Culture Jam Assignment

Original Victoria’s Secret Ad:

victorias-secret-perfect-body-campaign-1414684193

The above picture is the ad that I chose for this assignment. It is a Victoria’s Secret lingerie ad, showcasing their new collection. The caption “The Perfect Body” refers to the “perfect fit, perfect comfort, and perfectly soft” new collection of lingerie, but it is clearly also referring to the women in the ad. The ad shows ten models, all of very similar body type. This ad is clearly targeted at women, and the caption “perfect body” implies that not only will Victoria’s Secret lingerie collection show off your perfect body, but that your ‘perfect body’ is only perfect when it looks like the very similar bodies of the ten models pictured in the ad. This ad is damaging and harmful to women, as it imposes impossible standards of beauty on them. Especially since the main target audience of Victoria’s Secret is young women, this ad perpetuates the body image issues that are so prevalent among young women. It also encourages men that the bodies shown in the ad are the ‘perfect bodies’ and the standards that all women should be held up to.

Jammed Ad:

culture jam

Pictured above is the jammed version of the ad that I created. I focused not only on the body types of the women, but also the racial diversity. I moved the quotations from “body” over to “perfect”, and replaced that caption below with “Perfect Height. Perfect Weight. Perfect Complexion”. I then added in the word ‘diverse’ and underlined it to show how non diverse and representative the women in the ad actually are. I also replaced the captions at the bottom of the different lingerie styles to describe the women in the ad, which is what the ad is really showcasing, who are all tall and skinny, and mostly white women.

The jammed version of the ad showcases the real meaning behind the original Victoria’s Secret ad. The intention behind the ad is to show the women’s bodies as the ‘perfect body’, an impossible standard of height and weight that women should live up to. In addition, the women in the ad are mostly all white women. Although there are a few women of colour shown, they still have relatively fair complexions and have clearly been lightened using Photoshop compared to the models’ actual skin tones. The racial diversity is also very non-representative and is mainly white. This adds another layer to the ad, showing not only impossible standards of height and weight, but also that ‘white’ is a major part of the ‘perfect body’.

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