s body image is based on thoughts and feelings regarding the way her body looks. Sometimes, they also believe other people are judging their appearance which can affect their body image. Victoria’s Secret unveiled their campaign slogan the “Perfect Body” with an image of tall and skinny models. However, Curvy Kate, a lingerie brand, recreates an image using models of all shapes and sizes mocking the Victoria’s Secrets slogan. I argue that the Victoria’s Secret slogan, “The Perfect Body” shouldn’t symbolize their tall physique models by aiming for women with a smaller waist size. The advertisement shows its audience that the perfect body is for smaller and slimmer

One will see a white female with pouting red lips and the very petite body that resembles a thirteen-year-old girl. The extremely artificial women and the heavily photo-shopped pictures in these ad’s create a norm and make those women who look differently, feel insecure of who they are and make them feel as if they are less of a woman, for example they tend to over represent the Caucasian, blonde with bright eyes, white complexion and a petite body. This is an unattainable beauty for most women, which has caused many to develop issues such as eating disorders, depression and the very much talked about these days, anorexia.

Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women, and their bodies, sell everything from food to cars. Women's magazines are full of articles urging women to fit a certain mold. While standing in a grocery store line you can see all different magazines promoting fashion, weight loss, and the latest diet. Although the magazines differ, they all seemingly convey the same idea: if you have the perfect body image you can have it all…the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. The media, whether TV, print, or Internet advertising, seems to play a huge role in influencing women of all ages; from adolescence and teens, to women in their twenties and thirties, as well as

Advertising uses a lot of different techniques to show the public the perfect female image. Body doubles and computer retouching are two examples of how advertisers are able to “doctor” images. The majority of women we see in magazines, music videos. and movies do not appear in reality, as we perceive them in the media. We may actually believe we are looking at one woman’s body when we are actually looking at sections of three or four women’s bodies, which, when spliced together, shows us the best parts of each women’s body as the final product. Women cannot attain these impossible standards of attractiveness. Young girls learn very quickly that they must spend much time, energy, and money on achieving these standards.

Jean Kilbourne (2010) in the video Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s image of women pointed out that people always assume the women in advertisements have the perfect look and a good figure. Many women even feel ashamed when they failed to achieve ideal beauty and retain slim figure after they saw the advertisements. I agree with her idea that the advertisement depict women in a very dangerous way. Many people started to judge women by perfect look and slim figure. These kinds of advertisements may do harm to women’s health mentally and physically, especially to teenagers, when they are trying to achieve perfect appearance as perfect women depicted in advertisements.

I recall when this commercial came out and the controversy behind it. Lane Bryant is an apparel store for plus size women. Lane Bryant an apparel store for plus size ladies, and Lane Bryant felt that Victoria Secret was speaking to just thin ladies and body disgracing hefty size female. After this controversy Lane Bryant turned out her own commercial using plus size models. The commercial includes the 2014 Angels in Victoria's Secret's regular revealing bras and underwear catwalk. In any case, critics say that demonstrating the slim models with the expression "The Perfect 'Body' " printed over them is some next-level body shaming (Dwyer, 2014). The Victoria's Secret Company has been known throughout the years for the pivoting cast of models

     The appearance of these models is the primary concern of the ads and entails many different elements. Every model portrays a different characteristic through the pose they are in and the clothes that they wear. One ad depicts a sexy young woman who shows confidence by extending her arms out and exposing her flat stomach. Her hips are thrust to the left side, her long beautiful hair is gently blown back, and her facial expression and eye contact hint at sexual desire or acceptance of the viewer. Another female model also has her hips out to the left, but her hands express a different idea. While one hand is used to play with her hair, the other is up to her face with her pointer finger right below her bottom lip. Her hair partly covers her eyes and with her head slightly down, she comes off as shy but confidant. The confidence comes from her exposed stomach and direct eye contact that she makes with the viewer. These two women are somewhat opposite in how they come off which shows that Calvin Klein is trying to appeal to what different guys look for and appreciate in a woman.

The media is one of the leading causes of self esteem and body image issues in not only women but men as well. This is due to the fact that thousands of advertisements contain messages about physical attractiveness and beauty. Examples include: commercials for clothes, cosmetics, weight loss, hair removal, laser surgery and physical fitness. The effects of advertising on body image have been studied by researchers, psychologists, marketing professionals and more. Researchers, Mary Martin and James Gentry found that teen directed advertising negatively impacts self-esteem. The advertising industry is setting unrealistic expectations for teens about their physical appearances by using models with "perfect bodies." The modeling industry today has put many pressures on models, causing them disorders of both mental and physical illness. These disorders then creating the look of the “perfect body” have now lead to unrealistic expectations of body image for society.