![](\"http:\/\/media2.s-nbcnews.com\/i\/streams\/2014\/October\/141030\/1D274907109615-141029-VS-perfect-body-2001.jpg\")
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By Emily Passmore, Media Management, ’22<\/p>\n
A few years ago, the lingerie retailer, Victoria\u2019s Secret, launched the \u201cPerfect Body\u201d campaign. This campaign centered around Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2019s new \u201cbody bra\u201d designed to perfectly fit every body type. One advertisement used in this campaign featured several tall, thin models wearing the new lingerie with the words \u201cThe Perfect \u2018Body\u2019\u201d displayed overtop of the image.<\/p>\n
The imagery in this advertisement alone is extremely powerful and influential. Like those in countless other advertisements in similar industries, the models in this image are all tall, thin, and toned. These women, and their bodies, are objectified, portrayed as beautiful and desirable, and esteemed as an ideal. As if the imagery in this advertisement wasn\u2019t impactful enough, the words \u201cThe Perfect \u2018Body\u2019\u201d included in this advertisement only serve to reinforce what consumers have already been led to believe is true. That is, the perfect body is a thin body.<\/p>\n
Therefore, while on the surface, this advertisement may simply appear to be selling Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2019s new lingerie line, this advertisement is actually selling an impossible beauty standard. The lack of body diversity and representation in this advertisement aligns with hegemonic beauty beliefs and helps establish an impossible standard of beauty. In an industry that profits off consumers\u2019 insecurities, Victoria\u2019s Secret ultimately benefits from this, as consumers, unsatisfied with themselves, buy this lingerie in hopes of somehow achieving this impossible beauty standard.<\/p>\n
While countless other advertisements also influence viewers in similar ways, they usually appear to do so in more subtle, subconscious ways. This advertisement, however, boldly declares a tall, slender body to be the \u201cperfect body\u201d. Whether or not Victoria\u2019s Secret set out to do this, or whether they were simply trying to make a pun about their line of lingerie referred to as \u201cbody bras\u201d, Victoria\u2019s Secret is shaping the minds of women and girls in potentially harmful ways.<\/p>\n
One of the largest ways in which this Victoria\u2019s Secret advertisement has the potential to influence women and girls is by altering their perceptions and beliefs regarding beauty standards. Due to the lack of body diversity in their advertisements, certain body types are revered above others and pronounced the ideal or \u201cperfect body\u201d. Women are then left to compare their bodies to this ideal and made to feel less for being anything other than \u201cperfect\u201d. This practice can greatly contribute to negative self-esteem and body image, as well as other dangerous beliefs and behaviors.<\/p>\n
This advertisement ultimately speaks volumes about today\u2019s society, where toxic body image is pervasive and where women are often objectified, and their worth determined by their bodies. Women are led to believe, whether deliberately or subconsciously, that their worth can be measured by something as insignificant as the numbers on a scale. This can result in pressure on women to reach an impossible beauty standard, to be \u201cperfect\u201d and therefore, thin.<\/p>\n
Victoria\u2019s Secret ultimately received enormous backlash for this campaign and quickly changed the campaign’s slogan to \u201cA Body For Every Body\u201d. However, the image remains the same. For better or worse, this imagery in Victoria\u2019s Secret’s advertisements continues to shape societal expectations and beauty standards for women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emily Passmore, Media Management, ’22 A few years ago, the lingerie retailer, Victoria\u2019s Secret, launched the \u201cPerfect Body\u201d campaign. This campaign centered around Victoria\u2019s Secret\u2019s new \u201cbody bra\u201d designed to perfectly fit every body type. One advertisement used in this campaign featured several tall, thin models wearing the new lingerie with the words \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[32,33,2,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.sjf.edu\/media-and-diversity-fall-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}