Tell me something. Have you ever looked at foundation undergarments online? Perhaps you have. And if so, have you ever noticed that there is a dearth of regular-looking women on these websites? Really. Most of the product models are, well, model-sized. Which is to say: Hey, lady, you don’t really need to firm and shape, do you?
However. If you look hard enough, you can find so-called “normal” women sporting these undergarments. Do you know where they are? In the before and after section. Sometimes they are tucked away under a button, like so:
And sometimes they are right out in the open, like so:
You know, there is something pretty fucking twisted about companies using models who don’t even need their products to sell their products. This is not a surprise, really — rare is the product marketed to women that isn’t based on an unattainable ideal. I get that the premise of these garments is to help a person look better in certain clothes, but I disagree, vehemently, with the fact that these models are held aloft as the ultimate end goal.
The very fact that these companies aren’t willing to show average-sized women wearing the product — except in the context of “look how awful before, and look how much improved after!” — insinuates that to be the size you are is to be bad. Shame on you for looking how you do! This is how you can hide it. Now, no woman actually believes that purchasing a shaping product will magically turn her into a size zero. So why the ludicrous double standard? What is the unholy point of hiring two completely different sets of women to model the same undergarments? How are any of us taking this message seriously anymore?
And for some reason this all feels very much like yesterday’s news. I have an acute sense of deja vu. Didn’t we already do accceptance this and love your body that and the celebration of beautiful women of all sizes? I thought we had, but apparently the message hasn’t really reached everyone yet. Not the undergarment companies, that’s for sure. Not even me. Why is it that I can say all these things, rationally, about how the widespread cultural adulation of unnatural body sizes is unhealthy, yet in nearly the same breath moan about how unsatisfied I am with my own body? Why do these images of bone-thin women — while visually unappealing — still manage to incite a rainstorm of negativity about myself?
Body image is a messy, messy thing. Many of us are just starting out on the road to self-acceptance. Maybe we’ll never quite fully arrive.
But here is a good place to start.
Amen! I’m amazed how anyone thinks that certain models or pictures of photoshopped into oblivion models are good ways to sell products. It’s baffling. We need more of folks like you, talking about their dislike of this type of advertising.
i always find that very annoying to see these models wearing spanx. what could they possibly need them for? I think they need to invent the opposite of spanx to give them asses and hips
Word. My mom got a Spanx catalog and all the women were thin and busty. I was like, “where are the jelly rolls? I want women with bellies and saddle bags and thighs that touch for crying out loud!” Shoot, I have all three and I’ll model that crap for free just to get my point across.
For a while I was presenting “Body Image and the Media” in local high schools. After watching “Killing Us Softly” and reading a ridiculous amount of feminist-eating disorders literature I was suddenly disgusted by all the harmful images women are bombarded with during the day (and girls). There is a lot of evidence and research that supports a culture of disordered eating impacted by cultural and societal messages that are directed via advertising. It’s a billion dollar industry for a reason- it works.
Not only does that model in the second picture have a body type that only 5% of all women can physically ever achieve, but I have issue with using women’s bodies to sell things in general. Like cutting off her head. Once we start treating women as objects to use to sell, then all bets are off.
I think giving women the tools to critically analyze and recognize bad advertising when they see it will help. I highly recommend watching youtube clips of Killing Us Softly (there are three, and they’re pretty dated, but the point is still there). I also really like the website- http://www.about-face.org/
Anyhoo- great post. Sorry for my mini-rant. 🙂
Rant away. I COMPLETELY agree with the objectification angle. I was going to go into how unsettling it was that all these women are headless, but I didn’t want to the post to ramble on forever.
You know, I believe you mentioned “Killing Us Softly” in a comment on Angie’s blog, and I ended up watching it in its entirety. I had been aware of these media issues before, but that video was a real eye-opener. I feel like the more I learn, the more I notice. That’s probably why these undergarment models leapt out at me.
I feel like we have so much further to go.
i get all the images and body acceptance arguments with this post, and the use of these very thing models for a product that is really marketed at regular women. body image is like chutes and ladders- you make some headway then come crashing down.
that said, i do love me some spanx. i’m a fit lady, but i don’t spend all my time doing crunches. it’s just the thing to help you feel svelte underneath a pencil skirt. what’s wrong with feeling sexy and a little bit like joan holloway?
Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it at all. I actually originally had a bit in there about how wearing Spanx and the like can be a real confidence booster, but I think I edited it out for brevity. My issue is with the way this sort of thing is presented to us. I think companies are missing out on the opportunity to put a positive spin on their marketing by showing real people Joan Hollowaying it up.
It’s an old argument but until we demand it over and over again, we will continue to slip into the old cycle. People generally don’t think critically about what they are seeing. And even once they do, once we find that rail thin, headless, 13-year-old unattractive an off-putting, we still struggle with how to feel good about what we are.
I think we’re all on board with having Christina Hendricks sell us spanks instead of the headless, 13-year-old. But, because we are all so different, I think that it is hard to please everyone without maintaining the norm regardless of how sick it is.
I am a size 6 and when I gain weight I’m that apple type person that just expands through the middle. It’s getting worse with age. And despite my rational understanding that skinny is ugly and I should love myself, voluptuous hotties like Christian Hendricks make me feel a little terrible too.
It all spirals back to how our society has this body image problem. I work out, I eat well, I’m a healthy size and yet I feel crappy about the way I look anyway.
