Too Much Cleavage
April 27th 2010 01:31
Ashley Graham modelling Lane Bryant
In a country where the average dress size is reported to be a size 8, despite a recent report in The Journal of the American Medical Association showing an age-adjusted prevalence of obesity in women in the US being at 35.5%, a new commercial by lingerie manufacturer Lane Bryant was banned from being aired during Dancing With the Stars for showing too much cleavage.
Media reports advise the commercial was deemed to be inappropriate for family viewing and could be shown only during daytime television and after 9pm on the ABC network. However, without editing, it was too risqué to be shown during a television program which features female dancers wearing not much more.
The controversy building over the networks decision to ban the commercial during the countries number 1 rated program, is about the perceived double standard the television executives seem to be endorsing. Victoria Secrets commercials regularly show rail-thin models cavorting in their underwear during Prime Time viewing; however the sight of a size 16 model in understated and elegant underwear is reportedly too much for family viewers.
The model at the centre of the media fire-storm is Ashley Graham. In the commercial she is seen to be wearing a variety of Lane Bryant’s new line. There are no lingering shots, nothing remotely smutty about the images used. Unless ABC has a problem with the tag line “not what your mom would wear” I really don’t see the problem.
During a recent interview about the controversy, Graham is quoted by the Huffington Post as saying
"The Victoria's Secret girls can flaunt around their panties all day long. But when there's a bigger woman with a little bit extra, they snipped it out immediately.”
While there is a lot of they said/they said going on at the moment between Lane Bryant and ABC, the decision by the television giant is perplexing. Surely, if the audience viewing the program is more likely to be buying Lane Bryant’s plus-sized range – and based on statistics at least 35.5% of the female viewing audience fit the demographic – the idea of running the commercial would make sense. The more successful the campaign for Lane Bryant, the more likely they are to run the commercial regularly.
And before I forget and appear to be blind to the goings on at Fox, this same situation occurred there with the Lane Bryant advertisement finally being allowed to run in the last ten minutes of American Idol, only after Bryant’s threat to pull the advertising from Fox altogether.
No matter whether the commercial runs now or not, the advertising campaign is a massive success. Blogs and the internet make most news available instantly for a worldwide public. Youtube has also helped with postings of the banned commercial raking in the views. They say no publicity is bad publicity, but while this situation has ultimately proven to be valuable to Lane Bryant, ABC and Fox are taking a hammering for double standards, sizeism, and perpetuating the myth that to be considered attractive and beautiful you must be thin.
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