I was messing around on Pinterest the other day when I found this one. The woman who posted it had made a comment about wishing that this was still society’s perception of beauty. It’s a vintage ad claiming that it is ugly to be skinny. The advertisement was selling these magical pills that could help women gain weight in order to become more attractive. I was surprised at how much the cultural myth has changed in the last 50-60 years.
In modern society, thinness is
considered a virtue; the majority of our models and celebrities are skinny,
which creates a cultural expectation for all women to be slender. Our cultural
myth creates unnecessary pressure on girls and women to attain and maintain a
certain body image. I’ve always been on the lower side of having a normal BMI,
but I’m also very active, so I eat a lot, often. When I’m out with friends
after swim practice, and we are all enjoying our second cheeseburger and large
fries at In ‘N Out, women who notice tend to make comments to each other like “Oh,
to be young again.” Some even comment to us, saying stuff like “Enjoy that
while it lasts.” These small offhand phrases can sometimes makes me a little
self-conscious; I wonder if I should be watching my weight or if I’m eating too
much, even though I know that I need the extra calories because of my workouts.
Conversely, the advertisement encourages
weight gain. While the image-related cultural myths are polar opposites, the ad
shows that our society has persistently placed pressures on women to attain
particular body images.
This advertisement, viewed in the
context of modern society, has shown me how cultural expectations can influence
women’s body image and self-confidence. It has persuaded me to care less about
my weight and image because, as long as health is maintained, weight is only as important as the influence you allow cultural bias to have on you. This may not have been the message that the advertisers originally
intended to give (in fact, encouraging self-confidence and satisfaction with a
variety of body shapes and sizes is the opposite of what the advertisement was
supposed to do), but the image was shared on a social media site to point out
the foolishness of fully accepting cultural myths in advertisements because of
their detrimental effect to consumers’ confidence. The newer message definitely appealed
to and affected me.
Wow., i find it very interesting the contrast between women of the past and today. About 60 years ago, they sell pills to make you gain weight and today, all you see is pills and other stuff to make women lose weight. I understand that eating healthy food is very good but eating a burger once in while does not make you fat as long as you stay active. Being too skinny has its complications as being overweight. I would advice you not to be strictly watching your weight as long as you are active. At the end of the day, the question you should ask yourself when confronted by people who question your eating habits are. Do you have the same metabolism as them? Do you guy do the same activities everyday? If your answer is no, then your decision on your weight should be personal not socially influenced.
ReplyDeleteThis add was very refreshing and surprising to see. Good find. This is a perfect example of how popular culture never stays the same. Back in the 1940's and 1950's women were encouraged to be curvy, full, filled out figure. Now in popular culture today, women (not all) constantly seek for the slimmest body possible because that's what society defines as "beauty". It's interesting to see that no matter what is popular of the time, like being skinny or not, there will always be women who feel inferior because they don't have what is considered "beautiful" and "sexy". Back then when these ads were made, the slimmer women felt insecure because they were said to have "no sex appeal". Same as now, the women who aren't "skinny" feel inferior.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that throughout history, the preferredbody image of society tends to be "What rich people look like", likely just as a way to screw over the poor who can't get themselves to look like that, and it's held to far stricter limits for women because of sexism.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm not into too much fat on a woman (Though my definition of "too much" is relatively generous), but I realize that that's my problem/hang-up not theirs, and I wish we would stop giving women so much shit about their bodies. I mean, the men who throw stones tend live in glass houses you know.
Though, evidence such as lab animals increasing weight over the years and experiments with gut bacteria may suggest a large society-wide factor in our obesity epidemic and a factor beyond mere willpower in weight gain, so all we are doing here is making people miserable by shaming them.
In general, this is why I hope transhumanism gets here soon, because the human body is ill suited to human notions of elegance and style and is such an evolutionary jalopy that people have used as proof against intelligent design. Plus I want sex tentacles...
FOR CONSENTUAL USE ONLY, I SWEAR TO GOD!
I liked that you chose a vintage advertisement. I wasn’t really surprised though about the ad. Because even in the older home medical books from that era, they provide diets for the underweight individual—compare that to home medical books today—nothing is mentioned. Interesting, how you pointed out comments from older women in regard to weight. I think that’s the problem now days—people are too fixated on food. People in the old days were not munching all day; whereas, people now eat as if it is a hobby. So, those women were obviously pointing out their own weaknesses and fixation on food.Thus, don't worry!
ReplyDeleteI love the difernce in how media portrayed women in the past to how they portray them now. Before a woman was healthy if she had curves and hips because it meant she could bare children. Now Pop Culture solely recognizes the astetich appeal of women. It drasitcally changes how girls grow in their body images. I wish that mainstream media recognized that each person is different with different genes and health needs. We should push for individuality, not an impossible standard we hold everyone to and judge when they don’t reach it.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great advertisement to show. It explicitly demonstrates the drastic shift in society's perception of aesthetics over a relatively short period of time. As you stated, in the modern day, the "thin" aesthetic is generally considered attractive due to its constant representation in today's popular culture, such as in high-fashion magazines. Yet, during the period this image was released in, there were popular culture icons such as Marilyn Monroe, a woman still considered to epitomize beauty who possessed a full, curvy figure. We want to look like what mass media shows us, so those who are naturally different from the status quo immediately deem themselves unattractive and reject what makes them different from everyone else.
ReplyDelete