Welcome to BLOGJAM. Our topic today is: "Real women" as models, are we looking for healthier role models or just lowering our standards?
Our panelists today are Nancy Rommelmann, Jackie Danicki and Rob Campbell. Nancy, Jackie and Rob, if you are here, please say hello to our audience and each other. And please, panelists – remember to refresh your screen regularly.
I would interject a third idea here: that we're pretending the "real women" in the Dove billboards are representative of real women, thus erecting a new fake ideal woman. Nothing new here.
I would interject a third idea: that we are pretending the "real women" in the Dove ads are representative of real women, thus erecting a new fake ideal. Nothing new here.
I don't know if models are seen as role models as a matter of course, unless you're just talking about role models for physical beauty. If that's the case, why not have them as gorgeous as possible. People love looking at beautiful people. They don't need to be reminded about the many flaws of the human body on a fifty-foot billboard, do they?
YES - I agree that "real" and REAL are very different - No matter how "real" marketing people attempt to make their models look, they're still going to choose attractive people and make them even more so through whatever techniques they employ after the shoot.
The women on Iman's book do look pretty great. And I'm pleased. And like Rob, I want to look at great looking people. I had to talk with a woman yesterday whose face was covered in moles, and it was tough. No one is going to put her in an ad. But the whole real women thing seems to me disingenuous; every woman I know who saw it, said, yeah, right; they'e real, but they're still gorgeous. We should all be so gorgeous. Wait, let me amend that: there were some women I know who were very offended by looking at a nud-ish size 14 woman; as though this woman was not polished enough, not disciplined enough to polish and wittle herself down to a becoming size 2. These women were actually angry: how dare they flaunt that fat and give the rest of us a bad name?!
If overweight models present a poor imag, how about very thin models, don’t they (excuse the pun) feed into other eating disorders? Doesn't anyone think - how dare they flaunt their eating disorders?
They were fit. I'm fit, too, but I like the way the Dove gals look; they look sexy. But in any case, the women who were angry, I think equate their trimness with control--and in a way, it is; being very overweight, or sloppy and massive, or weak puts us at a disadvantage--and they see women who are overweight as weak, as putting undue pressures on society to like them the way they are; of yoking women with weakness.
MMM - Nancy - you hit a rich vein there bringing up the issue of control. So you're saying these are women who feel that their control over their own lives is somehow compromised by the use of large models in major ad campaigns... Yikes. People who have that much need for control often have a real problem seeing other people as anything but objects, anyway.
I don't think "we" are doing anything. Some companies are trying to make money and headlines by using "real women" as models. It's about as laudable as some guy showing up at a party with a plain girl and then making a big to-do about the fact that his date is so unremarkable.
Rob - Tiny little baby thin girl models are otherwordly; they're essentially mythical, pretty pretty hangers for pretty pretty clothes. At a certain point, we realize we are not going to have the body or the Burberry, but I can still enjoy the aesthetic. Tiny little baby thin boy models look incredibly weak to me, I have no use for a man who lies around pouting, in mascara.
Oh sheesh, I didn't even think about men - you're right, you never see "plus-size" male models -- in face, their either sylph-like boys or gym-dandy ladykiller types.
In gay culture, there's a big craze for what we call "bears," who are basically fat guys; and there are quite a few magazines that use them both as pornographic and print ad models. I'd challenge Target or Sears to employ the same breadth of scope.
What is the allue of bears? I've seen them in SF, and in mags; many do not bathe; they don't shave; they're fat; they seem the anti-gay aesthetic ideal. What gives?
Re "the vulnerable young," I don't think I was damaged by growing up as an obsessive Vogue reader who made collages of supermodels (the true ones: Linda, Christy, Claudia, Naomi) for her bedroom walls and was just generally awestruck by all that beauty. Who could be worse off for being exposed to such gigantic beauty, airbrushed or not? I would be surprised to learn that young people only started feeling self-conscious about their looks since the advent of the advert.
Janice - of course, it's all about money, and you're absolutely right that there's nothing at all laudable about any of it. The reason there's so much hoopla about issues like this is that people take marketing way too seriously--more seriously than they do their own realities--and that causes problems. I think it's possible to develop an incredibly beneficial jaundiced eye towards advertising and mass media in general, and remain un-cynical about the "real" world, whatever that means to you (unless advertising IS your "real" world).
Nancy! - Different strokes, darlin'! The non-bathing part is a whole other subculture, but I think there are lots of people both gay and straight who are sexually attracted to fat people--not just pleasantly plump or stalky or husky, but fat. For some, sexual quirks that veer viciously away from the mainstream are incredibly freeing.
That's a good challenge (to Sears and Target), and seems to me much more genuine and certainly more interesting than displaying a size 14 gal and saying, yay for us! Self-congratulatory disigenuity does not further the discussion or the craft; putting some interesting people out there--as many ads so, albeit they're usually thin interesting-looking people--is far more engaging.
I work in marketing, so perhaps my eye is more jaundiced than most. I just don't think Dove deserves any kudos for their campaign, for a number of reasons, but primary amongst them is that pointing out how sub-standard the women are is just bad manners. (Also, a professional photographer I know finds it hilarious that so many people think those ads haven't been airbrushed. Just shows how skewed our perceptions are when retouched photos look 'raw' to so many of us.)
