Two ads have garnered much media interest in the past week- for all the wrong reasons. The first is an American Yoplait ad which features a woman anguishing over whether she should be “allowed” to eat a cheesecake, which has been pulled off air for normalising behaviour commonly experienced by those with eating disorders. The other is closer to home- a campaign for tween clothing brand Supre depicting a young, topless girl in the brand’s Jeggings (a cross between jeans and leggings), banned for being far too sexual for the brands consumer base.
some of the still images from the "get jegged" campaign
Although unfortunate that companies are still using stereotypes and negative reinforcement to get women to buy their products (if you don’t eat our yoghurt, you’ll get fat, if you don’t become hypersexualised at a young age, no one will be interested in you), what is concerning is that both ads speak a certain truth.
Young girls are surrounded by sex, and want nothing more than to be sexy- it is likely that the “get jegged” campaign by Supre was highly successful in drawing young women into the stores. Furthermore, the internal monologue of the dieting woman, desperately trying to rationalise why she should eat, is something most women have experienced
It is disturbing that these ads, although clearly wrong and encouraging us to feel guilty about how we look or how sexy we are, no longer represent an extreme in advertising. They are no longer creating problems for women to obsess about or attempting to change the way in which women think about their bodies and themselves, they are now reflecting what we already feel. Women have been bombarded with similar ads for years, and unfortunately do now relate to their messages.
Thankfully both ads were removed from the public gaze; but as long as women relate to and respond to ads such as these, they will continue to be made.
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