It all started with those Dove ads that show all the hot, mostly naked girls in weirdly desexualized lingerie with the tagline: ?Real women have curves.? I can only assume it?s from this sentence alone that we are supposed to guess that the women in the ad are fat or have otherwise culturally unacceptable bodies (a few are people of color, one has a large tattoo, another is sort of tomboyish). The ads are part of Dove soap?s ?campaign for real beauty,? another tip-off that we?re supposedly looking at women larger than the usual ?unreal? models.
And yet if it weren?t for Dove?s helpfully-condescending slogans for these women, I would never have pegged them for ?real.? Sure, their underwear is kind of drab, but every model has flawless skin, shiny hair, a radiant smile, and not a dimple of cellulite anywhere on her ?real? body. None of them have flab or wrinkles. And their breasts are perfectly perktacular! I?m definitely in the audience of ?real-bodied? women the ads are aimed at, but I don?t see my body up there. I see the same old airbrushed cuties, except with less makeup, slightly more muscle, and no Victoria?s Secret.
In New York, people with magic markers started doctoring the ads with occasionally fat-phobic, occasionally anti-corporate, and occasionally utterly random comments. In Dusseldorf, a local branch of zippy advertising agency Ogilvy took up space on local bus stops with a parodic campaign for real men?s bodies.
That?s when the new craze for ?real? women took off. Nike launched its ?big butts, thunder thighs, and tomboy knees? campaign, which only exists in print and online ? perhaps because the TV audience isn?t ready for such ?frank? representations of unfeminine body parts on women. Like the Dove ads, these Nike spots revel in women whose bodies are supposedly unlike those of fashion models. They also include unusually beautiful women of color in with ?real? unskinny or boyish women. According to an AdAge story:
Trend expert Faith Popcorn of Brain Reserve, New York, said the shift did not start in advertisements. “No copywriter did this,” she said. “It started when we started to celebrate the black and Hispanic culture. In those cultures you can be a little ‘butty’ and even have a little mustache, too, and it’s considered cool and attractive. Now these white girls are looking at themselves and saying, ‘I don’t want to be a stick, I want to be natural.’”
One is left with the weird sense that not being white is somehow the cultural equivalent of being fat or hairy, two natural feminine states that advertising often tries to cure.
When I watched a commercial on Nike?s website of a woman caressing her ?thunder thighs,? I was once again struck by the unreality of the body in front of me. I saw two muscular thighs, not particularly large, framed by a pair of trim (Nike) gym shorts. If those delectable gams were supposed to be almost unacceptably heavy, then my own body is much farther beyond the pale than I ever realized.
As for the Gap?s new lines of women?s jeans – ?curvy,? ?original,? and ?straight? – I stared and stared at pictures of the three supposedly different body types the jeans are designed to fit, looking for differences. But I was only able to discern that the model who wore ?straight? actually stood perfectly straight, while the ?curvy? model had cocked her hip into an exaggerated C shape. An AP article about the new jeans tells us helpfully, ?The new curvy fit is for the woman whose waist is considerably smaller than her hips - whose jeans often gap at the back of the waistband. There?s a deeper curve in the seam shape, eliminating extra fabric at the top.?
What the hell does that mean? Julie Vaughan, Gap?s senior director of denim design, clarifies: ?We designed the jean on a curvy model. The curvy has a contoured waistband. It hugs the waist, and it has an easy fit through the hips and thighs.?
So curvy means curvy and you figure out what they?re trying to get at. You?d never know from actually looking at the Gap?s ads for the new jeans featuring preternaturally firm asses. The other day, as I headed to the men?s section of the Gap to buy pants, I reflected once again that I never see myself represented in fashion ads aimed at women. I only see myself in the men?s ads. Men have such reassuring ways of sizing their pants – I can buy 34 30 instead of ?curvy? or ?thunder thighs.? I guess I?d rather be a number than a ?real beauty.?
