Bombshell

p

In today’s society Victoria Secret models are the “ideal” image to portray. Known as the bombshells many adolescent females want to be just like them and men want a woman who represents their image. How is this even possible? The female gaze while watching Victoria Secret runway shows or seeing these models on ads is that these models are perfect and as a female we should change our bodies to be just like them. The female gaze entails either criticizing these models based on how they look or idealizing them as where women themselves want to me. We don’t even need to state which one is more likely. The male gaze, on the other side, of these models is that they are viewed as “sexual”. We know they are selling lingerie but why should the words “bombshell” and VS “angels” be used to describe them? Also, Victoria Secret could add more realistic models that are thicker and women of more races. Canada, Toronto more specifically, is a multicultural society. How do the women of other races feel about the face of VS being a white model? To be fair, they do have some women who are black and Asian however most of the models are white. Did they forget about the Caribbean and South Asian population? This could explain why bleaching one’s hair or wearing coloured contacts is such a big phenomenon. The main Victoria Secret model is Candice Swanepoel; being a white, blonde haired, blue eyed female, it’s clear why she has dominated over the other models. Why is she the face of Victoria Secret models? Is she the ideal of beauty? As we all know that Victoria Secret needs attractive females to do well at selling their product. This isn’t something that is unique to Victoria Secret as this is just a marketing strategy used to sell products by a variety of companies. However, some can argue that the “normal” or “realistic” image of a female is one not like a VS model. All Victoria Secret models are thin with long hair and are always wearing makeup. The picture of these VS models shows how unrealistic it is to achieve the goal of being like these models, as these images are always photoshoped. These representations of VS models are what women use to construct the reality of what is “beautiful”. But, of course these representations are always incomplete because VS models don’t look like that in reality. This means that women are trying to reach an ideal that doesn’t even exist. So then, what is it exactly that women are working toward? A photoshopped image of a model? The female gaze doesn’t always take into count the technology that is used to “enhance” the bodies of these females. This is what makes the standards unreachable, yet females always strive for perfection.