There’s an increasingly tiresome drum beat emanating from talking heads on the health care slash psychiatry fringe aimed at advertisers and the media who portray young women of a certain physical build.
I heard it again this morning as a sort of post-game analysis of the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
‘It’s not healthy for the collective psyche of the nation’s young women when companies disseminate the image of the female form in the form of a Victoria’s Secret model’, is the general concern, but I have to tell you, I disagree.
First of all, Victoria’s Secret is a private enterprise whose objective is the successful commerce and trade in frilly undergarments. How they execute their mission to achieve that objective is the concern of their CEO and the hierarchy of marketing and sales angels working beneath her.
It is not, believe it or not, the purview of Victoria’s Secret to lift up the potentially fragile psyche of a single adolescent female. Neither would a responsible company do anything overtly detrimental to effect this generation of growing girls, but I submit that they do not. On the contrary, the lingerie leviathan underscores the Bible’s 1 Corinthians 6:19 every time they cast a new model who has, quite successfully, treated her body as a temple.
Youngsters are ultimately provided with glaringly good examples of healthy and successful capitalism supported by healthy and successful individuals. What more could a company do to be socially responsible?
Secondly, when there aren’t pundits pontificating about skinny supermodel angels there’s a whole other set ready to start blabbing about adolescent obesity. Surely this group could point up Victoria’s Secret models as excellent role models in this regard.
In the end, it’s a lot of contradictory white noise buzzing in and out of the ears of the young– and everyone else– while there are real issues and problems in the world.
Certainly, intelligent parents can parent independently and effectively, discussing body type and objectification, without blaming an underwear manufacturer for negatively affecting their offspring.
They had better because, you can bet your bloomers that companies will continue to market strategically to their target audience, always presenting what they believe is the best possible image– whatever shape that may be..
