Anyone Have A Leather Catsuit They Can Lend Me?
This series of Brazilian ads is making the rounds today; I found it on Shakesville. The ads feature iconic film images with the original thin women replaced with not-so-thin women.
Which would be a brilliant, pro-fat idea… except the point is, it’s supposed to make you feel like you’re not sexy enough to be naked and covered with rose petals, because you are fat. So you’d better eat some diet yogurt! And the tagline is, “Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change.”
Talk about backfiring. I wouldn’t mind looking like that woman at all—and it’s not because I’m a fat girl, but because that girl is sexy. And I’ve got this crazy idea in my head that my body should conform to my preference, not “men’s.” (As if, by the way, all men have the same preference. Once again, I note that it’s not feminists from whom emanates the most man-hating drivel imaginable.)
Seriously, go check out the pictures. If the message weren’t so fatphobic, the pictures would be subversively empowering. I totally want to dress up as Catwoman and make someone take my picture.
[ETA: this comparison of the yogurt ad and the original American Beauty ad side by side. No contest.]
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advertising, Fatism, International
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I can’t imagine that anyone is going to see those women as anything other than staggeringly beautiful. I think the images ARE empowering and I hope others see them as that way.
I want a dress like the “sexy” red one Scarlett O’Hara wore to Ashley’s birthday party in Gone With the Wind!
Those women are gorgeous. They are confident, sexy and having fun!
Wow, Mo – you’re a bloggin’ fool this week! Every time I’ve checked in, there’s been something new.
So, when I first saw the Miss Rose Petal image, my thought was “oops!” followed by some furtive scuffling, because I was at work. My next thought was ‘wow…that girl is HOT! Then it started to dawn on me that this was probably one of those women presented to us by Madison Avenue who we are supposed to think is fat and congratulate the sponsor for their greatness of mind. It wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years that image was supposed to get a *laugh.* Sigh.
The other two are more obviously fat girls, but wha th…? They are both totally smokin’ – confident, gorgeously dressed and groomed. Did the implant chip that requires them to present only young, gorgeous women short out the chip requiring them to portray fat women as disgusting, or what?
One thing I am curious about is whether these are real fat girls or digitally manipulated images of thin models (which would explain a lot – – – those ‘disgusting’ fat-ified images of celebrities you linked to a while back also looked cute to a lot of us)? I’ve seen it written up both ways.
Either way, I would not buy their fucking yogurt if it were the only thing left in the store. And if there were that kind of famine going on, no one would want crappy diet yogurt, so there would probably be a lot of it.
As a random aside, Miss Rose Petal looks almost exactly like ‘The World’ card from the Rider Tarot.
Hm…just re-read my note and it looks like I was saying *you* thought the fat-ified celebrity pix were disgusting, which isn’t what I meant!! The ‘disgust’ was meant to be attributed to the usual nattering nabobs of negativism.
Wow! Those girls look hot.
I know my husband is going to want to save the picture of the rose petal girl.
and…this is just proof that Sexy is Sexy…with or without the weight.
Honestly,
Those women look better than the original pictures! Woooooow…..
What they said.
Also, I guess these advertisers have missed the part where “men’s preferences” (collective, in the mass, and the only thing that matters, riiiiigght) have changed every decade or two in this century alone? Where JFK wouldn’t’ve looked twice at Twiggy and this generation thinks Emme is a “plus-sized” model? No, men’s preferences will never change…at least until advertising and political climates actively change them. Pardon me while I go re-read my Faludi and maybe eat some rosewater ice cream.
Curious as to how this is going over in Brazil. I was always under the impression that the latino community took pride in woman who looked like woman….curves are sexy!
I can see the ad having some (pardon the word) weight in some european countries, where super thin is ultra chic. But not in South America.
HeatherLee: Brazil is actually more Portuguese than Latino, and very, very beauty-conscious. Many women have their breasts reduced before their 18th birthday to fit the Brazilian model: thin with small breasts. Doctors even subsidize cosmetic surgery for the poor there. Yes, really.
To add on to what Rachel says – Brazil is also the country that had something like 2 or 3 high profile deaths related to anorexia within 2 months. More than ironic, considering that most of their population has “food insecurity” as hunger due to poverty has been renamed in the US.
The rose-petals image is fantastic, I can’t believe such a lovely happy sexy picture is supposed to be an image of ridicule! Same goes for the others, but especially the rose-petals one.
If I send you a catsuit, Mo, will you send me back a poster-size picture of you wearing it? For, um, body-positivity research purposes? In other news, I loooooove the rose petal girl. Rose petal girl, you are so pretty.
Sure! You can get it here although, where are the ears? More research is required.
Wow. Moments that take your breath away. Those pictures certainly fall in the requirements of leaving one breathless.
Just want to say thanks for the link.
The “plumped up” version gets my vote. In the original picture the girl looks hungry.
“As a random aside, Miss Rose Petal looks almost exactly like ‘The World’ card from the Rider Tarot.”
I was re-reading some fave posts here and I have to say, *this* is an awesome comment! And the pose and imagery fit the meaning of that card very well–wholeness, self-acceptance, spiritual evolution, joy.