After seeing the Ralph Lauren Ad I remembered an old Special K advertisement that I came across. The 80s advertisement’s slogan was “if you can pinch more than an inch you may need to loose weight”. During the ad there is a man pinching a woman’s stomach region. When I watched the ad I was surprised that it was allowed on television and that Special K thought it was an acceptable image to promote. If a man were to touch a woman in the same way today, people would be outraged and would try to ban the ad.
While I agree that neither of these advertisements is acceptable, the Ralph Lauren Ad and the 80s Special K ad, the media depicted a more curvy, healthy woman in the past. In today’s society body image has been taken to a truly unhealthy and unappealing size. http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/09/13/skinny_narrowweb__300x454,0.jpg As a result of this, I think that people are afraid to discuss body image. Special Ks 80s Ad is telling the viewer that they really need to change if there is more than just an “inch to pinch”. If you compare this to the Special K ads we see today, there is a big focus on promoting healthy body images of all shapes and sizes, it doesn’t have to be an “inch” for everyone.
This makes me wonder why such an ad like the 80s advertisement was acceptable in our society at the time and whether or not it maybe part of the cause of the exaggerated body types that we see today. It seems as though the hegemonic values with which society places on the subject of weight has changed, the 80s promoted weight loss at a time when the models we saw in our magazines were not rail thin with “her head's bigger than her pelvis”, and now media is attempting to promote healthy images of women and finding “what’s your food personality” when every advertisement shows a thinner depiction of a woman (Ralph Lauren article, Special K website).
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