The fact of the matter is, as much as I want to love Spanx because they do make the clothes look better, Spanx are part of the problem in the first place. To wear Spanx every day is to go back to the gurdle-wearing days of Joan Holloway. Honestly, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. It makes me feel like giving up – what the hell, use a skinny headless freak to sell them to me, I already feel terrible that I have to buy them in the first place. Even if I feel better in my clothes later. Until I eat dinner and I can’t breathe anymore.
Oh wow, I’m on a rant now… sorry.
Cool!! so fun that you watched it 🙂
I’m glad I wasn’t alone with the headless thing.
I agree with you and Maura, I also own a pair of spanx… they are some high quality trouser socks and I heart them very much.
but I agree with Lyn, there is a way to promote these in a much more respectful and less harmful way.
The problem is we have all been so thoroughly brainwashed that this advertising works! The skinny models in their spanx, the flawless women with their skin-care products, you name it, we apparently buy it. This is the same reason we can rationally say those models bodies are not attainable but as soon as we see our thighs with their jiggly bits we feel bad.
Michael Pollan has written some interesting things about our relationship to food – basically that we have become lost. Before the industrialization of food, we used to know what to eat without thinking too hard about it. But then we reduced food to nutrients and food science – and suddenly thousands of years of accumulated food wisdom and culture went out the window. Now we are at the whim of the next study and the next product the food industry develops. No wonder disordered eating is as prevalent as it is… we’re all kind of lost and alone figuring it out. And surrounded by pictures of skinny, airbrushed models.
The other night after we watched the first episode of this season’s Mad Men, we were watching a few interview-trailer type things that the production company had put together. They included the scene from first season, when they did the test group with the different colored lipsticks. The creatives were behind a one-way mirror, and Joan leaned over the table in her red dress, giving a great view of her extremely curvaceous butt, and all of the men stood and gave her butt an ovation.
I mention this because whenever this skinny ideal came into being (I think it started with the skinny models from the late ’60s and early ’70s), it really had nothing at all to do with what is attractive or healthy. When they started using 12-14 year old girls as models for women’s clothing in the 1970s and 1980s, someone should have stood up and said, “Stop. These are not women. These are girls. Let’s see how women look in your clothes.” Maybe then we would have destroyed the body images of three generations of women in the process.
Yes, its horrible that ‘normal’ women are relegated to the before and after section where we can all look and go “what a mess! thank goodness she was saved by spanx!”
and i highly agree that its disgusting to use just a models body parts – with no head – to sell something. Objectification much?
But I also want to point out that attacks on that extremely thin model are not helpful as well. It is equally as horrible to suggest that that body type is disgusting and not attractive or that she had to go to the hospital after the shoot. Yes, the ad industry should go to hell for forcing lots of models into an unhealthy body type and for making women feel ashamed of themselves, but we should all feel good in our own body type – whether our size is 0, 10, 20. Some of us are naturally tiny, some of us not – and thats fine.
I was a super skinny teenager and had people asking me if I was anorexic or make jokes about me puking my food or other shitty things. I’m not saying ‘woe is me!’ – I’m just saying lets respect all body types and promote healthy images of ourselves regardless.
Peace,
Jen
Thanks for pointing this out, Jen. I didn’t consider the repercussions the other way around. It must have been horrible to have been accused of having an eating disorder when you were younger. Apologies for my language are in order.
I do want to promote positivity about all natural body types. That’s the danger of holding just one size up as an ideal — no matter what size that may be, others would have to adopt unhealthy habits to attain that size. Mostly, though, I wish we could do away with the the guilt and shame that comes from not looking like the ideal. Bottom line, I wish there was no “ideal” — that right there could save us from years of body angst alone.
Apology totally accepted! No harm done! Thanks for listening and taking it to heart.
And yes, down with ideals! Because no matter what we look like or how strong we are, I have yet to meet a woman who hasn’t fallen to the ideals. Its the shittest shit storm ever.
Thanks for your comment, Jen. Skinny women are still women, they are still real, and they can be healthy and desirable. They’re just not the only women who can be healthy or desirable, which is where the entire culture is broken.
That being said, I never noticed this bizarre feature of shapewear advertising you’ve honed in on, Lyn, which might be my thin privilege in action. And it is pretty creepy, even without the decapitations.
It’s true there are consequences for thin bashing too. When I was in high school, I was asked if I was anorexic all the time too. It doesn’t help and made me want to hide my body all the time under giant t-shirts and layers. At the same time, once I started to lose that body, it was clear that it was the ideal that I couldn’t have anymore because I was no longer 16. And it wasn’t because I ate a lot or gained a lot of weight. Women change shape a little through the aging process (I’m 34 now).
It is still worse to glorify the ultra-thin teenage body type as if it is the only thing to desire. It’s bad for all of us – 0, 10, or 20.
I am seeing that this blog is from years ago – But, I was wondering what you ended up going with for your undergarments. I have the same dress, and my internet searchings have done me no use {besides landing me on this wonderful blog and drooling over your wedding style.}
Hi Caitlin! Happy to help. It’s kind of a hard dress to, well, dress for, especially with that deep v-neck in the center that shows a lot of normal kinds of bras. I tried a u-plunge bra but the particular one I tried was super uncomfortable, so for bust support I ended up getting these weird stick-on cups that clasp in the middle (Nu-Bra Fashion Forms, I think they’re called, they had them at Macy’s). They worked fine for me but I’d recommend not lotioning yourself before trying to stick them on. I also got a nude-to-me half-slip Spanx that started just under my bust and ended about mid-thigh. That ended up being a solid purchase since I’ve worn it under cocktail dresses to other weddings! Hope this helps a little.