Re: ABC bans plus-size Lane Bryant ad (photos, video) Girls' body image debate
I saw this on the news this morning - if you watch the commercial this woman hardly seems corpulent....she's simply just gorgeous!
Now is the issue really # 1 or # 2??????????
#1.
I don't understand why we can celebrate super skinny girls with tremendous fake boobs but not show this commercial which isn't even slightly racy except that she has great attitude! Why the prejudice against plus sized models everywhere these days - when the average size woman is a 12! Plus the size 0 girls in the commercials these days are TEENS. When it is not ok to be womanly, God it makes even me feel tremendous & old at the same time!
#2.
Or - is it just clever advertising to draw attention to the Lane Bryant commercial and was planned to have this effect all along?
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ABC refused to air the new Lane Bryant lingerie ad because ABC couldn’t handle the beautiful bust she flaunted in a Lane Bryant ad. The network said it was too hot for TV. Apparently Ashley's plus-size breasts were too hot to handle -- or something like that.
ABC protested that they would have run the ad if it had been edited, but the editing would have "gutted" the ad. “We’ve never witnessed this level of content censorship,” said Holly Baird, a rep for the clothier.
Ashley said she was surprised because Victoria's Secret ads are much racier -- only done with thinner and less-endowed women.
So ... is that it? It's okay to show America's children super-skinny models -- a standard very few can achieve -- but not to show what real people look like? How many people do you know who are a size 3? Ashley is size 16, and a shapely 16, too.
Here is the banned ad:
What do you think? It's sexy, sure, but it's nothing worse than I've seen before on TV. Again, it annoys me that TV is objecting to showing what real women look like. If she'd had a little less boobage they would have had no problem. The size of the breasts isn't what makes this sexy, you twits! It's the attitude.
Ashley is comfortable with her body. She obviously feels sexy. Nothing wrong with that. I'd rather have my daughter healthy and a little plump than anorexic and dying.
If you’re curious how Ashley got her start in modeling and the heights she has scaled, then please visit Madison Plus for this exclusive editorial, interview with Ashley, her parents, and a special video dedication from the Ford + board.
I'm not saying I think it's okay to be obese, but holding up these skeletal models as the goal for our young girls is a very bad thing, I think. USA Today had an article, Do thin models warp girls' body image?, and even designers are becoming horrified. Psychiatrists have been horrified for years. The article said:
When Frederique van der Wal, a former Victoria's Secret model, attended designers' shows during New York's Fashion Week this month, she was "shocked" by the waiflike models who paraded down the catwalk. They seemed even skinnier than in previous years.
"This unnatural thinness is a terrible message to send out. The people watching the fashion shows are young, impressionable women," says van der Wal, host of Cover Shot on TLC.
Scary? What's more scary is that article was written in 2006. Things have only gotten worse. The National Institute on Media & the Family has an interesting article called, Media's Effect on Girls: Body Image and Gender Identity. It quotes many sources and studies, but what caught my eye was:
A child's body image develops as the result of many influences:
A newborn begins immediately to explore what her body feels like and can do. This process continues her whole life.
A child's body image is influenced by how people around her react to her body and how she looks.
A pre-adolescent becomes increasingly aware of what society's standards are for the "ideal body."
I've heard fathers teasing their daughters for being fat. "I'm just joking," they say. Well, the girls don't seem to believe them. They're not that dumb. I know women who are fatter because they thought they were ugly and just gave up. How "fat" were they? One woman was a size 14 and was too embarrassed to go swimming. I bet Ashley Graham doesn't have a problem going swimming.
I think we need more people like Ashley Graham.
I've always been heavy and was teased as a child (and I honestly wasn't all that fat then) and this has had its effect on me throughout my whole life. If I could be as "fat" as I was as a teenager now, I'd be thrilled! I wasn't that heavy, but I felt like a whale. I just hate to see young girls eying those skeletal models and thinking that's the way they should look.
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978192614