For the record, I’d like to state that I consider myself to
be a staunch feminist, and women’s issues are very important to me. I proudly support Planned Parenthood, equal
pay for equal work seems like a no-brainer to me, I acknowledge that rape
culture is a prevalent problem that needs to be discussed more seriously, and I
don’t think sexism should be tolerated in any form under any circumstance. I am also no stranger to body image
issues. As a size 10, I’m at that awkward
in-between stage between “healthily curvy” and “overweight,” and I’m big enough
up top that I’ve never really been able to pull off modern fashion trends
because there’s no way I can go without a bra.
I’m also keenly aware that the female ideal as portrayed by the media
can be damaging to one’s self-esteem because it encourages women to strive
toward an unattainable goal. However, in
spite of all of that, I find the rabid hatred toward the fashion industry to be
frustratingly unproductive.
Fashion, by nature, is constantly in flux. It’s true that the Twiggy era of models has
had a decently long run and that supermodels have only gotten skinnier since
then. But fashion, as with everything
else, is like a pendulum. It swings all
the way to one end, and then, necessarily, must swing back in the other
direction to keep things new and fresh.
Consider the beauty standard in the 50s—a time when Marilyn
Monroe was the world’s sexiest woman and curves were in. Many women who gripe about Kate Moss’ waifish
figure tend to hold up Marilyn as their ideal, and pine for the days when their
love handles could be accepted by society.
But the 50s were famously bad for women, and body image was no less of
an issue then than it is now. Instead of
today’s ads featuring unbelievable tales of weight loss due to pills, diet
supplements, home remedies, or surgeries, they had ads featuring unbelievable
tales of weight gain due to pills,
diet supplements, home remedies, or surgeries.
One might be inclined to argue that the models in these ads
look a lot healthier than the ones featured in today’s fashion magazines, and
I’d be inclined to agree, but the fact still remains that there was a very
strong pressure to look a certain way, and the women who did not meet this
standard were encouraged to strive toward it by potentially unhealthy
methods. My point is that throughout
advertising history, whether the models were skinny or voluptuous, consumers
have always compared themselves to what they saw in the media, and this has
always had a negative effect on self-image.
Now let’s put history aside for a moment and talk about
advertising. Not to get all Don Draper
on y’all, but if you haven’t noticed, everything in this world is
advertising. Your car, your shampoo, the
gin in your cabinet, the Tylenol in your purse, the Duracell batteries in your
TV remote for christ’s sake. Advertising
is a necessary evil in a capitalist society.
And what they’re selling is a lifestyle.
Have you ever noticed how a lot of the ads you see don’t even show the
product they’re selling? I’ve noticed
this in the subway a lot when I’m looking around for something to keep me
entertained. Most of the pictures in
DSW’s current campaign, for instance, don’t even feature shoes. They just show beautiful people (or in some
cases, a beautiful couple) who epitomize an ideal lifestyle, and the goal is to
make you think that the product the company is selling will let you live that
lifestyle.
So what if I were to tell you that it has been statistically
proven that clothing companies that use plus size models in their primary
advertising campaigns don’t sell products as well as companies who don’t? It turns out that as much as we like to claim
otherwise, we don’t want to see
relatable people in our magazines. We
want to open those pages and be transported to a more glamorous life. We want to give ourselves goals (no matter
how unrealistic) and take a break from our normal lives to imagine ourselves in
a flowing Versace dress by a poolside with a hot cabana boy. Maybe not consciously… but I know you know
what I’m talking about.
And therein lies the problem. Companies will never advertise their products
with conventionally “unattractive” people, and even if they did, you wouldn’t
want them to. It’s just a fact of human
nature that we constantly compare ourselves to others, even, and maybe
especially, when we deem them to be better than us. And do companies exploit that in order to
make a buck? Certainly. But I don’t think that the consumer is powerless
against the almighty advertising machine—in fact, I posit that all you need to
do is take a different approach to the advertising that you see, and companies
will still thrive without the side effect of making everyone over a size 2 feel
bad about themselves.
Consider this: we all know by now that there’s a huge
production that goes into the making of a fashion image. There’s a hair stylist, a makeup stylist, a
wardrobe stylist, there’s a photographer who knows what lighting and posing
will be most flattering for the model… and then after that there’s a whole team
of retouchers whose job it is to transform the model from a pretty girl to a
goddess. Dove did an excellent job of
illustrating this phenomenon to the world in their “Evolution” video back in
2006, but allow me to reinforce that with a little experiment I did on myself.
Using the techniques I’ve learned as a photographer trying
to break into the fashion industry, I used what is referred to as “butterfly
lighting” to get the most flattering lighting on my face, I put myself against
a simple black foam core backdrop, I pulled my hair back, and I did my
makeup. After that, I opened the file in
Photoshop and did all the retouching that would normally be done on a fashion
image, and as you can see, by the end of it, I’ve been quite transformed.
What was interesting to me was that when I put the final
version up on Facebook, even with a disclaimer in the caption saying that the
image had been highly retouched, I still got tons of comments from friends
about how beautiful I looked and how I should be a model. Even my own friends, people who know me, didn’t seem notice that the
girl in that picture isn’t me.
What I’m trying to say is that Dove and other body-positive
companies and campaigns can shove it down your throat 'til they’re blue in the
face that the images you see in magazines aren’t real… but there’s still going
to be a part of you that ignores that.
What I want you to do is to stop seeing those people in those ads as
people. See them as art. See them as a composition. If you separate yourself from the idea that
the scenes in these ads portray a life that you could aspire to, and people
that you could aspire to be, and instead just focus on the raw beauty of the
color and composition like you would a painting, then I think you’ll find that
you’ll still get a kind of vicarious catharsis from the picture without
actually feeling the need to compare yourself to it.
Think of it this way: even the model in the ad doesn’t
actually look like she does in the magazine.
The girl in the magazine is, indeed, a model in the truest sense of the
word: “a representation of a person
or thing.” When seen that way, the
person in the magazine isn’t any more real than a sculpture—based on reality,
but only a copy, a representation. And aren’t we so much more beautiful than
that? With our frustrations and our
fears and our pimples and bad hair days… we are so much more than a mere
representation of life.
So the next time you see an advertisement with a beautiful
woman, look at her like you would at a Modigliani painting.
Appreciate the subtleties in
the artist’s choice of light and posing.
Notice the way the satin texture of Arizona’s dress reflects the light
like you would notice the way Modigliani’s brush strokes add dimension to the
painting. And most importantly, remember
that the woman in the picture is not Arizona Muse. The woman in the picture does not exist
because she is the product of many artists working together to create a representation of Arizona Muse in order
to sell jewelry. And you, my dear, are
so much more than that.
