Lane Bryant Model too Much ‘Woman’ for TV?
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Hey guys! Happy Friday! I hope you’re winding down today and that your week hasn’t been as bizarre as mine. Between rescuing dogs trapped in the middle of a busy street to finishing end-of-the-semester projects while juggling work, I’m exhausted, parched and in need of refreshment. This girl certainly can toot her own horn, eh? *toot toot!*
I’m kinda late jumpin’ in on the Lane Bryant ordeal, but I didn’t want to pass-up the opportunity to bring it up. If you’re new to what I’ll now deem “the L-B-oh!” let me recap:
Lane Bryant, plus-sized closing retail store, supposedly wanted to air a lingerie commercial during American Idol on Fox this week and was denied placement w/o edits while Victoria’s Secret (also airing a lingerie commercial) was allowed a spot to air a commercial similar to LB’s without edits. Supposedly, LB also wanted to air the ad during ABC’s Dancing with the Stars but ABC wanted to relegate the ad to the end of the show. In the end, LB’s ad did air.
Lane Bryant called the initial contingencies placed on its ad “discrimination” and, from the comments I’ve read, a majority agreed with them. Many claim (via comments) that because the LB model did not fit the popular portrayal of “sexy” woman (by “popular,” I mean what we’re accustomed to seeing on TV, such a Victoria’s Secret models who are invariably slender and toned), ad execs worried they’d upset their audiences or they – themselves- simply couldn’t stomach an ad depicting women who did not further propagate the (dare I say?) Western myth of beauty, or feel ostracized by their “otherness.” Others claimed that the narrative given in the LB ad created an overly-sexualized ambiance that could be inappropriate — the LB chick does leave her house in her underwear to go meet Dan for lunch (lucky, fool!). Fox claims LB has simply enacted a marketing ploy (well, they are now giving away free underwear to their “supporters”…) and that their ad had to be edited for reasons relating to trademark rights on a product shown (some commenters have linked it to the Blackberry the model holds). Lane Bryant can show docs it was restricted pre-9 PM and during “family hour” blocks. Does that add to their case? I’m inclined to say “no” because I’m not sure that Victoria’s Secret ads ever air during Full House reruns or that the time slot they, LB, were vying for was during those blocks of time anyway.**Added later: Well, Dancing with the Stars is on at 8/7 central! That’s pre-9 p.m. and, as this blogger points out, that show can be pretty damn scandalous!**
I’m honestly not so sure I’d jump straight to the “fat discrimination” argument. I don’t know enough about how Fox and ABC choose their ads — I don’t know if the edits were related to time and space constraints, product placement legalities, to studies of the demographic’s tastes, boob size, hip ratio, or if there really is an underlying discomfort with seeing women, who do not fit the categorical norm, sexualized.
I always get agitated when people use the term real woman and so many people use that term in the comments I’ve read and it’s bothersome. It actually detracts from the Fat Acceptance movement to bash women who do fit the categorical norm for not being “woman enough,” for being “too skinny,” etc. Come on now. What I am wondering, however, is whether we, in urban America, are accustomed to thinking woman = “boobs and hips.” If that’s true, then it very well may be the case that this ad might be “too much woman.” Does that have something to say about our discomfort with seeing what we’ve internalized as the woman’s figure so prominently displayed? Why is this not the case with Victoria’s Secrets models? Are they simply not showing enough “boobs and hips” (I can hear your screams of dissent)? Have Vict.’s Secret models actually been desexualized? I mean I think V-Secret’s models are flippin’ gorgeous and sexy…but when I see their ads, my mind doesn’t go sex, sex, sex! Is this simply a case of overabundance? Is my mind saying, “eh been there, seen that”? Maybe with the sheer novelty of LB’s ad this sort of “push-back” is to be expected? Does anyone know if lingerie ads featuring women larger than the US runway model size 2 are prominent in other countries? And…I have to add, because I want opinions — is calling out “discrimination” really the battle we want to be waging? Does anyone think that the sexualization of women on TV in general is something to be mindful of? Are men prominently displayed in this way? Why does fat-discrimination seem to so rarely be applied in a male context?
This is the Victoria’s Secret ad that aired:
This is the Lane Bryant ad that aired:
Is one “sexier,” or more salacious than the other? Is this a case of fat-discrimination? A publicity stunt for free underwear? A reminder that to “be” sexy means simply to don “sexy” lingerie? You tell me.
<3,
The Cranky One
More on the LB-Oh! Case
p.s. In retrospect, after re-reading this post, I guess the reason I don’t think this could have been considered ”Fat Discrimination” (even before all the arguments came back and forth) is because I don’t think the LB model is “fat enough.” I’m not sure how that sounds and I’m not sure I can give justice to the nascent thoughts brewing in my head — but I just think the woman portrayed is so beautiful and so smoothly curvaceous that she couldn’t possibly be considered fat or unattractive. I have pictured in my mind a nebulous, but constructed, threshold of “fatness” where a majority of American society will deem a person “fat” if he or she crosses that line. And that LB model doesn’t even straddle the line in my opinion. Do I live in my bubble of naivete? I feel like people might be made uncomfortable by the prospects of more mainstream depictions of women like this — “out of the norm” is typically met with resistance. I don’t know…Anyone else out there think they know what I’m sayin’ and have a more eloquent way of putting it? 
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Tags: fat discrimination, lane bryant, portrayals of women, TV, victoria's secret
4 People have left comments on this post
honestly, body image aside, the LB commercial is way too sexy. VS is selling their bra, LB is selling SEX. just my simple thoughts
Tough one because they’re both meant to be sexy. I mean the simple fact is you’re talking about women’s underwear or “intimates”. It’s designed to make men respond and and to entice women who want to make men respond. It’s lingerie – which, for the most part, is designed to be seen – not like the super functional stuff that just hold up boobs.
Both ads are sexy – and not really appropriate for family prime time programming, IMO. BUT if you were to get scientific about it – VS ad is much more nebulous, while the LB add is quite clear that this lady is going to go get it on for “lunch”.
Apples and Oranges perhaps, but all fruit. The kind I shouldn’t have to subject my kids to before 9pm.
Not really a point, so much as an opinion – but there’s mine!
Now for funnies
Although if I had to choose, man style – I’ll take the LB model over the stereotypical twiggy VS girl! TOTALLY ROBUST!! (insert unintelligent male hoot and hollers here).
Well the Victoria Secret commercial is admitting that the model is so skinny she can’t fill out her bra so she needs air to help her out.
Seriously though, I don’t think that the LB model is really all that fat.
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