Schick's "Basic Pitches" tell women their stubbly legs are disgusting

I am aware that most women in my society like to keep their legs and underarms clean shaven. (My wife is one of them.) But does that make it OK to vilify women's body hair to this extent?

It's just an ad for shaving stuff. It's also one with a movie tie in, to Perfect Pitch 2.

(Interesting side note about that movie: news.com.au reports that star Anna Kendrick upset Hollywood bosses by refusing to strike a "sexy" pose on the movie poster. Good for her.)

But back to the Schick ad. It's intended to be funny lifestyle humour for the average young woman. But the clear message that, female leg hair is disgusting, is reminiscent of the long history of advertisers telling women their bodies are horrible without the right products.

Via We Hunted The Mammoth

Women should (and do) do whatever they want with their own bodies. But these ads contribute to a media culture of bullying women into conformity. It's time we stopped telling them what they're supposed to look like.

H/T Ads Of The World

Bad Valentine's Marketing #6: bearded women

This one was kind of unexpected. First of all, I thought beards were back in style. Second, I was under the impression that some straight women really dig the whiskers. 

But beyond that, there's the assumption that straight men and women want their partners to be just like them. Which is absurd. You might as well show these women with penises between their pegs and ask, "would you have sex with you"? I don't personally rock a beard, but it's a matter of personal choices. I guess a razor company has an interest in making people feel disgust towards all forms of body hair. Which isn't exactly contributing anything positive to the general anxiety young people feel about their appearance these days.

Finally, there's the whole transphobia thing raising its ugly head again...

Via Ads of The World.

Classic Venus nudes altered for today's beauty standards

I wrote last week about Italian social issues artist Anna Utopia Giordano's mashup of booze bottles and kids' brands; now I've discovered a much cooler collection of hers.

In Venus, Ms. Giordano takes some classic nude paintings of the Roman Goddess of Love (feminine beauty and sexuality personified) and "fixes" them the way a modern photo editor would Photoshop for fashion magazine ads or editorial.

She nips and tucks he waist, thighs and buttocks, and pumps up the breasts. The result is a comparison of what was, and what is now, considered the ideal female body.

What I really like about this series is its subtlety. The artist does not exaggerate to force her point — we don't see the ribs of starving models, just a different standard of beauty applied.

Does this make Venus more "girlish" and less "womanly"? Quite possibly. But that seems to be what the trend is going towards these days.

One thing needed no alteration. In the Renaissance and subsequent periods, female pubic hair was not part of the artistic aesthetic.

Via Flavorwire

F'd Ad Fridays: Fuzzy font made of real leg hair

Here's the story:

"Twenty year old Mayuko Kanazawa, a student at Japan's Tama Art University, has created what must be the strangest font design yet - the Leg Hair Font! Inspired by a challenge from her profs at the Department of Design, and a hairy male friend that complained of leg pain, the enterprising young student was able to manipulate, twist and design the hairs into uppercase and lowercase fonts."

I guess it could have been worse. She could have aimed a little higher.

Thanks to +Marc for the tip.