Victoria's Secret

 

Honestly, this commercial just makes me really, really angry. Maybe it's supposed to be a "joke", making fun of how glorified the Victoria's Secret Angels all are. But even so, just listen to what they are saying.

"Tell me you love me. Tell me you miss me. Excite me. Dazzle me. Delight me. Tell me there's no other woman in the world like me."

I know that this is basically the angels reciting what most women are thinking and wishing that their signinficant other would do for them for Christmas. But the whole commercial is just them lounging in their bras and underwear with perfect bodies wanting someone to tell them that there is no other woman in the world like them. Obviously not!!! Probably about 0.00001% or less of women in the world have bodies that look like this.

Personally, whenever I see these commercials I know that I feel bad about myself. What girl wouldn't? Even though our moms always tell us "honey, you're beautiful the way you are. Those girls aren't even real," we continue to compare ourselves to them. We see this everywhere we look. There are girls who are half naked with zero flaws in many ads and commercials, making us feel that we need to buy the product they are promoting in order to get just a little bit closer to being one of "them". This is very similar to the idea of a "midriff" from the video we watched in class, Merchants of Cool. Girls are being sexualized (if that's a word) earlier and earlier. In the video, we saw a thirteen year old telling us that she feels as if she needs to put on makeup and look good anywhere she goes. There was also video of her grinding on some guy at a party. She was only 13!! What's it going to be like in 50 years? Will girls be doing this when they're 8?

 

 

Whenever I see ads like this for Victoria's Secret, or their commercials on TV, I always say to myself "yeah, we get it." Even though Victoria's Secret's choices for marketing are limited, due to the fact that it's an all women's apparel store mainly comprised of underwear, they should change it up a little bit. Maybe make a commercial that's funny instead of one that tries SO hard to be sexy, in the meantime making girls want to cry and go on a diet of celery.

 

The approach that I feel the Victoria's Secret marketing people are using is to make the girls feel that they need to get their stuff in order to look beautiful. They don't promote natural beauty or modesty, but they support flaunting what you have as much as possible. When little girls see this, they think that it's okay. I may be taking this a little too far, but I think that these ads are corrupting young girls' minds. Also, it is poisoning to the minds of teen girls and all women, making them believe that being the same body type as these models is the only way to be beautiful. This is completely false. All body types are beautiful. More girls need to realize that just because they look different from Victoria's Secret Angels, that does NOT mean they aren't good enough.