Regarding the effect of skinny models on "de-sexualizing" -- I think our entire culture is de-sexualized to such an extent that there is a huge schism between who we are, and who we are sexually -- people are immediately taken aback by anything that looks or smells like something "really" sexy (as opposed to the manufactured version of sexy)
Calvin Klein did the 'ugly model' thing several years ago. Do a Google search for ugly+model+agency - there are quite a few out there for the facially challenged.
And I think skinny models are just the ones on whom clothes look best. I wouldn't read anything - sinister or otherwise - into it. The people who run the fashion industry aren't that clever.
Yes, a weak-looking man does scare me. As I once told a friend, a man who is worrying about his hair is not worrying enough about my ass (meaning, if he needs to save it, not appreciate it). Men, in my book, need to be active, and the latest NY Times Men's Fashion Mag seems to agree: in almost every shot, the model was "doing" something: skateboarding, holding a pen, riding a waverider, caressing a vaguely industrial outfit. Of course, the shots were all posed and incredibly fey, and I found myself laughing out loud at the incongruity.
Yes, I agree that it's very bad manners to pat themselves on the back because their models look so "ordinary." And anyone who thinks ANY ad picture ANYWHERE hasn't been airbrushed has been brainbrushed.
Jackie - The airbushed issue: if everyone ust accepted that this is now the case, and we know it is, then perhaps the discussion about the other 99% of the population ever looking like these models could just cease, and we could enjoy (or not) the shots for what they are: images used in advertising, not ideals aimed at us. Now, as far as fitting into the clothes...
Okay, so Nancy, in order for a man in an ad to be appealing to you, you have to believe that he could jump down from the billboard and save your ass if so called upon? Hey, some of the toughest kids in Bakersfield were the skinny fags (like me) who had to learn how to fend off attackers daily!
Nancy - images used in advertising, not ideals aimed at us...is exactly what I was talking about in my very first post when I said "why do models have to be seen as 'role' models at all?" So it's really true that all good conversations go in circles. :)
They don't ALL need to save me. I like David Bowie in all his incarnations; I like people being at a remove from me; I like someone looking smoky lying on a couch, looking like he wouldn't lift a finger. I like to look at it. But I would not like to live it too much; I would not like Din to spend an hour doing his hair. It does scare me, men or women, being so consumed with what they look like that they cannot act quickly.
Nancy, Rob and Jackie - thanks. We've reached the end of our official time. Please feel free to stay online and give us some feedback. Or you can email us.
Oh god, no - I wouldn't want anyone I actually know in person to spend an hour doing their hair - but you can bet anyone who's photographed, whether beautiful, plain or ugly, gets an hour spent on his or her hair.
I'm fairly removed from any sort of glamor circle these days, so I don't know a lot of people who spend a lot of time on their appearance, but I agree that it is scary to think about people who are so concerned with what they look like that they can't act spontaneously in any given situation!
What I find more disturbing than teenage girls getting upset that they don't look like the hot teen idol of the moment are the women who get upset that they don't look like the hot grown-up actress of the moment.
I used to have a strong need to acquire (read: buy) anything beautiful which I saw. I only realised a few years ago, with a big clang that sounded an awful lot like "No doy!", that I didn't have to possess these things in order to admire their beauty. I don't have to buy the pretty, smooth Moleskines or the pink and purple cashmere argyle socks, or the magenta silk cami with an embroidered butterfly on the left breast. I can just look at it, take in the beauty, and move on to the next beautiful thing, the next beautiful moment. In a way, I think women get that way about coveting the beauty of others as they age, too: I don't want to look like Angelina Jolie, but I do want to look like the best me that I can. Not to sound self-congratulatory - because, again, no doy - but I know quite a few women who haven't got to that stage, and I'm just glad they're too neurotic to have found someone to help them pro-create and foist these attitudes on daughters.
THANKS GUYS - that was fun - here's some feedback - I found it very hard to navigate, and was using my back button to move from the post listings page back to my comment box, then erasing my previous comment and writing a new one. There should be a button on the post listings page that takes you directly to a new post window, and that page should also refresh automatically. Again, thanks!
See y'all later
Rob
Not sure if you two are still here: I think Tafv, while she does plaster her room with photos of models, does not do it so much to look like them as for roadsigns. This will never change. We look out and try to find our tribes and ideals and make mistakes and then, hopefully, find some people and some more peace of mind. But I think she has a better idea, better than I and wat sounds like you had, Jackie, that she is not supposed to look like these women and if she doesn't, she's a failue. She looks at them for options
Nancy - I'm not sure either. As moderator I was testing both more involved and hands off. Otherwise I would have loved to discuss the topic more. thanks
Thanks - this was enjoyable, even though I was a bit late and it took me a few minutes to work out how to navigate and stuff. I had two open windows - one with the posting form and one with the dialogue. It was a bit fiddly.
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Welcome to BLOGJAM. Our topic today is: "Real women" as models, are we looking for healthier role models or just lowering our standards?
Our panelists today are Nancy Rommelmann, Jackie Danicki and Rob Campbell. Nancy, Jackie and Rob, if you are here, please say hello to our audience and each other. And please, panelists – remember to refresh your screen regularly.