If the claim would be true it seems like one inference would be that beauty standards about having to be thin would be weakened when thin models get used to promote nondesirable products.
We however frequently hear about beauty standards being enforced when models that follow the standards get used to promote products.
Interesting point. One counterpoint is that most criticisms of ‘beauty standards being enforced’ reference beauty products or other products sold with the implicit promise they will make you beautiful. Eg, leeching off our shared notion of beauty by linking it with a dieting product.
But something more complicated definitely seems to be going on here. We have a constructed notion of beauty (‘model-thinness’) being used to sell random products, such as Ibuprofen. It is almost as if one advertiser is leeching off the other’s constructed notion of beauty (Hyperreality?)
The criticism of ‘enforcing beauty standards’ in an ibuprofun case may flow from this double falsehood: the advertising target might see thin models in a swimwear advert and thinks ‘so the advert is trying to tell me that I should buy this bikini because beautiful people wear it, and that thin model is supposedly beautiful. I don’t think she is, but others might, and the fact they use the association suggest a lot of people do, so I should play along’
That would follow from the other model of advert operation mentioned in one of the footnotes: promising others might buy into the advert, even if you don’t.
This is a little provisional—do you think this is what’s going on, or could there be more going on I’ve missed?
If the claim would be true it seems like one inference would be that beauty standards about having to be thin would be weakened when thin models get used to promote nondesirable products.
We however frequently hear about beauty standards being enforced when models that follow the standards get used to promote products.
Interesting point. One counterpoint is that most criticisms of ‘beauty standards being enforced’ reference beauty products or other products sold with the implicit promise they will make you beautiful. Eg, leeching off our shared notion of beauty by linking it with a dieting product.
But something more complicated definitely seems to be going on here. We have a constructed notion of beauty (‘model-thinness’) being used to sell random products, such as Ibuprofen. It is almost as if one advertiser is leeching off the other’s constructed notion of beauty (Hyperreality?)
The criticism of ‘enforcing beauty standards’ in an ibuprofun case may flow from this double falsehood: the advertising target might see thin models in a swimwear advert and thinks ‘so the advert is trying to tell me that I should buy this bikini because beautiful people wear it, and that thin model is supposedly beautiful. I don’t think she is, but others might, and the fact they use the association suggest a lot of people do, so I should play along’
That would follow from the other model of advert operation mentioned in one of the footnotes: promising others might buy into the advert, even if you don’t.
This is a little provisional—do you think this is what’s going on, or could there be more going on I’ve missed?