Why did ABC ban the Lane Bryant lingerie ad? You can see the ad here. The ad sets a woman in her home, looking at her (what looks like a) phone, and she’s wearing a red bra. So, what’s the big deal? Women wear bras, right? The bra isn’t a see-through bra, and the bra shows only cleavage, which is natural for large-busted women, by the way. (It’s funny that women pay lots of money to achieve this type of cleavage, and ABC shoots down such an ad.) Does ABC fault the model for her cleavage? Or, does ABC just think that the ad is too revealing? What does it reveal? Cleavage? So, what’s the big deal? Let’s take a look at the Guess ads Anna Nicole did.
A website called the theworldsbestever.com shows some of the ads for Guess that featured the controversial Anna Nicole Smith, and you can see them here. She’s absolutely gorgeous in these ads, but viewers can certainly see cleavage in these ads just like they can in the Lane Bryant ad. Did these ads appear only in magazines? Catalogs? Television? It really doesn’t matter because these ads with Anna Nicole Smith tout femininity, and this is wrong? Are women not supposed to feel good about their bodies, or at least not large women. Are the Anna Nicole Smith ads not just as spirited as the Lane Bryant ad. I would say that they are, so what’s the difference?
We could even stretch this argument out to include the ads for men’s underwear. America enjoyed looking at gorgeous Mark Wahlberg as he posed in Calvin Klein underwear. The ad was tastefully done, showing only his underwear and his abs, and anything that naturally occurred. Let’s not forget the absolutely racy ad that featured David Beckham in Armani underwear. This ad seemed to deliberately show his below-the-belt cleavage. Did either/both of these ads end up on television? If not, they surely ended up in magazines, so what’s the deal? Television advertises medicine for STDs, erectile dysfunction, bladder control, and tampons, for goodness sake! How does ABC believe that showing a woman’s cleavage will be too much?
You decide.
Resource
news.gather.com, April 23rd, 2010, “ABC bans plus-size Lane Bryant ad (photos, video) Girls’ Body Image Debate”
theworldsbestever.com, “The World’s Best Ever: 8 Great Anna Nicole Smith Guess Ads,”
